Many working parents today face a tough choice between staying home or paying high childcare costs. In some areas, options are limited, with long waitlists and high prices creating child-care deserts. The challenge is even greater for employees who’ve relocated and no longer have nearby family support. While maternity and pregnancy benefits have improved, the biggest barrier to staying in the workforce is access to affordable, reliable childcare. This is when the biggest drop-off happens, with over a quarter of women not returning to work in the first year of motherhood.
Childcare issues are putting employee retention and engagement at risk, resulting in companies' inability to recruit and retain top talent and even lowering productivity due to the shortages. That is where offering on-site childcare can help. Having childcare options on site for working parents has had a multitude of benefits for the organizations that have implemented it. These employers have seen increased employee loyalty, as many do not want to leave and lose their childcare. Companies with these benefits have positioned themselves as progressive, family-friendly employers and have thus been able to attract and retain top talent and enhance their leadership pipelines. By supporting working mothers and caregivers, employers have reduced absenteeism and the time missed due to childcare emergencies. There is lower commute stress for parents, and employees can focus more on work, knowing their children are nearby.
An employee benefit this large won’t come without challenges and obstacles. Many companies worry about the cost of implementation and ongoing operational expenses. Concerns about finding usable existing space or having to build new facilities with limited space are valid. There is the issue of licensing and whether the cost will be fully paid by the employer or shared with the employee. It is fair to ask, “Will all of this be worth it and will we see a significant return on investment?”. Fortunately, there are many resources to help, and several companies have already created successful blueprints to learn from and follow.
Priya Krishnan, Chief Transformation Officer at Bright Horizons, laid out the argument for onsite childcare initiatives quite well. She states, “We think of the parent as a stakeholder, the government as a stakeholder, and the employer as a stakeholder. The parent is working somewhere, the employer absolutely wants them to come back, and the government gains from people being employed and contributing to the economy.”
Bright Horizons and Kindercare are licensed operators who partner with companies to offer onsite daycare, run day-to-day operations, hire staff, enroll children and employees, and create curricula. These operators can assist you at ground level and essentially run the childcare facility for you and even take on the liabilities and legalities that come with having children on site. They will also help you make the ROI case to senior management and help you navigate applying for eligible grants and tax credits.
Patagonia has offered onsite childcare for over 40 years and was the first to bring this idea to the market. They care for about 200 children in their onsite childcare center and offer lower than market rates for the area. Whirlpool created its onsite daycare center called “The Eddy” in Benton Harbor, MI, and is another company leading the pack. Valero Energy, AFLAC, UPS, Tyson Foods, and Johnson & Johnson are offering this same perk. AT&T has now announced that they are offering summer camps for employees' children as a pilot program to see if full-time onsite childcare would be worthwhile. It is a great idea to implement a pilot program like this, as well as conduct surveys and needs assessments to test the waters before committing to a major investment. This also enables AT&T’s return-to-office initiative to remain intact and allows working parents to still be in-person when school is not in session.
You don’t need to be a large organization to offer these benefits. Some daycares are built for only 10 children. You could also partner with other small organizations in a shared-services model or offer extra slots to the community while in the start-up phase to help with costs. Create a pipeline to fill future spots by planning ahead with pregnant employees for their return to work postpartum. To increase the ROI, you can offer employees options with a flexible, hybrid model, including drop-in services, part-time care, or backup care and combine with or subsidize their off-site childcare assistance.
If you have a primarily remote workforce, there are now co-working facilities with built-in childcare. Giving employees an allowance for these types of spaces can be a great way to increase performance, limit distractions, and provide working parents with peace of mind for their children while they are working, even if it isn’t at the office.
Although on-site childcare can be a large investment, companies that have taken the leap have seen the benefits. This is more than just a trend, it is a cultural change that is not going anywhere and is only just ramping up. Even starting small with family-first policies is a great step in the right direction for taking care of the needs of your biggest asset, your employees.
Sources: hrdrive; hr-brew; builtin