The impact of child care benefits

Affordable, high-quality child care is tough to find. Many providers charge rates that may exceed the cost of college tuition, and parents who find a provider they trust are often placed on waiting lists for weeks or months. As a result, working parents may settle for less-than-ideal care arrangements, causing worry and stress about whether their children are in the best hands.

The challenges of child care not only impact parents but their employers as well. Today’s workforce has between 30 and 60 million working parents, but the stress and worry of managing child care are causing many of these employees to curtail their career ambitions or to leave their jobs altogether. With the average age of parenthood on the rise, many working parents are in high-level positions that are more difficult to fill and more costly to replace. The loss of these employees is a significant issue for businesses already struggling with a growing skills gap. 

Providing superior child care benefits can help employers to stem this loss of talent. Research shows many parents will choose employment with a family-friendly company over an employer offering a higher salary. Benefits like corporate daycare and back-up care for emergencies can have a meaningful impact on working families, alleviating the stress of finding and managing quality care. By supporting parents as they seek to balance the demands of their work and family lives, employers can significantly improve retention and recruitment, building a loyal workforce with the skills required to help the business compete.

Child care benefits programs from Bright Horizons

Bright Horizons has been a leading provider of child care benefits programs and other strategic solutions since 1986. Offering a broad range of workforce development programs – everything from child care benefits to college coaching and tuition reimbursement for nursing – we help employers to cultivate high-performance workforces by supporting employees at every stage of their lives and careers. 

Our onsite child care programs make child care easy for working parents. With high-quality centers at the workplace, parents enjoy convenient care with hours tailored to their schedules. On-site child care centers simplify employees’ commutes and enable them to interact with their children more easily throughout the day. 

Our development and operations teams can oversee every aspect of the design and management of on-site centers to ensure your child care program matches the culture of your workplace and fulfills employees’ needs. From initial needs analyses and utilization projections to developing curriculum and hiring staff, Bright Horizons has unparalleled expertise to maximize the return from your investment in child care benefits. 

How child care benefits support employees – and employers

Solving employee child care challenges improves life for employees, but it’s also a competitive advantage for employers. Child care benefits are proven to enhance employee performance and help employers meet talent goals. 

Bright Horizons’ child care programs can help to:

• Drive higher productivity. When parents are confident that their children are in good hands, they can be more focused and productive at work. A dependable child care program helps employees to successfully meet deadlines, concentrate in meetings, and minimize absences. 
• Retain valuable workers. A supportive workplace culture is a leading reason why employees choose to stay with a company. Access to employer-sponsored child care allows parents to be more engaged in their careers and strive for promotions. Bright Horizons also offers return to work programs for moms that help employers retain valuable female leadership. 
• Attract top talent. Workers with children or who are planning to start a family will seek out employers with superior child care benefits. Demonstrating support for working families is a powerful recruitment technique that elevates your brand above competitors and attracts talented workers at every level.

 

Minimize workplace disruptions with back-up care

Snow days, sickness, and other unpredictable events can disrupt parents’ regular care routines. These gaps in care can cause parents to miss meetings, deadlines, and workdays. Bright Horizons’ back-up care solutions help avoid these productivity losses, connecting employees to last-minute care for any emergency that may arise. Workers can count on back-up daycare when the nanny calls in sick or when placed on a waitlist for regular daycare. Our back-up solutions provide care for school-aged children during summer vacation or when schools are closed. And for workers caring for aging relatives, we offer back-up elder care with in-home and center-based options.

Highlights of Bright Horizons’ back-up care programs: 

• Nationwide coverage with more than 3,500 high-quality centers
• Hundreds of partner agencies with trained and vetted caregivers for in-home care
• 24-hour call centers and a convenient mobile and desktop platform for fast and easy connections to care