Frequently Asked Questions about globegarden

More than 4,000 families entrust their children to us every week, on average on 3.5 days a week. On those days, mothers and fathers can work, mostly the mothers. By our own calculation, this corresponds to a workload of around 70 % and around 2,800 full-time jobs. And because most mothers keep working once their children start school, this has added up to almost 5,000 full-time jobs since 2009. That is exactly why globegarden was founded: when the first center opened in 2009, Switzerland lacked reliable, high-quality childcare places, and studies showed that paid work hardly paid off for many mothers, especially from the second child onwards. Three women wanted to change that and opened the first globegarden center near Paradeplatz in Zurich on 17 August 2009. Today, globegarden is a childcare network with more than 90 centers and around 1,200 employees.

globegarden is 100 % family-owned and led by its three founders. Like any successful company, we regularly receive inquiries from partners, banks and investors. Reviewing them carefully is part of responsible management. Our childcare network is and will remain family-owned.

For new centers, the federal government pays temporary start-up funding, and only for places that families actually need. All other contributions are meant for the parents. The start-up funding runs during the first two years of operation. How much a center receives depends on the places that families actually use. For places without demand, the federal government pays nothing. Anyone who applies must prove the demand. In addition, the canton reviews the need. This way, Switzerland only supports centers that are truly needed, and we grow where families are waiting for a place. All other contributions go directly to the families: the city or municipality reviews each family's income and assets and decides how much it receives towards childcare, as a childcare voucher or a subsidized place. The center only handles the billing.

With us, education starts on the first day at the center: since 2020, all our centers have worked with our own early childhood education plan. Children learn faster in their first years of life than ever again. In its studies on early childhood education, the OECD shows how strongly good early education supports children's development, and the Swiss "Orientation Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care" describes what matters most in these years. While schools and kindergartens follow a curriculum, childcare centers design their educational work themselves. We fill this freedom with an education plan that combines language, mathematics, science, environment, art and health, and we train our professionals for it in our Early Childhood Education Academy.

Depending on the center, in German or bilingually in German and English. Families choose what suits them. Multilingualism is part of Switzerland like hardly anything else: four national languages and a natural coexistence of different cultures are part of our identity. Many families speak two or more languages at home, while others deliberately want their child to feel fully at home in one language first. That is why our childcare network offers both: German-speaking centers and bilingual centers. More than half of our centers are bilingual, and more than 90 % of our English-speaking professionals are native speakers. A mother describes what this looks like in everyday life in our anniversary book: "As an expat, the childcare has helped me raise my child with strong values and integrate them into society. Thanks to the caregivers, my daughter speaks fluent Swiss German, has learned the independence of a Swiss child and has found numerous friends from different cultures." – Geetika

Openly: we document every external inspection, implement the supervisory authority's recommendations and offer parents and employees two independent points of contact. Wherever people work with children, with heart, with energy and sometimes at the end of a long day, mistakes happen. What matters is how you deal with them. We want a culture in which everyone gives their best and mistakes are addressed openly and corrected rather than hidden. For our 15th anniversary, we dedicated the book "Brave, not perfect" to this attitude. In it, mothers, fathers and our employees describe how they combine family and work, with all the ups and downs. It is an invitation to celebrate being human.

Per childcare place, we employ a good half more trained professionals than the average of all providers. This is shown by a KPMG study commissioned by the City of Zurich, according to which we also employ fewer interns than average. On average, one intern works per center, with a guaranteed apprenticeship contract after the probation period. More than 300 young people are doing their apprenticeship with us, and more than 85 % stay after graduating. On average, every employee attends six training courses per year.

What counts are the children who are actually at the center and the professionals who are actually working. The Administrative Court of the Canton of Zurich confirmed this in 2020. Several municipalities also counted sick and absent children in their calculation and wanted to prescribe exact staffing percentages to the centers. In one of these cases, we had the decision reviewed in court. The Administrative Court made both points clear: "Absent children do not need care and therefore have no influence on the staff required." The ruling creates clarity for all childcare centers. In our centers, one professional cares for 3–4 children under 18 months, 5–6 children between 2 and 4 years, and 8 children in kindergarten.

Yes. Fresh meals are cooked on site every day in all globegarden centers. Depending on their care hours, children receive breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. In our last large parent survey, 92 % praised the healthy, fresh food. When a center joins us, we check whether it can have its own kitchen. Until then, it continues to be supplied with high-quality meals by its previous partner.

With clear rules: always one hand on the child, gloves for every diaper change, a changing mat that is disinfected after every child, and a changing log in which everything is recorded. New employees do not change diapers from day one: they are first trained and get to know the children. The center manager decides who may change diapers. The teams change diapers on a fixed rotation and record who changed which child and what they noticed, for example whether the skin was red and whether a cream was used. The disinfection of the changing mat is also recorded with name and time. All our changing tables have steps that older children can climb up themselves. This is safer than lifting a heavy child, protects our employees' backs and makes children proud of what they can already do on their own.

