JAMIE NELSON: Hi, everyone. Welcome. I am so happy to be here today to talk about supporting working caregivers. I'm the mom of three teenagers, one that I am about to send off to college in just a couple of weeks here. And like so many of you, there have been times in my own career as we've been prepping for this webinar and I've reflected back over my own career and my 18-and-a-half years of being a parent, I have thought about [00:00:30.000] the number of times that the responsibility of being a working caregiver has taken a toll on my productivity. And I can even remember the moments where it's taken a toll on my well-being. So, like so many of the folks that work for you that experience being the caregiver of a child or maybe being the caregiver of an aging parent, you know how their journey can feel challenging. 

We're here today to talk about some of those supports and how we can help support our employees through that [00:01:00.399] and explore some of the recent research and what that's telling us about this group of employees, but more importantly, what we can do as HR leaders to really help our working caregivers feel really supported, feel productive, and ultimately feel engaged within our organizations. My name is Jamie Nelson, and I'm the group vice president of client relations here at Bright Horizons. And I'm really thrilled today to be joined by Myriah Sweeney from Toyota Motor North America and Matt Nestler from KPMG. Do you both want to just very quickly introduce yourself? 

MYRIAH SWEENEY: [00:01:30.640] Yeah, sure. Thanks, Jamie. My name is Myriah Sweeney. I'm the general manager for people and property services at Toyota. So my group manages all of our campuses across the U.S., including for things like family care. So very excited to be here. 

MATT NESTLER: Yes, thanks. Hi, I'm Matt Nestler. I'm the senior economist at KPMG. My research focuses on the labor market and in particular the care economy from child care to elder [00:02:00.200] care to paid leave and everything in between. 

JAMIE: Thank you both. We feel really lucky to have you both here with us today. Matt, you have spent so much of your time lately just really living in the data. And so I'm going to ask you in a minute to just kind of unpack that a little bit for us and sort of unpack the caregiving crisis and help us really understand what it is, and what it means, and why it's important, and really what the latest data is telling us about the impact that it's having on employees and on [00:02:30.099] businesses and even ultimately on the economy. 

And then, Myriah, actually I'm going to turn it over to you in a little bit because what I love about you is that you have done such an amazing job just leading the charge at Toyota and doubling down on how you're supporting working caregivers across all of their different life stages. So I'd love for you to share a little bit later on why you felt that that was important to do at Toyota and then maybe talk a little bit about some of the impact that you're seeing it have within your [00:03:00.219] organization. 

But we're going to start with you first, Matt. So I want you to sort of ground us a little bit in this conversation. Can you kind of help us just better understand this whole notion of care economy and what that means and why it's such a critical issue for both employees and organizations? 

MATT: Yes, for sure. So when we talk about the care economy, we're referring to that part of the economy of providing care services to individuals and communities. [00:03:30.039] And again, it's everything from child care through elder care, paid leave, and all of the relationships between those. It also entails both formal and informal. So in the formal sector of paid caregiving, think a teacher at a daycare center, and informal, it's more unpaid caregiving, like taking care of an aging relative. And from the perspective of an employer, and whether that's a large public company, a small business, a state or local [00:04:00.219] government agency, this is when we're talking about the series of programs and benefits that help employees with caregiving responsibilities be fully present as both workers and caregivers. 

JAMIE: That was great context and I think, sort of, helped us set the stage a little bit. So you know the data better than anyone else. Like I said, you have really lived in this data for a very long time. But what do you feel like it's telling us about the current [00:04:30.079] caregiving crisis? What do you feel like you're seeing from it? 

MATT: I'm seeing that there has been an existing crisis, which I'll get into very shortly, but that it really has increased in intensity in the last couple of years, especially coming out of the pandemic. And a lot of the patterns that I'm viewing are ones that are it's more stress on workers, more stress on employers, and more stress on the economy as well. And unfortunately, [00:05:00.379] my expectation is for that to continue in the short term. But of course, within that, there are a lot of opportunities, a lot of innovation happening, which I'll talk about shortly and I know that the rest of our session will cover as well. 

