Jessica Gomez understood the benefits of on-site childcare as a young mom, building Rogue Valley Microdevices with her one-year-old daughter next to her in a bassinet. \u201cBut we needed extra support. There are only so many times you can hit \u2018mute\u2019 during a conference call,\u201d says the CEO of the small chip-maker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, Rogue Valley\u2019s CEO did what very few other CEOs dare: She created a separate childcare space at her headquarters in Medford, Oregon, several years ago. Now, at its new plant under construction in Palm Bay, Florida, Rogue Valley is working with city authorities to make sure the site is zoned to allow on-site daycare. \u201cYou can be really successful having your babies close to you, with the support that\u2019s needed, and be really effective at work,\u201d Gomez says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s much better for you to stay engaged, career-wise. The problem is women are self-electing out of our industry after a short period of time. So, we\u2019re losing a pretty significant pool of our potential workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across industries, CEOs are having to address the childcare challenge more directly than ever before. A Care.com survey last year showed 56 percent of employers responding that they would prioritize childcare benefits this year. \u201cThe underlying problem is tougher, and people are more engaged on it,\u201d says Daisy Dowling, an adjunct professor at Columbia University who coaches executive parents on childcare. \u201cCEOs are less able to ignore it and say, \u2018You guys handle it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anxious American working parents are driving the trend. Many parents got used to childcare flexibility during the pandemic and took advantage of the freedom, but a tug-of-war is taking place as employers make return-to-the-office demands and the labor market re-loosens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Childcare responsibilities have long been a productivity issue. Parents may be late, not show up for work or be distracted due to childcare plans falling through. Without support, many avoid new challenges, promotions or travel\u2014and some leave the workforce altogether. These problems cost American companies $13 billon a year in lost productivity, Boston Consulting Group calculated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Benefits like subsidized childcare or childcare discounts, on-site childcare, backup and emergency childcare, dependent-care flexible savings accounts, childcare referral services and flexible working hours can help. What\u2019s more, employers that help with childcare garner not only employees\u2019 interest but often their loyalty: In a recent survey of working parents conducted by KinderCare and Harris Poll, 72 percent said that if they \u201cknew they would always have quality childcare coverage, they would be able to focus better on their work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Companies like Synchrony, which provides its employees with up to 60 days of \u201cbackup\u201d childcare, are working toward delivering that peace of mind. \u201cWe want to do what we can do as a company to help you be your best both personally and professionally, to drive our peak performance as a business,\u201d says DJ Casto, CHRO of the Stamford, Connecticut-based financial services giant. About 70 percent of Synchrony\u2019s thousands of contact-center employees are women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Boston Consulting Group study of Synchrony and four other companies\u2014Etsy, UPS, Fast Retailing and Steamboat\u2014concluded there was a positive return on investment at each company for varied childcare measures, ranging up to 425 percent. Plus, retaining as few as 1 percent of eligible employees covers the cost of the childcare benefits at those companies, reported BCG. Still, offering childcare at work isn\u2019t for everyone. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to put a business case together for doing it on site, with the varying demands of manufacturing,\u201d says the CEO of a major automotive supplier in Michigan. \u201cIt works a lot better for knowledge-based workers who are in an office building from 8:30 to 5 and with a lunch break.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luckily, there are plenty of ways to tackle the challenge. Chief Executive<\/em> reached out to a range of CEOs, CHROs and childcare experts for tips. Here\u2019s what they had to say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assess the need.<\/strong> Successful corporate childcare isn\u2019t one-size-fits-all. \u201cGather data among current parents,\u201d Dowling advises. \u201cWhat do they want? Backup daycare? Flexibility to work from home when the kids are sick? What are the levers? They may not be what you\u2019re assuming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reckon with costs.<\/strong> Between 1991 and 2024, U.S. costs for daycare and preschool rose at nearly twice the overall rate of inflation, according to KPMG. Building a corporate childcare site is \u201ca really expensive thing to do; it\u2019s not a break-even proposal,\u201d says John Noble, a Cincinnati-based architect who specializes in designing early-childhood facilities. \u201cUnless you get outside funding, it\u2019s hard to make everything balance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rogue Valley, for one, is asking, \u201cCan we do it at least for breakeven?\u201d Gomez says. \u201cWe\u2019ve already figured out the cost of the building, so there\u2019s no additional cost there. And adding a few employees to our business isn\u2019t going to break the bank when we have 75 employees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Go all-in.