Livingston company, Printing For Less adds child care benefit

For six months, Marne Reed has had the luxury of bringing her baby boy with her to work at Printing For Less http://www.printingforless.com in Livingston.

By KAYLEY MENDENHALL

Chronicle Staff Writer

He would sit by her side at her desk.

But as the baby grew more active, Reed said, his presence started to become a distraction.

"It was really difficult to do my job and have a baby next to my side," she said. "But I was lucky in having him next to my side for the first six months."

Reed started thinking about child care. She realized the problem of balancing work and child care was not unusual for the printing company staff of about 80 people.

The average employee age is 30.

"A lot of people in the company have small kids or families or are planning on having families," Reed said. "We didn’t want to lose our employees and didn’t want them to have that hardship of having to choose between having a family and having a career."

So Printing For Less, or PFL, made a decision to hire a child care provider and rent a house just two blocks from the company headquarters on East Geyser Street.

To help set up the child care facility, Reed contacted Ann Klaas at Child Care Connections in Bozeman.

"They came in and they heard about all the different options," Klaas said. "They had the babies and the dogs right there in the office."

Klaas said she suggested PFL hire a child care provider with a certain level of education and qualifications to meet their needs.

"We wanted control over the whole program," Reed said. "I’m extremely comfortable going over there and saying this is what I would like to see. We outlined what our mothers and fathers wanted and tried to fulfill everything."

They advertised the position and hired Shonna Bennett, a certified child care provider who had operated her own day care facility in Livingston for seven years. So far, Bennett said things have gone well and that she enjoys having parents drop by during the day to see the kids.

"They can check on them whenever they want. They can come and have lunch with them or put them down for a nap. They still get to be a parent and work," Bennett said. "I just think it’s an awesome thing for this company to provide a source of child care for their employees. It’s an added benefit."

For now, Bennett is only taking care of two children but Reed said two more are signed up to start attending on a part-time basis. Another employee is pregnant and will be the next on the list.

And PFL is growing, said Jeff Batton, marketing director. The company — which prints promotional products like postcards, business cards and stationary and does 90 percent of its business on the Web — could add from 20 to 40 jobs in the next year.

A new building is in the works and the child care facility will be included in the plans.

"When we develop our new facility, which will be coming up in a year or so, we’ll have on-site care," Reed said. "In the meantime, this is close enough."

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/11/25/news/printingbzbigs.txt