News, features and events
Take your child to work day
18 May 2012
Take Your Child to Work Day is a nationally celebrated event in the United States and, each April at Shire, it provides employee’s children with a special look into the company’s day-to-day operations in a fun and educational way. Shire’s Chesterbrook location has been hosting official programming around this national day of learning since 2005, and Shire’s Massachusetts location has been hosting official programming since 2011.
Shire Chesterbrook
In our Chesterbrook site, 82 children of Shire employees took part in a “Shire Around the World”-themed day. Children were put into 4 teams, (Team Belgium, Team Canada, Team Switzerland and Team United Kingdom.) These teams consisted of children of similar ages ranging from 8-12 years old. After having breakfast with their parents and learning interesting facts about their assigned country, the children participated in a live video teleconference with Shire employees in their designated country.
Before the four teams went their separate ways on a Shire World Tour learning about various parts of the business including Compliance, Patient Advocacy Groups and Networking, Global Supply Chain, Fitness and Health Safety & Environment, the children also learned about some of Shire’s global community relations initiatives, including a local program called “Shire’s The Great Food Fight” benefitting Philabundance. They also learned about our global initiative, The Shire Brave Awards - our way to acknowledge ordinary people who give of themselves by caring for others in a meaningful, dedicated and selfless manner.
The day concluded with an interactive survey, geographic puzzles and a viewing of video clips captured throughout the day. As a thank you and to encourage further learning, Shire presented each child with a tabletop globe of the world.
Thank you to all of our volunteers and program leads – stay tuned next year when we reveal the next stop on the Shire World Tour!
Shire Massachusetts
More than 75 volunteers came together at Shire’s Massachusetts location to host 75 children – between the ages of 8 and 12 – for Take Your Child to Work Day this year. Participants were treated to a fun, educational and engaging series of five classes that focused on different areas of the HGT business: Commercial Operations, Global Medical Affairs, Manufacturing and Engineering, Research, and Process Development.
Each class was designed to illustrate what lies at the “heart of Shire”, with an emphasis on genetic diseases, creativity, science, technology, engineering and math. As Take Your Child to Work Day came to a close, the participants came together to participate in “The Heart of Shire Art Session”, where they were asked to draw what they believed to be at the “heart” of our business. Click here to see a sampling of the results (insert link to PDF here).
Take Your Child to Work Day will return to Shire Massachusetts in 2013.
