Coworking spaces offer amenities for clients who want to exercise, record a podcast, or play with their dog in the same place they work. So why is it so hard to find one with childcare?
It’s not an impossible model: several such businesses run successfully in UK, Germany, Mexico, and many US states. But they’re few and far between, and there’s certainly nothing as ubiquitous as WeWork catering to working parents in this way. (For all of WeWork’s aggressive expansion, childcare doesn’t appear part of its near future. A company spokesperson would say only that it was “actively exploring options,” but wouldn’t elaborate.)
There’s a reason more coworking spaces don’t offer onsite childcare. Based on conversations with people who do offer the combo, have done so in the past, or have attempted to do at one point or another, it’s clear: operating these two low-margin businesses together is really, really hard.
The biggest hurdle isn’t the coworking part of the equation—it’s the kids. In the US, the licenses that allow places like gyms and Ikea to offer on-site babysitting typically limit the number of hours a child can be in care, with many states permitting only two-hour stints. That’s not practical for a working parent (though there are stories of desperate parents dropping kids off at Småland, Ikea’s one-hour free babysitting service, and working in short bursts in the wifi-connected café.)
State laws require daycares to maintain a specific ratio of staff to children. To make sure they have enough staff on hand (and that they’ll have money to pay them), a site needs to know exactly how many children they’ll have in care each day, which clashes with the drop-in, flexible ethos that draws many people to cowork. And even when there are paying customers willing to commit to a regular schedule, quality childcare workers and the space needed to accommodate their work are costly and logistically daunting. It’s not an amenity that can be easily dropped into the business plan of a coworking space.