Every accident is recorded in writing, parents sign the accident report, and supervisors review the accident reports of all their centers. This way, anything that happens repeatedly stands out. Many children learn to crawl and walk at the center; they climb, romp and play outside. Now and then this means a bump or a scraped knee, as anywhere children move freely. Our rules ensure that the youngest only play where it suits their age. At the same time, it is part of our educational mission that children learn to deal with risks: those who are allowed to climb learn to assess their own strength. This is a living Swiss tradition. We want children to grow up free and independent. In Switzerland, children are expected to manage their own way to kindergarten, including crossing the street. We prepare them for that.

With a code of conduct that all employees sign, a double check before every hire and two independent points of contact. Before every hire, we obtain the criminal record extract and the special private extract and report the person to the responsible childcare supervisory authority. The authority also checks the person in the federal criminal record system (VOSTRA), where it sees more information than the extracts available to private individuals. We developed the code of conduct with the Swiss specialist organization Limita, and we provide training on it every year. Parents, employees and third parties can report concerns about a child's wellbeing confidentially at any time to kinderschutz@schutzstelle.ch, and all other confidential matters to vertrauen@schutzstelle.ch. In an emergency: police 117, ambulance 144.

Since 2019, our centers have had more than 600 visits from the childcare and kindergarten supervisory authorities, around half of them unannounced. Together with food and labor inspections, this adds up to more than 750 official inspections in eight cantons. In addition, there are more than 270 voluntary external audits, such as safety audits. We document every single inspection, and our quality management has been externally certified to ISO 9001 since 2011.

Very strict: Switzerland regulates childcare centers in great detail, and the supervisory authorities inspect frequently. In 2025, the childcare supervisory authority of the City of Zurich inspected the 321 centers in the city a total of 484 times, 292 of them unannounced. Apart from ten municipal centers, all of them are privately run, just like ours. Municipalities and cantons determine how many children a group may have, how many professionals must be present at any moment, what training they need, and what the rooms, kitchen and garden must be like. Every center needs a license from its municipality, which is reviewed regularly. We welcome these inspections: they give parents peace of mind and show us where we can improve further.

The center is given a deadline to resolve the issue, and the authority checks that this has been done. After every visit, the authority discusses its observations with the center manager. If there is nothing to object to, the inspection is closed. If there is a recommendation, the center manager implements it together with their supervisor within the deadline. After every inspection, the center manager records in writing how it went and what the authority noted. This is how we have documented every single one of the more than 750 official inspections since 2019, and we can see across all centers where we can improve further.

Every center keeps an attendance list of all children, professionals, other caregivers and the center manager, and we employ more staff than we need on paper. Holidays, sick days and approximate drop-off and pick-up times are recorded so that the center can plan each day well. Every morning, the team clarifies who is there, who is missing and whether a substitute is needed. If so, one is organized immediately. Illness and holidays are part of everyday life, so we plan for them: the City of Zurich provides every center with a calculation tool that shows how many staffing percentages each group needs, including holidays and sick days. We follow it, evaluate our sick days every year and plan our staffing so that absences are covered. A KPMG study commissioned by the City of Zurich confirms: per childcare place, we employ a good half more trained professionals than the average of all providers.

In 2020, the City of Zurich inspected every one of our centers in the city unannounced within eight weeks, some of them twice, 37 times in total. It did not confirm the allegations. Had they been true, no authority would have continued to license our centers. Since then, our centers have had more than 600 visits from the supervisory authorities, around half of them unannounced, and every one of our more than 90 centers is licensed by its municipality today. In the end, parents care about one question: is my child in good hands here? That is exactly what the authority checks on site, without notice, looking at the number of children, staffing, attendance lists and work schedules. For our teams, who are there for the children with great commitment every day, the result in 2020 was an important confirmation. The city saw room for improvement where the regulations on the number of places, staff-to-child ratio and staffing had not been met at all locations at all times. These were individual cases and minor deviations in attendance and care times. For example, when we made an extra day possible for a family at short notice and there was temporarily one more child in the group. Other deviations occurred in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, when rules and staff planning changed almost daily. We implemented the authority's recommendations immediately, and the city confirmed our cooperative collaboration. That still applies today, and we contribute our experience to working groups and committees when regulations are developed further. In the same year, the Administrative Court confirmed our calculation of the staff-to-child ratio. In addition, we commissioned the law firm Niederer Kraft Frey to review our processes. It found no systematic violations.

