Children head to work with their parents for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.
By: Melissa Hayes
Children followed in their parents’ footsteps Friday as they headed to work for Factiva’s first Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.
It was a long day for these "employees," who were given a tour of the press, which prints The Wall Street Journal, taken around the world to market a product and introduced to an Olympic gold medallist.
Factiva was established in 1999 when Dow Jones and Reuters combined their interactive business intelligence services. Factiva is an Internet company that offers online news sources, research engines and consulting services.
The day’s events were planned to give children an overview of what the company does, give them a glimpse into their parents’ jobs and to reinforce Factiva’s commitment to family.
Children’s jaws dropped, and a few let out quiet "wows" as Production Manager Darrell Foster brought them into the printing press room.
Although they were taken aback by the magnitude of the huge printing presses there are two on-site the students eyes lit up even more when they saw all of the buttons in the control room.
Mr. Foster was quickly bombarded by questions of what this button or that button controlled.
"It felt sort of like a field trip," Justin Thieke, 12, said. "But I was more into it than a field trip."
Justin, the son of Diane Thieke, director of Factiva’s global public relations, was serving as the roving reporter for the day’s events. Justin carried a reporter’s notebook around, making notes for a synopsis that will appear on the company’s Intranet.
The kids also got the chance to meet Factiva’s very own celebrity, 2004 Olympic rowing gold medallist Pete Cipollone.
Mr. Cipollone is Factiva’s director of product development and has been a coxswain for about 20 years. His job is to yell out directions to the rowers on the U.S. Men’s Heavy Weight team.
"I sit in the back and I yell at everybody and believe me, they love it. I’m the leader of the team. I’m the only one who can see where we’re going," Mr. Cipollone said.
Mr. Cipollone showed the children images of his team rowing and various places they went after they won. When he came to the image of his team, hands clasped, holding their arms up just after they were given their medals, many kids laughed.
Mr. Cipollone stands at 5 feet, 1 inch tall while his shortest teammate is 6-foot-4.
He said it took a lot of teamwork to win that medal and being part of the crew team taught him a lot of valuable skills for the workplace.
The children also learned about teamwork in the Passport Around the World activity. The kids visited different conference rooms, each set up like a different country.
"We did the Passport Around the World, which gave them insight into specific countries in which we operate," said Kris Breuer, vice president of human resources.
Each room demonstrated a different function within Factiva and illustrated how technology allows all of the branches to work together.
In the Barcelona, Spain, conference room, children learned about the country and the content business portion of the company.
In the New York conference room, children learned about operations in the United States and what it’s like to be a salesperson.
Olivia Hamel, 9, of Princeton, said she didn’t realize how much work went into working at Factiva.
"It seems like a hard job," she said.
Temple Williams, 16, a junior at Lawrence High School, saw the day as an opportunity to gain career advice.
"I am thinking about my future career plans so it was good to spend the day at Factiva and learn about what it is like to work at the global organization and how employees communicate with each other from different offices around the world," she said.
Ms. Breuer said she felt the event was a success and she hopes they can make it a tradition.
"I think that overall we accomplished a number of objectives in a program like this our commitment to families and our commitment to the next generation of leaders," she said.
She said the feedback from parents has been overwhelming and the event really came naturally to the staff involved because of the company’s commitment to supporting work and family life.
"It truly does feel like a family here and everybody has a vested interest in the outcome of the business," Ms. Breuer said.