JAMIE: That's great. Do you want to start to dig into your slides a little bit and kind of talk us through what you've learned? 

MATT: Perfect. Yes, let's do it. So today I'll be talking about the data that we've seen. Today, I'll be talking about the care crisis, not only [00:05:30.279] child care, but also elder care, focusing a bit more on the child care angle and both the problem and solutions. I'll talk a bit more about the problems, but of course we'll also end with some of the solutions before turning it over to Myriah. And I want to start today off with a quote. So this quote comes from a New York Times article from just about 40 years ago to the day called "Child Care Finds a Champion in the [00:06:00.000] Corporation." And as you all are looking through, reading through some of these quotes, I want to read out the last one, which is that "Some executives are concerned about the cost of child care benefits, despite the evidence that the outlay for child care is more than offset by the savings from higher productivity and less turnover." That, in effect, is the business case for providing these child care benefits. Again, this is not new, [00:06:30.540] and it's really striking that the conversation about child care and the child care crisis and the business case for it has changed so little in the past 40 years. And what I'm going to be talking about today is the fact that although the crisis has existed for a while, it really has increased in intensity over the past couple of years. 

Now, one other slide here to set the context is that the U.S. is facing a real demographic challenge. So the Congressional Budget [00:07:00.120] Office recently moved up its estimate from when debts would exceed births in the U.S. from 2040 to 2033. So absent immigration, the U.S.'s population would start to decline in only eight years. And if you notice, this estimate holds immigration constant. So if immigration is reduced, that moves it up even further. Now, that matters because for economists, potential GDP, potential [00:07:30.180] growth of an economy, equals the size of the labor force times productivity or how productive those workers are. And the U.S. is facing three structural headwinds to the size of the labor force. First, low and declining birth rates. Second, the aging population that is retiring. So the baby boom generation is the largest generation ever to retire in U.S. history. And three, finally, curves to immigration. 

So what that [00:08:00.019] means is that labor markets are expected to remain tight in the years ahead, which mean talent management and acquisition programs are going to be that much more important. And that's where a lot of these child care and other caregiving benefits matter so much because they hit really both sides of that potential GDP equation. They are evidence-based ways to both boost labor force participation rates as well as productivity. And that has spillover effects, positive effects on [00:08:30.560] workers and their families, employers via productivity, turnover, and finally, more economic growth. 

So moving on now, I'm structuring my presentation today around these four trends that I'm observing, mostly around child care, though they do exist in elder care as well. And I see these as kind of a circle. They self feed, they build upon one another. And I will [00:09:00.200] also, though, be talking about elder care because it is the ticking time bomb that people are really just starting to talk about. So according to estimates by the Census Bureau, from today until 2040, the population that is 85 years or above is set to double in the U.S. And that is fantastic. People are living longer. But the systems for elder care currently set up are not ready for that, which means that there is more stress [00:09:30.159] on workers and businesses to help figure this out. And the group that is really being squeezed today and moving into the forward are those in the sandwich generation. So those with both responsibilities for their own children as well as aging parents or relatives. But even that term sandwich generation encompasses a broader range of social relations than at first it may appear. So someone recently told me that in their community, [00:10:00.460] the sandwich generation means taking care of a spouse and a grandchild. And so, you know, these are increasingly workforce problems, issues, business issues that will require investments and solutions for them. 

So I'll start off with the first one, which is, you know, thinking about this topic through an economic lens, we'll start off with the supply side. And in terms of child care, there are labor shortages. And [00:10:30.960] according to these estimates, there are around 100,000 fewer jobs compared to different trend lines. So this graph here shows the number of employees in child care services. You can see the dramatic collapse in the beginning of the pandemic where the sector lost 34% of all jobs. It then started to recover, especially after investments from the federal government in ARPA, over $50 billion, which really helped the sector recover. And you can see that [00:11:00.220] employment started to go on a separate trend that was going to overlap with the pre-pandemic trend. But then the funding ran out in late 2023. And since then, states have filled the gaps to varying degrees, which has led to that almost flatlining of supply. Now, that is a clear indication of a sector in crisis. And remember, this is the workforce that supports the workforce. Wages are very low, that increases turnover, and [00:11:30.899] curbs to immigration policy are likely to also exacerbate these labor shortages moving forward. 

