Workplace Child Care Centers Increase Productivity

More and more companies are recognizing that providing benefits such as workplace child care centers are beneficial to the company because of increased production and decreased absence.

Large companies were the first to experiment with this, and although more companies have began to provide workplace child care, it still has a long ways to go before it benefits all employees.

Child care facilities at the workplace have not only increased production, they have increased employee loyalty, and lowered the turn over rates dramatically. If an employee is happy and less stressed they are more likely to stay with a company. And let’s face it child care can be stressful.

In 1986 there was an estimated 1000 workplace child care centers mostly provided by universities, government agencies, and hospitals. Since then these numbers are estimated to have tripled but you can see that still leaves plenty of room for growth.

Providing child care for employees can be an expensive proposition. With the cost of the building, equipping the building, and staffing the facility costs can quickly grow, however most companies that have undertaken this task feel they have gotten good value for their investment.

Lost production as a result of absence and the cost of training have dropped dramatically due to less lost time and less employees leaving.

The cost of child care is still the biggest problem for parents in the work force. It is estimated that a quarter of a person’s income goes to child care. Flex hours helps reduce this cost somewhat but fewer than 20% of all employers have a flex plan.

In a recent survey when parents were asked how important workplace child care was, 93% said it was very important. 25% of people said they turned down management opportunities because they valued their current workplace child care. Corporate America needs to pay attention to what the current and future work force finds important.

Companies that offer workplace child care centers have also found that it is much easier to recruit top skilled employees. In fact in 42% of those interviewed it was the child care that made them choose to work for that company.

For those working in a company that are management material and likely to be promoted, studies found that 65% of them accepted the advancement and stayed with the company because of the workplace child care program.

The US Department of Labor Women’s Bureau says that the traditional family of stay at home mom and working dad make up only 13.5% of all households. 65% of all women with children under the age of 18 are in the workforce. The bureau also believes that in the future the largest increase to the workforce will come from women with children under the age of six. This means there will be a dramatic increase in the number of families seeking quality child care.

Problems with child care drastically affect the performance of the employee. Not only does absenteeism increase but tardiness and fatigue also increase which affect production. When production is affected then the viability of the business can be hurt. As more companies realize that a competitive edge is as simple as providing child care you may see smaller companies band together to achieve these goals at an affordable cost.

Of course we can’t look at this entire scenario with our rose colored glasses. There are infact troubles with the family friendly work environment too.

Childless employees are becoming resentful of family friendly policies which allow flexibility for those with children while the childless chug along under traditional work conditions. They feel that they are being discriminated for not having children and should be allowed the same flexibility as their counterparts to use at their discretion.

In fact in recent studies it was found that 60% of childless employees are resentful. This 60% felt they should be able to use flex time to care for elderly parents, do volunteer work, or spend more time with our four legged children.

Childless employees were becoming frustrated with employees with children getting the best shifts, getting the best vacation times, or getting to leave because a problem was brewing at home.

The logical solution to this would mean that companies have to recognize childless employees as a much needed asset as well, and perhaps provide alternative perks for this group.

If you have the opportunity to work for a company that offers workplace child care, I would certainly jump at the chance. You’ll be less stressed knowing your child is nearby and in good hands, and your child will be better adjusted with no more juggling from one sitter to the other.

The rest of us can only hope that at some time during our working career, workplace child care becomes an option. In the mean time we’ll have to depend on more traditional forms of child care.

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