In the city of Zurich, a qualified childcare professional earns around CHF 65,000 on average with us; the minimum set by the city and kibesuisse is around CHF 56,000. In Basel-Stadt, the average is more than CHF 78,000, including a 13th monthly salary. Kindergarten teachers start at around CHF 90,000 under the cantonal salary regulations, and most earn between CHF 96,000 and 120,000. Women and men earn the same with us, as confirmed by our pay equity analysis.

In 2026, globegarden was named a Leading Employer Switzerland, an award for the top one percent of employers that companies cannot apply for. In 2025, we ranked 11th among the Best Workplaces in Switzerland, and we have been continuously certified as a Great Place to Work since 2021. Every October, parents nominate the caregivers who have made a difference in their family's life for our awards, each in one of our values Share, Teach, Act and Respect. Employees can also nominate colleagues, and entire teams and centers can be recognized. This adds up to well over 6,500 nominations every year. More than 85 % of our apprentices stay with us after graduating.

On Google, parents rate our centers 4.7 out of 5 stars on average, based on almost 800 reviews. This makes us one of the most-reviewed childcare providers in Switzerland. This is not one single family speaking, but hundreds, which makes the picture reliable. In our last large parent survey with around 2,000 participants, 95 % recommended us without reservation. But the nicest compliment for us is how long families stay with us: 5.6 years on average. A child usually attends a center until kindergarten. Families who stay this long also entrust us with their second and third child. This is how we accompany many families from the first settling-in day until their youngest child starts school. Of course there is also criticism, and we take it seriously. Those who are happy usually say so in person, at pick-up at the center door, not on the internet. That makes it all the more special when families share their story publicly: in our anniversary book "Brave, not perfect", many globegarden parents tell us what they love about their center and why they entrust their children to us. Here are some of them:

• "Our childcare has been a big part of our daily life for six years. … Our two older daughters spent a significant part of their early childhood years in two different globegarden childcare centers. And even today, they always like to come along to pick up their little sister. That's the best proof that they felt very comfortable!" – Kathrin
• "When our baby was in intensive care, we were able to drop off our older son at childcare every day. They were so flexible and gave us great support." – Simon
• "Without the childcare offer, I would not have been able to combine my professional activities with my family duties. … The globegarden teachers are like a second family to us." – Clotilde
• "Leaving your child and going to work is incredibly difficult. When I know that my child is in good hands and the care is good, then my heart hurts a little less." – Patrícia

The center keeps its name and its character and gains the support of our network. More than 20 centers have joined us through succession solutions, always at the request of their previous owners. We receive far more requests than we accept: we only take on centers that convince us and fit our network, and we have already declined many requests. As a rule, we keep what makes a center special: today our network includes, for example, Montessori-inspired centers, nature centers and centers with an open concept, where children are not in a fixed group but choose for themselves which theme room they play in, such as the art studio, the building corner or the movement room. Every center is different, so we proceed step by step: first we get to know the center, the team and the families, then we invest where it benefits the children most, in rooms, play materials and the team. In the long term, every center follows our ISO 9001 quality standards, our training program and our independent points of contact.

Because rested teams provide the best care: our centers close for two weeks in summer. We adopted this practice from centers that joined us through succession solutions: the team recovers together, and fewer substitutes are needed during the year because fewer holidays have to be covered. Many of our caregivers are parents themselves and need holidays with their own children. The authorities see it the same way: the City of Zurich pays for subsidized places for a maximum of 240 days a year. A year has around 260 working days. After deducting public holidays, around 250 remain; the difference corresponds to two weeks of closure. Basel-Stadt even allows centers up to four weeks. For comparison: public schools in the Canton of Zurich have up to 13 weeks of holidays per school year, starting in kindergarten.

Prices vary by center and region. We aim for the market average and offer more for it. Good childcare should be affordable for middle-class families: with freshly cooked food, trained professionals, our own education plan and regular training. Our Family Service can tell you the prices of each center. In Basel-Stadt, St. Gallen and other places, the city sets the parent fees, not the center. Depending on their municipality and income, families receive childcare vouchers or a subsidized place. As is common in the industry, the notice period is three months to the end of a month. In Basel-Stadt, a two-month notice period applies to centers receiving childcare contributions, as prescribed by the canton.

Your center, our Family Service, two independent points of contact or the supervisory authority of your municipality.

• Your center: The center manager is always the first point of contact.
• Family Service: familienservice@globegarden.org · 058 776 78 78
• Independent child protection contact: kinderschutz@schutzstelle.ch
• Independent contact for confidential matters: vertrauen@schutzstelle.ch
• Supervisory authority of your municipality: Every center is licensed and supervised by its municipality.
• In an emergency: police 117, ambulance 144