And so what happens when there are labor shortages clashing with elevated demand? It is Econ 101 that results in higher prices. And that is, in fact, what we're seeing. We've heard the statistics at daycare, child care costs more than rent in all 50 states. And over the past several decades, [00:12:00.140] daycare and preschool prices have increased faster than overall inflation. But especially over the past year, prices for daycare and preschool have risen more than two times the pace of overall inflation. That means that parents, in effect, are experiencing higher inflation rates than that suggested by the headline CPI rate. And related to higher prices is also the problem of the lack of access. So according to one estimate, around 50% [00:12:30.019] of Americans live in what are known as child care deserts, where there is often little access to quality and affordable child care. 

So with supply size shortages clashing with elevated demand, resulting in outsized price increases, outpacing generalized inflation, that then feeds into number three, which is an increase in workforce disruptions. This graph here shows an indicator I constructed using Bureau of Labor Statistics data called [00:13:00.159] the Parental Work Disruption Index. It's updated monthly and it combines a few different data sets. And it takes the number of workers that are either working part time or missing work due to child care problems. And you can see from this graph that disruptions are up 22% compared to the pre-pandemic baseline. Now, each month between 1.2 million to 1.6 million workers are affected. And most of these workers are those that [00:13:30.340] the Bureau of Labor Statistics categorizes as voluntary part-time workers. But to the extent there is little access to quality and affordable child care, to what degree is it really voluntary to work part time or reduce your work hours from full time to part time because of child care problems? 

And this has this has significant impacts on business. So according to my estimates, in 2024, almost 1.5 billion work hours, [00:14:00.559] potential work hours were lost due to these workers' child care problems. That was billion with a B. And that is probably an understatement and impacts not only workers themselves and their own productivity, but also coworkers. I have two young kids in daycare. They get sick all the time. I'm sick all the time. It happens in unpredictable ways. And without the employer provided back of care, that would lead to significant [00:14:30.580] disruptions for my own and my teammates' work. But this really impacts business. And then finally, it also layers up and affects GDP growth as well. 

Now, this chart here shows the composition of the workers that are impacted from the Parental Work Disruption Index. And the main takeaway here is that vast majority are women, especially women in their prime working years. So women aged 25 [00:15:00.039] to 44 have comprised 70% of those impacted across time. Now, this is additional evidence for what is known as the child penalty or the motherhood penalty, where after a woman has a child, her career earnings and opportunities never fully recover. Now, if you squint and look at that blue portion at the top there, that is men's share. And it has increased from 6% in 2000 to [00:15:30.100] 11% last year, which is some increase, but not that much, which shows the fact that these child care disruptions are disproportionately impacting women in their prime working years. 

Now, moving on, finally, the Parental Work Disruption Index only evaluates the employed population, those that have a job or that have a position full time or part time. But if someone [00:16:00.240] left the labor force, they wouldn't be counted in the Parental Work Disruption Index, which means that if that came down, that might give a false signal that people's child care problems were getting better, which is why I've done this additional research about labor force participation rates. And there's a well-known gender difference in labor force participation rates between men and women. But if you add in the layer of age of youngest child or whether you have children, [00:16:30.639] you can see that that lowest line there, women whose youngest child is under 5 have by far the lowest labor force participation rate. Some of that is by choice, but a lot of it, especially the reduction that we can see at the end of there, that I think is not as much about choice, and that's what I'm going to be focused on right now. 

Now, I apologize for the slide. This is a very busy slide with a lot [00:17:00.039] of data on it. It shows the labor force participation rates of prime age women and men by the age of their youngest child and educational attainment. And I want to draw your attention on the left hand side for women, the two circles there. So since late 2023, you know, getting back to what I was talking about with the disruptions, increasingly, women whose youngest child is under 5, regardless of educational [00:17:30.259] attainment, so whether you have a BA or higher or no BA, are increasingly leaving the labor force. And that has reversed post-pandemic gains in labor force participation among these groups. And on the left-hand side, those top three lines for women are all women with a BA or higher. But the red one is with no children. The light blue one is youngest child age 5 to 18, [00:18:00.839] and then finally youngest child under 5. 

