Living History Worldwide

For working parents, childcare is always on their mind. Almost a quarter of them are forced to make multiple arrangements for their childcare, according to government statistics. There are signs that this number will only grow. Worrying about childcare has far reaching effects. When companies provide childcare options it helps the employees and the children as well. The importance of early child education is well documented. The first few years of a child’s life are incredibly important to their development. During this time, more information is absorbed by these young children than at any other point in their lives.

How Offering Childcare to Your Employees Will Help Your Business:

1.Your employee retention will increase.

Employee retention is a huge problem for businesses across the country. When you provide your employees childcare ay work, your employees will be less likely to want to leave. This is a great benefit for your business. There are huge costs associated with employee turnover. It costs a lot to hire new people and then train them. That is a big investment you have put into your staff that you lose when they leave.

Providing childcare as a benefit will make your business more attractive to prospective employees making it easier to attract great talent and keep it. It makes a huge different to working parents when this is a perk at the job. This means they spend less time stressing about making decent childcare. At least 40% of working parents have reported how valuable corporate sponsored childcare is to them. They admit that they are more likely to stay at a job because they offer childcare with decent early child education programs. Offering this as a benefit creates very loyal employees.

2. Employee productivity will go up.

When working parents are stressing about finding decent childcare for their kids, they are less productive at work. When you add to that the time they have to spend working on coordinating that childcare and about their children, you have a real issue. Working parents who do not have to worry either about making childcare arrangements or about their children’s well being and early child education are much happier. As a consequence, they work harder and get more done. It is like the part of their brain that was tied up thinking about childcare arrangement has been been freed up to do work.

Research done by the National Conference of State Legislatures backs this up. They have reported that the biggest cause of problems for working parents is the stress that accompanies looking for childcare. When they no longer have to worry about that, they become a lot more focused.

3. Your employees will take fewer sick and family days and will be on time more often.

Working parents who have to drop their kids at a different childcare center or who have to deal with the logistics of managing multiple childcare arrangements are often late. When their childcare arrangements fall through they call in sick. In a recent survey, more than 90% of the businesses who responsed reported that they saw problems with their employees taking time off or arriving late when they had problems with their childcare. This issue also causes problems at the end of the day when these workers have to leave early for the same reason, said 80% of the responding companies.

4. Providing your employees with childcare at work saves companies money.

In 2005, Rachel Mills of the University of North Carolina looked at light manufacturing firms where childcare was offered as a perk to its workers. The project saved all of them money. All could the value offering this benefit added to their businesses and were happy they went ahead and did it. They were surprised the costs employer sponsored child care were lower than expected.

The idea of offering childcare resources at work has not been embraced the way early child education has but it should be. Multiple studies show that money is not the real motivator for people to stay with a company; being happy at work has a much bigger impact. Providing this as a benefit makes parents happy, reduces turnover and is just good for your business.

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