P1 WHY CHILD CARE CENTERS ARE THE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF WORK
Child care shortages are an unmistakable hindrance to profits. For employers, the benefits of stepping in are unmistakable.
P2 CALCULATING THE COSTS
Working parents have a child care problem. It means employers have one, too.
That’s because right now, when a continually shifting marketplace demands exceptionally engaged employees, working parents — one of the greatest sources of rising mid-career talent — are struggling to keep up.
40% of parents don’t have the child care they need
50% of parents without it say it affects productivity
48% say piecing arrangements together feels like a full-time job
“An estimated 380,000 Americans in their prime working years, aged 25 to 54, held jobs before the pandemic but no longer did late last year,” wrote the Wall Street Journal recently.
“Lack of affordable and quality child care is a significant factor.”
P3 A CHALLENGE ACROSS INDUSTRIES
No sector of the workforce has been spared.
Frontlines: For employees tending customers and manufacturing lines, no child care means no work. Service and manufacturing are among the most talent-challenged industries. Yet the Wall Street Journal points to data from related sectors showing high cost and limited availability of child care keeping people from jobs. “Some people can’t afford it,” a Bank of America analyst told WSJ about child care, “it’s keeping lower earning workers at home.”
Healthcare: Burnout is a risk among all of healthcare. But among healthcare workers with child care stress, the rate skyrockets, with such employees 80% more likely to burn out, says a JAMA study. Such workers are also more likely to consider reducing work hours or to leave their roles altogether – a challenge for an industry already saddled with extreme shortages.
Knowledge workers. Lockdown forever exploded the myth that remote working was a replacement for child care. Yet even now, data from the most recent Modern Family Index shows child care shortages leaving parents struggling with competing demands of work and home, and compromising productivity in the process.
That many of these employees represent key mid-career Millennial and Gen Z workers adds yet another wrinkle. “If these parents do drop out,” writes McKinsey, “companies stand to lose functional expertise, institutional knowledge, managerial capabilities, and mentorship at a time when such skills are needed most.”
P4 DEFYING DIY SOLUTIONS
But employees can’t be left to find answers themselves. Why? Because in many markets, there’s nothing to find.
If child care was a scarce resource before the pandemic, COVID lit a match to it, closing 2% of the already limited child care supply, and making an existing problem even more dire. “Even small dips in the supply of child care can have a catastrophic effect on communities,” says a report on the subject by Child Care Aware of America.
Today half of Americans live in so-called “child care deserts,” defined by the Center for American Progress as places with more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots. For those who can find it, child care often rivals costs for college tuition. It cements what the Center for American Progress has long called parents’ unwinnable choice “between spending a significant portion of their income on child care, finding a cheaper, but potentially lower-quality care option, or leaving the workforce altogether to become a full-time caregiver.”
P5 FEELING THE IMPACT
The impacts of those desertsose aren’t theoretical impacts, but are rather playing out in reality nationwide.
Absenteeism alone is an issue, with a 2023 Census Bureau study showing nearly 5 million people missed work because of child care in February alone. And it’s a thorny problem to fix. Left to their own devices, employees at one rural Iowa manufacturer were up well before dawn and driving miles out of their way to try and cobble together arrangements that met the company’s schedule – if they could find anything at all. The challenge was compromising both productivity and the company’s ability to attract women badly needed to fill the industry’s talent gaps. It fueled the decision to open a center that matched both the employee’s’ needs and the company’s operating hours.
More than one company’s solution, the above center illustrates clearly the myth of vouchers; that in the absence of offering people accessible and a tangible and dependable supplychild care, assistance will likely be a solution in name only.
P6 A HUB FOR THE WAY PEOPLE WORK TODAY
Yet such fFixed schedules are only one issue to solve for. Child care today has to reach people working in widespread locations, and on multiple schedules and workstyles. Where onsite centers of the past may have been the focal point for just office workers, today they’re professional hubs for entire workforces; places from where people fan out whether working at home, the office, or in the field.
Such is the case for electrical provider Georgia Power. On one hand, the company’s center has to be available to employees who need to turn on the lights. “We’re an electric utility,” says the company’s Customer Care Direct Travis Bell, “when we have weather events, we show up.”
On the other hand are parents working by remoteremotely. “Having a two-year-old at home and on the phone and trying to work is very difficult,” said a Georgia Power Accounting Specialist, echoing the challenge of remote parents around the country. The center “gives me time to actually focus on work.”
That’s in addition to employers everywhere who are trying to incent people back to return to officeincentivize people to return to the office – a goal for which on-site centers are obvious carrots. “Our center definitely brought me back in,” says Lauren, a mother of two girls from a Boston area company, who says she bought a house specifically for its access to the center. “And btw,” she adds, “having them out of the house is great for when I’m working at home, too.”
P7 DELIVERING ON CRITICAL GOALS
Such data defy proclamations that truly flexible and responsive child care can only be left up to employees. Among employees doing their own arranging, many can’t find what they need; many say finding care is itself like a full-time job, and the vast majority say it affects their productivity.
Centers, on the other hand, get dependable results. One healthcare employers said their center dropped turnover among the population using it from 24 percent to 6 percent. “We were able through this study to really show that there is a retention factor in the childcare space,” says Erica White of HCA Healthcare.
Done strategically, centers are uniquely able make headway in multiple important areas:
Bring people back to the office
Match schedules to deliver on unique operating hours
Address affordability
But in a talent market where every hire is essential, the benefits are as much philosophical as practical. Research shows the last few years have fundamentally changed employees and how they think about work – particularly as it relates to conflicts between families and jobs. Even as drumbeats of recession pick up steam, the 8th annual Modern Family Index shows employees digging in on their demands.
At a time when employees’ response to lack of support can be to “quiet quit,” child care makes a loud statement.
Looking to build your own center? Download, “Building Your One-Of-A-Kind Child Care Center: A Step-By-Step Guide.”
SIDEBAR: BUILDING CHILD CARE…AND COMMUNITIES
Child care supply wasn’t the only thing compromised by the pandemic; employee connections ebbed as well – the side effect of employees sequestered in home offices. In the new world of work, child care centers present an opportunity to rebuild those connections across the workforce, no matter where employees are working.
Such is the case at Clemson University where the onsite center serves multiple goals: competitive recruitment/retention tool for the university; early education and care for children; and community hub for employees. The School’s CHRO Alejandra (Ale) Kennedy has personally benefited from the ability to meet parents while dropping off and picking up his daughter. As it’s evolved, the center has also become a source for research and jobs for faculty, students, and graduates. “As we work to ensure Clemson is an inclusive environment,” says Ale, “having a child development center greatly aides the effort of creating a diverse and welcoming culture, which is especially impactful for prospective employees with families.”