And you can see that for those two other groups of highly educated women, their labor force participation rates have continued to increase since late 2023, although they've stalled out a little bit the past couple of months. It's only those with young children that are declining, which means that there is something about the child care crisis that is pushing these people out of the labor force. And I think part of it is the rise in prices. They're more likely to pay out of pocket. [00:18:30.753] There are questions with access. I think shifts in return to office mandates, less remote work has forced parents to alter their child care arrangements, especially if they live further from an office. And finally, there's anecdotal evidence that unsupportive work cultures and managers are, in effect, pushing these women that are very stressed out of the labor force. 

And the last point here is on the right hand side with the men, I have [00:19:00.160] another circle there for men with a BA or higher with young children, and their labor force participation rate had started to come down as well since late 2023. But over the past few months, it's began reversing and it started to increase again, which again gets to the fact that this child care crisis is disproportionately impacting moms with young children. And that is a question then of talent. That is an identifiable group. That means that they are slipping through the cracks. They're being [00:19:30.259] pushed out. How can we identify ways to help them be productive workers as they'd ideally like to be, you know, given that increase in labor force participation coming out of the pandemic? So that is a really key question moving forward. 

Shifting slightly into elder care, we're seeing that elder care is another reason why prime age adults are not working or [00:20:00.119] are facing stress and needing to go from full-time to part-time work. There's unfortunately just not as much data about it. But in general, we are seeing the similar trend of supply side shortages clashing with elevated demand, especially given aging demographics, resulting in high price increases and more workforce disruptions. And the immigration piece is really important here as well. A large share, for example, in home health [00:20:30.220] care aides, over one-third of workers are immigrants, some of whom are undocumented or with temporary protected status, which is being rolled back by the administration. And over the past several months, I've published some research about this, there has already been a slowdown in employment growth in those sectors, which means that that's going to be further supply side stress, which will likely lead to additional price increases and [00:21:00.143] workforce disruptions because demand is not falling for elder care given those aging demographics. 

But this chart here shows data from a different survey by the federal reserve, that in the past two years, added an elder care answer choice when it asked respondents about the reasons why they weren't able to work. And you can see that over the past two years, 3% of the [00:21:30.377] prime age adult population said that they were not working because of elder care responsibilities. Now, last year that translated into 3.9 million people. So, if a half of those, even a quarter of those individuals would want to work full time to the extent they were able to, that is a pool of talent that is untapped that could be a great opportunity. And again, given the demographics, these challenges are [00:22:00.460] set to continue moving forward. We just, unfortunately, don't have as much data, but that means that from a business perspective, thinking about elder care benefits will increasingly be an essential part of any benefit strategy. 

So, after such an uplifting discussion about the patterns in child care and elder care and the workforce disruptions, I'm going to shift a little bit to some of [00:22:30.119] the business gains, some of the positives, and what you can do about this. So, this graph here, it just visually depicts what we know from the empirical research about the effects of child care benefits, paid leave, and some elder care, although as well, the research studies, there just aren't as many about elder care yet, but similar findings have been had. And so, just like "The New York Times" article from the beginning of this, these business gains, this business case is not new. There's [00:23:00.400] a lot of data supporting it. In my experience, companies of all sizes are carrying out these benefits, which is exciting. And there are a series of questions, I think, that a business can ask themselves when it comes to these. 

So, first is, do you know what caregiving responsibilities your employees have? Do you know what benefits you offer? Who is using them or less? Are there gaps between policies [00:23:30.599] that exist and targeted populations? And like all these policies, one size does not necessarily fit all. So, a frontline workforce might prefer an on-site child care. A white collar worker might seek a discount at a center-based daycare. All might benefit from backup dependent care. And so, really engaging with your employees, understanding what they want really helps with that. 