<\/strong> Steamboat, for example, opened a near-site childcare center in late 2022, giving employees priority registration and a 20 percent discount on tuition. The move helped the ski resort in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, avoid an average of 13 daily absences a year among its several hundred employees, and 90 percent of its working parents say they plan to still be working at Steamboat in a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SugarCreek CEO John G. Richardson plunged his company deeply into the childcare challenge, ordering plans to renovate a 1970s-era preschool into a facility for the offspring of the several hundred employees of the meat processor at its main plant in Washington Court House, Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Booz Allen Hamilton offers a long menu of childcare benefits for its 34,000 employees around the world, including discounts on childcare centers, access to a nationwide database of child-sitters, tutoring services and educational subscriptions, assistance in finding licensed providers and private schools, and a network of more than 3,000 childcare centers and 200,000 licensed in-home providers of emergency backup childcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Employees at Booz Allen\u2019s headquarters in McLean, Virginia, have had access to onsite childcare for two decades. More than a daycare, the center is accredited by education groups for its proprietary curriculum in math, science, language, art and more subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along with more than 1,400 other companies around the world, Booz Allen relies on Bright Horizons to manage its on-site childcare. Based in Newton, Massachusetts, the industry leader operates more than 1,000 early-education and childcare centers in the U.S. and four other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bright Horizons also runs backup-care programs at facilities, including the American headquarters in Bridgewater, New Jersey, of French drug maker Sanofi, and provides a variety of care options to companies such as Lumen, where employees benefit if they\u2019re within 35 miles of the telecom outfit\u2019s headquarters in Monroe, Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ease in.<\/strong> Most companies seeking to support parents still stop short of providing childcare, however. Pontiac, Michigan-based United Wholesale Mortgage, for instance, tries \u201cto give some kind of a lift to parents by partnering with local childcare providers for a 10 percent discount for weekly care and not charging fees for later pickup,\u201d says CHRO Laura Lawson, whose company includes thousands of childless GenZ-ers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While business-software provider Paycor has constructed a post-Covid \u201cvirtual-first\u201d working environment for its 2,900 employees, the Cincinnati-based company focuses its efforts on helping its working parents find resources to handle their own childcare so they can focus during working hours. \u201cYou can\u2019t make lunches, breakfast and change diapers and make sure no one is falling off their bike and getting hurt while you\u2019re doing your work all day,\u201d says Paycor CHRO Paaras Parker. \u201cYou need to have nice boundaries in a professional workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Insurer Liberty Mutual considered opening daycare centers because, post-pandemic, its 45,000 people are mostly back in its dozens of worldwide offices. \u201cBut when we had conversations with some members of various parenting groups,\u201d says Verlinda DiMarino, vice president and head of benefits, \u201cthey talked about the disruption. If they have children who are closer to home, and suddenly they\u2019re assigned to an office that might be 20 miles from where they live, they have to [bring their] child. Based on that, we decided not to go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enable backups.<\/strong> Liberty Mutual offers up to 10 subsidized backup-care days for use \u201cwhen regular childcare, pet-care or eldercare has fallen through,\u201d DiMarino explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Synchrony covers up to 60 days of backup care \u201cbecause we have to be generous with the amount of moments that might pop up in one\u2019s life where our people need support,\u201d Casto says. \u201cAs a parent, when you need backup childcare, it\u2019s a stressful moment anyway. Something may have fallen through, and you have a big meeting or a big client event, and you\u2019re scrambling about how to show up at work and in life in the right way. So it\u2019s a critical benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previously, Synchrony provided an 800 phone number via a contracted service that would \u201chelp broker in the ecosystem and find an available spot at a childcare facility,\u201d Casto explains. \u201cThat sounded good in theory. But for a parent, it can be nerve-wracking. So we simplified it to say, if you\u2019ve got someone you trust who could help in that moment of need, go ahead, and we\u2019ll reimburse you up to $100 that day to help take care of that child. We did a ton of active listening to employees, and they articulated that it\u2019s a stressful moment. You need to keep your child safe, and you need to leverage someone you trust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Synchrony experimented with this approach during Covid, starting with 25 days of care, then expanding it to 30 before recently doubling the benefit to 60 days. One reason: \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen a ton of abuse in the ecosystem,\u201d Casto says. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing people use it very thoughtfully and judiciously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walk the talk.