I keep running across blog posts and articles touting the need for more companies to embrace the idea of offering on-site childcare. They catch my eye because I think companies with this benefit will really draw employees to the company, increase retention, and for the mothers who take maternity leave, it just might encourage them to come back to work earlier than they otherwise would have.
Several of these articles discuss the increased productivity employers will gain from their employees who know their children are well cared for and nearby. It reduces tardiness and the need for employees to leave work early significantly, due to drop-off and pick-up, respectively; It eliminates the need for employees to make an extra pit-stop twice a day to and from work, sometimes more if you need to stop by mid-day for administrating medication, or to nurse a young infant, or to simply enjoy lunch with your child.
A couple of days ago, I caught a discussion on the local radio talk show which focused on a controversial piece of data that for women there was, in fact, a signficant decrease of productivity. It is with men that a significant increase in productivity was observed. Their claim was that women had a hard time focusing on their tasks at work because their minds constantly wandered to their kids; they were constantly reminded of their kids and therefore what predominantly occupied their minds are all their motherly duties, which are mostly care-based - being with your child, feeding, holding, playing, etc. Whereas the men, when constantly reminded of their kids, recalled their fatherly duties, which include understanding the significance of why they're at work, making money to support their family!
I don't agree with this data and I believe that on-site childcare - this is different than being allowed to take your child to work, of which I agree would decrease productivity for everyone in the vicinity! - especially GOOD on-site childcare, would alleviate a lot of stress for many parents.
Companies, as they strive to instill a culture of diversity and better work-life balance, are starting to give employees more flexible hours to take care of family business such as daycare/school and many negotiate significant discounts with nearby childcare facilities. Not a terribly shabby start, but....
An interesting note from the company's perspective is that consider an average childcare facility which accommodates less than 100 kids from ages 6 weeks to age 5. Very large companies and organizations are the ones who can afford to provide a on-site facility and most have so many employees that only a very small percentage of them with kids ages 6 weeks to age 5 are actually able to take advantage of this benefit. So, is it really a fair and cost-effective benefit for the company to offer?
Anyway, it just gets me thinking that creating a business model for a daycare franchise that's employee-sponsored - such as the Bright Horizons chain employed by the Department of Energy - and targeting companies which may not necessarily make it on the Fortune 500 list wouldn't be a bad idea.
Yeah, if only I had the guts to pursue something like that....
Several of these articles discuss the increased productivity employers will gain from their employees who know their children are well cared for and nearby. It reduces tardiness and the need for employees to leave work early significantly, due to drop-off and pick-up, respectively; It eliminates the need for employees to make an extra pit-stop twice a day to and from work, sometimes more if you need to stop by mid-day for administrating medication, or to nurse a young infant, or to simply enjoy lunch with your child.
A couple of days ago, I caught a discussion on the local radio talk show which focused on a controversial piece of data that for women there was, in fact, a signficant decrease of productivity. It is with men that a significant increase in productivity was observed. Their claim was that women had a hard time focusing on their tasks at work because their minds constantly wandered to their kids; they were constantly reminded of their kids and therefore what predominantly occupied their minds are all their motherly duties, which are mostly care-based - being with your child, feeding, holding, playing, etc. Whereas the men, when constantly reminded of their kids, recalled their fatherly duties, which include understanding the significance of why they're at work, making money to support their family!
I don't agree with this data and I believe that on-site childcare - this is different than being allowed to take your child to work, of which I agree would decrease productivity for everyone in the vicinity! - especially GOOD on-site childcare, would alleviate a lot of stress for many parents.
Companies, as they strive to instill a culture of diversity and better work-life balance, are starting to give employees more flexible hours to take care of family business such as daycare/school and many negotiate significant discounts with nearby childcare facilities. Not a terribly shabby start, but....
An interesting note from the company's perspective is that consider an average childcare facility which accommodates less than 100 kids from ages 6 weeks to age 5. Very large companies and organizations are the ones who can afford to provide a on-site facility and most have so many employees that only a very small percentage of them with kids ages 6 weeks to age 5 are actually able to take advantage of this benefit. So, is it really a fair and cost-effective benefit for the company to offer?
Anyway, it just gets me thinking that creating a business model for a daycare franchise that's employee-sponsored - such as the Bright Horizons chain employed by the Department of Energy - and targeting companies which may not necessarily make it on the Fortune 500 list wouldn't be a bad idea.
Yeah, if only I had the guts to pursue something like that....
Comments (2)
I'll throw in one more reason for employee-sponsored daycare:
For one kid, it obviously makes financial sense to work and pay for daycare. For two kids, the math starts to become fuzzy. By the third kid, it makes more financial sense to quit and stay home with the kid than to pay for three children in daycare.
This is bad for companies in two ways. First, people quit, so that's an immediate hit. Secondly, the people quitting may have the potential to become great leaders. Studies have shown that women are better managers in many ways. So their quitting is hurting not only their career potential but also the pipeline of future leadership talent for the company.
Of course, I'll also toss in this proposition: if a city/county/state wants to attract high-caliber companies (and the taxes of those higher-caliber employees), then the city/county/state could pitch in to help those companies setup either 1) on-site daycare for big companies, or 2) help smaller companies in denser areas combine to act like a bigger company and get a within-walking-distance daycare package for their employees.
Just some thoughts... ;-)
One quick point on the data about male/female productivity impacts:
I won't disagree with the data but I can dice-n-slice through the conclusions that the radio show was promoting as implicit in the data... but!
Averages aren't destiny. I hope we are good enough of a society to judge each person individually and not by lumping them with all others "like them". That's stupid.
I'll look for the data. I'd like to know how they "measured" and categorized each person's "sense of ___ duty". But, on the face of it, data is data. I would debate conclusions, but not data (until I know more about the collection methods) ;-)