But if there's one key question to ask, it is the following, which is, [00:24:00.400] do you know how many lost work hours your business is having right now due to your employees' child care and other caregiving challenges? So, oftentimes, you know, these benefits are thought of as an almost negative value, as a cost that you need to spend. But I would like to flip the script in the framing into thinking of them as investments within the context of the fact that right now, there is a hidden [00:24:30.119] but ongoing and present cost to your business right now from your employees' child care and other caregiving challenges. That's why understanding, auditing your workforce to understand what their challenges are can really help understand the scope of the problem. And thus, when you make these sorts of investments, it will then be in relation to trying to offset some of those hidden costs and gain an edge over competitors as well. [00:25:00.079] 

So, to conclude, you know, the child care crisis is not new. It has been around for a while. It has increased in intensity and I believe is likely to in terms of those four patterns that I was discussing earlier. But there are a lot of solutions happening on the ground from companies and from state and local governments. So, there could be a whole other presentation about what's happening at the state and local level. But just a few highlights. You know, 13 states [00:25:30.160] in Washington, D.C. have mandatory paid leave programs. States are investing in universal pre-K. A state like Vermont has a payroll tax to support the child care sector that was actually supported by local businesses and the Chamber of Commerce as a way to deal with labor shortages. And remember this larger demographic context of the next few years of labor shortages, that these are going to be essential for the workforce [00:26:00.180] today and moving forward. And so, just to conclude, these benefits really are a win-win for workers and their families, employers, and the U.S. economy in general. 

JAMIE: That was great. I mean, if you love data, you would love your presentation because this is...We were really lucky to have you at our client conference, the Bright Horizons client conference a couple of months ago, Matt. And so, this is the second time I've gotten to hear this presentation. [00:26:30.500] And I feel like my jaw was still dropping at some things that you said that, like, didn't resonate the first time that I heard them. I mean, it's incredible, but I think it also just reinforces what we've been hearing, you know, as I've been going around talking to clients and what clients are saying that they're hearing from their own employees. And so, it's helpful to see the data. I am really glad that you ended on the positive side because the data can be a little scary. But like you said, there are [00:27:00.019] a lot of solutions that employers are looking at, that state and federal governments are looking at, and we'll actually talk about that a little bit later. 

But I think that the end sort of will help us shift gears a little bit to what I want to talk about next, which is solutions. Because, you know, I think you did a good job setting the stage of the caregiving crisis. There is a crisis. There's lots of data to support, you know, why it is a crisis. But I'd love to focus now on sort of the what organizations [00:27:30.579] can be doing to support their employees and really help them through this. And you highlighted accessibility as being kind of, you know, a significant factor in the caregiving crisis. At Bright Horizons, we talk to clients a lot about accessibility to care and how, like you said, so many people live in a child care desert, and it's really hard to find access to high quality, affordable child care. 

So, Myriah, I'm going to flip to you now to [00:28:00.000] just sort of, with all of that in mind, with all of that data that Matt shared and sort of what's happening very macro level, what can you tell us about the culture of Toyota that you've been able to create and, you know, the programs that you've put in place to really help your employees sort of address this whole, you know, notion of accessibility and not being able to find care, but do that kind of across the board for your team members across the country? I'd love for you to just talk [00:28:30.099] a little bit about the work that you're doing. 

MYRIAH: Sure. Thank you. From a cultural perspective, we really follow the Toyota way, which is kind of our 10 core values that guide how we work and really help to say who we are as a company. A couple of those that really apply to this conversation, act for others. So really keeping the perspective of our team members and our customers at the center of what we do. And then observing thoroughly, which is listening to our people [00:29:00.200] and trying to understand their needs. Those really come into play with this. So we've spent a lot of time talking to our team members, trying to understand what are their concerns, what things make it difficult for them to come to work or to be there on time or to be focused on their job? And consistently we hear that it's a caregiving conversation, whether it's caring for a newborn or caring for an elderly parent or somewhere in between. That's one of the biggest needs that we identified. 

And so based [00:29:30.140] on that, we started trying to create what we call a family care suite of services. It's not just about early childhood education or having a babysitter. It's about looking at, what do our team members need across the board? And so we have around 43,000 team members across the U.S. and about 60% of those do have kids or dependents that could be newborn all the way up through college age. And so we've created programs [00:30:00.019] that support all of those different areas. And then we also support elderly care, pet care, housekeeping services, things like that, just that any of our team members could take advantage of those services. So when we start talking about things, a lot of people are very excited about our child care programs. 

