How a 60-person childcare firm closes for two full weeks a year

Haven runs clubs that combine licensed childcare with workspace and a gym. Twice a year it closes all of them.

One week falls in summer. The other is the last week of the year. Staff are paid for both and no meetings or emails run in the background.

Britt Riley, the founder and chief executive, mandates the time off rather than offering it. She told Entrepreneur she shuts the business so there is no opportunity for anyone to work or feel they are missing out.

The scheduling is the part a founder can copy. Riley says the closures are set more than a year in advance and anchored to two of the historically slowest weeks in Haven's year.

That does two things at once. It removes the revenue argument, because the weeks were thin anyway, and it gives every employee a fixed date to plan a holiday around.

The client conversation happens early. Riley says families learn about the closures during the enrolment process, not in an email six weeks out.

In the run-up, Haven over-communicates and states expectations plainly so the shutdown does not surprise anyone. Riley describes the notice owed to families as enormous, and says the company gives it.

She is direct about the cost falling on customers. For one week, families who rely on the clubs need another plan, and for dual-income households she calls that a real ask.

New business is handled by an out-of-office reply. Riley argues that a family enquiring about membership learns something useful about the company from it.

Colleagues in the sector pushed back before the first closure. Childcare's unwritten rule is that you never close, and Riley says the question she heard was how she could afford to.

Her answer is a trade. Weighed against avoided turnover and the energy staff bring back, she says two separate weeks are a small cost in the long run.

Haven is Great Place to Work certified, and Riley says 100% of the team this year said Haven is a great place to work. That is the company's own reported figure, and she wants to hold it as the business grows.

The company employs about 60 people, has raised about $20 million, and runs clubs in Rhode Island and New Jersey after opening its first in Middletown, Rhode Island in 2019. It has recently started franchising.

For a founder tempted by the idea, the mechanics are the whole story. Pick weeks your own numbers already say are quiet, publish them a year out, tell customers at the point of sale, and keep paying people. Skip any of those and it becomes an unpaid week off with an angry inbox waiting.