Childcare at a Corporate Retreat: What Makes It Different From an Offsite

A company family day is an event. A retreat is a place people go and stay, and that difference changes the childcare more than the headcount does.

If what you are running is a single-day family day, party or offsite, corporate event childcare is the guide for that. If it runs across days with people staying over, this is the different problem.

What actually changes

It is multi-day, which is good news on price. Event nannies are $40/hr per nanny with a four-hour minimum per day, and past eight hours in a single day the rate becomes $60/hr. Crucially, each day has its own four-hour minimum and its own eight-hour overtime threshold.

Three eight-hour days carry no overtime at all. One twenty-four-hour stretch would carry an enormous amount. A retreat's natural shape — a working day's worth of childcare, repeated — is the cheapest shape there is.

The children are there the whole time, not for a session. At an offsite, childcare covers the event. At a retreat, families are resident, which means the question is which *blocks* need covering: the sessions, the evening dinner, and whether anything is needed in between. Most retreats need two distinct blocks a day rather than one continuous one, and two blocks on the same day are simpler to staff than a single split shift.

Venues are often remote. Retreat venues tend to be outside town, which is fine — rates are identical across all 16 municipalities with no travel surcharge — but it does mean caregiver travel is real, and a date worth confirming further ahead than an in-town booking.

Ages skew wider and softer. Retreat attendance is often optional for families, so numbers firm up late. Ask for ages at registration rather than a yes/no, and staff to what you realistically expect.

The staffing arithmetic

Age points, not headcount: infants under 1 count 2, toddlers 1–2 count 1.5, children 3 and over count 1, and one nanny covers 4 points. Between one and ten nannies can be booked.

For a retreat, size it against the busiest single block rather than the average across the programme. The Thursday evening dinner where every family attends at once is the number you need, not the Friday morning session half of them skip.

What to confirm with the venue

A dedicated room, for the whole booking. Not a corner of the main hall, and not a room that is also the breakout space at 2:00 PM. At a residential venue this is usually easy to get and easy to forget to ask for.

What is actually in it. Assume nothing beyond tables and chairs.

Access and timing across days. Who lets caregivers in on day two at 7:30 AM, and which entrance.

Where the parents will be. At a retreat, parents are on site but often in a session. Agree in advance how they are reached — a room, a phone, a named organiser — rather than assuming someone will be findable.

What to send caregivers in advance

Ages and any medical needs or allergies, which are collected per child as part of the booking. The programme, so they know when handovers happen. The venue layout. And the named person on the organising side who can make a decision, because a retreat has no host in the way a wedding does and "ask the organiser" is useless if nobody knows which one.

What event nannies do not do

They care for and supervise the children. They are not event staff, and they do not serve food to attendees, run the programme or take on general logistics. What to expect from an event nanny shift has the boundary in full.

Practicalities

Minimum 24 hours' notice and no same-day booking — but for a retreat the useful lead time is set by the venue, not by us. Book childcare when you book the venue. Caregivers are Puffin employees, CRRP vulnerable-sector cleared and reference verified.