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Key Takeaways Britt Riley, founder and CEO of childcare company Haven, has created a network of clubs that offer daycare, workspace and fitness for families.
She mandates that her employees take two weeks of vacation per year, one week in the summer and one week at the end of the year.
Riley shuts down her business for those two weeks, creating no opportunity for her employees to work or feel like they are missing out.
Britt Riley, founder and CEO of childcare company Haven, designed her company with rest in mind. She has spent the past seven years creating a network of clubs that offer daycare, workspace and fitness for families. The company has raised about $20 million in funding and recently started franchising.
Since launching the company in 2019, Riley has prioritized well-being for her team of about 60 people. To that end, she closes the company for an entire week every summer and for the last week of the year so employees can completely unplug without the pressure of meetings or emails — and still get paid. She says these summer and winter resets have proved foundational to the company.
The following as-told-to interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
Britt Riley. Credit: Haven
When I realized that mandatory time off was a good idea
It goes back to the beginning of my career. I wrote my college thesis on company culture at Patagonia, where I had the great privilege of spending some of the earliest days of my career. There, “Let my people go surfing” wasn’t a slogan or an empty promise. I was able to see the elements of that mindset in practice and witnessed a company that literally operated on a whole different playing field than any other.
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