Babies in the Workplace

   Dana Croy said that there were many regular customers who knew that her son had been born and came in just to see him. Magical Journey had discussed her baby in their email newsletter to 8,000 customers, and she knew that some people came in specifically because they had heard about her baby that way. As to the effect this had on the business, she commented that, "especially with a specialty store [like Magical Journey], you can't go in without buying something."

   Kandace Bozarth of Schools Financial said that she never had one bad reaction
from any credit union member to her having her baby at the teller window. She said that:

   People commented on how great and
   family-oriented it made the company look.
   Now that Emily is gone [having outgrown the
   program], people constantly want to know
   where she is.

   Wendy Zanotelli explained that at UNCLE:

   The babies are part of our family now.
   When they come into the program, they get
   UNCLE Credit Union shirts, with their name
   on the back, the number baby they are in
   the program, and a title, and the UNCLE
   logo on the front.

   The parents get to choose the baby's title--for example, when the accounting manager brought in her baby, she became
the Junior Accounting Manager. One of the babies in the call center was the Call Center Mascot.

   Though UNCLE is enthusiastic about its baby program primarily on an internal business level, it probably doesn't hurt its marketing efforts to have its logo worn by dozens of babies.