<\/strong> Many companies offer information and encouragement about the childcare challenge, even if they don\u2019t give outright care. Liberty Mutual, for example, provides a \u201cconcierge\u201d program to get information to employees about afterschool programs, tutors and more. \u201cWe do that research for them,\u201d DiMarino says. \u201cThat takes some of the load off employees and helps them to balance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dowling commends such approaches. \u201cOften, very smart people who are high-octane and high-RPM in their careers, and doers and achievers, when they become working parents, instead of asking for help and information, they try to figure things out for themselves,\u201d she says. \u201cIt means they\u2019re information-poor about hiring a nanny or finding daycare or backup care. So, the CEO can say, \u2018We\u2019re going to have a quarterly information session or teach-in about ways people are handing childcare, or a one-hour dial-in event where four parents describe what they\u2019re doing.\u2019 That will do so much to empower all the parents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leverage ERGs and EAPs.<\/strong> An often-ambiguous, varied employee benefit at many big companies, employee assistance programs can offer wellness and stress management, family coaching, childcare workshops, provider lists and more. \u201cThey\u2019re nice to have, and they don\u2019t cost employers a lot of money,\u201d says Marta Voda, director of HR outsourcing for accounting firm EisnerAmper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n UWM\u2019s EAP, for instance, \u201chelps align our people with [childcare] service providers, giving them the best options,\u201d Lawson says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liberty Mutual has seven ERGs, most including subgroups around caregiving that perform virtual webinars. \u201cIt\u2019s a very powerful way to get people together to talk and support each other,\u201d DiMarino says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ERGs give employees a crucial peer forum for day-to-day support, says Parker. \u201cYou can\u2019t underestimate the feeling that you\u2019re not the only one going through something and just how far understanding and compassion goes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider your commitment.<\/strong> Be prepared for the possibility that the value proposition or needs of your employee base can shift. Toyota, for example, opened an engineering center in Erlanger, Kentucky, in 1996 and eventually added a childcare facility for kids of the 1,600 employees there. In 2014, the automaker abruptly announced it would close the place in a nationwide consolidation of its facilities into the Dallas area. The decision, and the ultimate closure in 2017, were painful for the Erlanger community, Noble says. Employees \u201chad this wonderful investment and an incredible community resource, but it was totally at the whim of the corporation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shifting employee demographics can also put the ROI of childcare investments into question. \u201cWe might have an employee with two kids of childcare age now, but next month they might be gone,\u201d says the Detroit manufacturing CEO, who prefered to speak anonymously because of the sensitivity of the childcare issue among his employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beware backlash.<\/strong> Resentment among childless employees, similar to workforce splits over other new benefits, such as helping employees pay off student loans, can also arise. Workers \u201cdon\u2019t think like that about healthcare benefits; they don\u2019t begrudge one another if this person has cancer and this person hasn\u2019t had a cold in five years,\u201d says the manufacturing chief. \u201cIt\u2019s seen as right for everyone, and everything is covered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut with childcare, you have people who say, \u2018I\u2019ll figure it out. My mom will watch my kids. I\u2019d rather have higher wages than a childcare benefit.\u2019 There\u2019s not enough camaraderie for employees to think in terms of what\u2019s better for the whole team. They don\u2019t think, \u2018If the company can do the benefit, it\u2019ll ultimately be better for me because we\u2019ll be able to attract more moms and workers.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look to the government.<\/strong> There are federal tax incentives for corporate childcare investments, and some states provide subsidies. In 2021, Michigan launched a \u201ctri-share\u201d model, in which the state government, the employer and the employee each pay one-third of the cost of childcare. Other states\u2014including Kentucky as well as New York and North Carolina\u2014are experimenting with and adapting their own programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Governments are including particular wrinkles. For example, Kentucky\u2019s new Employee Child Care Assistance Partnership program includes an appropriation of $15 million to allow the state to match employers\u2019 contributions, with 25 percent of the fund set aside for small-business employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Watch and learn.<\/strong> Just as parental-leave programs elided into greater corporate concerns about childcare, the ways companies try to ease working parents\u2019 concerns continue to evolve. For example, Liberty Mutual not only established lactation rooms at all of its campuses but also introduced a service for employees who are nursing mothers and traveling for work: The company will ship their breast milk back home, with no cap on the benefit. \u201cThat speaks,\u201d DiMarino says, \u201cto a value that is important to Liberty Mutual.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Boosting productivity and talent retention are among the pluses that providing support for working parents can bring to the table. Here\u2019s how CEOs are tackling it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":351135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-talentmanagement"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n