LinkedIn Bring In Your Parents Day Is Here: A Parents’ Survival Guide

Today is our first ever LinkedIn Bring In Your Parents Day when parents will be visiting their children’s offices at companies all over the world. I'm personally really excited to meet everyone’s parents here at the LinkedIn office.

For years now, my father has come to my office to learn about my positions and the companies I’ve joined. It has been a great way to share my growth in my career and connect in our shared passion for the human resources industry. It’s also an easy way to show my gratitude for always supporting my career.

As exciting as this day will be for many of us, we all want the day to be as smooth as possible for our parents. In preparation, we developed a quick survival guide for parents on LinkedIn Bring In Your Parents Day. To prepare, here are a few things to consider during your day:

Do…

1. Chat with some of your son or daughter’s colleagues – it’s a great way to find out more about where they work, and who they work with

2. Feel free to take photos of the office and perhaps your child's work to show the rest of the family

3. Arrive on time for the event so you have time to enjoy the full experience and don’t miss anything

4. Let your child and their boss know how you found the event and what you learned – they’ll appreciate the feedback

5. Share advice you have learned from your own career that could be relevant and helpful

Don’t…

1. Ask your child’s boss to give them a promotion or a pay raise

2. Tell embarrassing stories about your child – that’s best to save for the relatives

3. Give away any of the work information your child has shared with you in confidence. Your child’s colleagues may not be in the know

4. Be the parent who asks 1,000 questions at the Q&A

5. Get the baby photos out, especially to complete strangers!

To give you a bit more information about the day itself, we ran a trial in our Dublin office earlier in the year where we received overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents. I’m so happy that everyone enjoyed themselves then and can’t wait to see how today unfolds.

We’re so pleased to have a range of companies taking part in the day including Regus, Trulia, Logitech, Wrigley, Edelman and Glam.com, all of which will have parents at their offices this morning. Also, as one of the most exciting workplaces in the world, ZSL London Zoo is helping to launch the first year of this event. Its trainee bird keeper, Hannah Jenkins, brought in her dad, Rob to give him first-hand insight into her role working with the zoo’s penguins.

Don’t forget that you can find out more about the day here. We will also be using the hashtag #BIYP on Twitter so you can follow all of the news and see how parents are enjoying the day.