We do have on-site child care centers at two of our plants in Georgetown, Kentucky. [00:30:30.319] That one opened up back in 1993. So this is not new to us. We have had these centers for quite some time. TMMI, which is in Princeton, Indiana, also has a child care center that has been open since 2003. And then we have four other sites that we're in the process of opening. North Carolina should be opening up in the next few weeks. Indiana is getting an expansion. Mississippi will be opening this fall. And then we have Alabama [00:31:00.619] that just started construction this summer. And West Virginia, we just announced in July that we're going to be doing that one. So we expect it to open in 2027. So we're really excited about all of our on-site child care and those options. 

But there are other things that we have to do as well. And one of the reasons that the on-site child care centers really help is because our team members work such unique shifts and hours. [00:31:30.880] They're not what typical child care centers are open for. So they're coming in and they have to be on the line at 6 a.m. or they're working overnight. They're working overtime. They're working production Saturdays. They're doing different shift rotations where they might work day shift for one week and then future weeks they could work night shift. And so all of that movement and the unique requirements around our shifts make it difficult to use traditional [00:32:00.380] child care centers. Most of the centers are more of an 8 to 5 or 8 to 6 Monday through Friday, and that doesn't meet the needs of our providers. 

So our on-site centers are open 24/7. Anytime we're producing vehicles or units, our child care centers are open and available for team members to bring their kids in. So that includes overnight. We have overnight care where people can bring their kids in at nighttime and [00:32:30.099] if it's school age kids, we'll help them with homework and we'll make sure they have dinner, and they have time to play and do fun stuff. But then we also put them to bed and read bedtime stories and do all of that until mom and dad are able to pick them up in the morning. And so it's a very unique model. We haven't found too many like it out there. 

So in addition to the child care centers, we also do things for some of our older kids. We have summer camps [00:33:00.420] that we partner with Bright Horizons on to be able to let school age kids go on field trips or to go and do things when they're in the summer and mom and dad can't take care of them. We also have special needs care, which is for really anything that comes up with kids. A lot of times people think that it's just for physical or emotional needs, which they definitely have resources to help with that. But it's [00:33:30.339] also for things like helping kids deal with stress at school, or bullying, or time management, different things like that. 

My youngest son had dyslexia and when he was diagnosed, we didn't really know what to do with that. It was like, okay, he has it now what? And so we went to the special needs program and talked to them about, what should we be asking the school for? What resources should we be looking for? What's the best in class for how to help him handle this new diagnosis? [00:34:00.660] And then he was diagnosed with cancer later and we went back to them again and said, okay, something new. Now what? You know, do you have advice for us? Do you have suggestions? Are there others ideas for how to help him to navigate through these diagnoses? And that was huge for us. So that's special needs care. And that's for any ages, any ages of kids. 

We also have college coach, which is for [00:34:30.360] kids that want to go to college and are excited about trying to figure out the process. But maybe mom and dad are a little overwhelmed by the idea of paying for college or not sure how to get your kids into college. You can meet with a professional. They have folks on the line that were admissions specialists and they can help you with your application. They work with kids on what classes they should be taking to best prepare them. What kind of activities [00:35:00.074] they should be doing. You know, it reinforces that they should be doing volunteer work, or being involved in a club, or a sport, or something like that to help with their applications. They help you with how to figure out how to pay for things. And then when it comes time for the actual application, they'll even proofread essays or do things like that to really give your kid the best possible chance to get into the school of their choice. 

My son, my older son, was a little bit stubborn and I kept telling him that he needed more foreign languages, but he didn't want to listen to Mom. We met with one of the specialists [00:35:30.059] and they actually convinced him to take a third year of Spanish. And I was like, "Wait, I told you the same thing." Like, "Yeah, but Mom, she knows what she's talking about." I'm like, [crosstalk 00:35:46.578]. 

JAMIE: We tell parents that all the time, by the way, that sometimes it's just that other person telling them the same thing that you've been telling them. 

MYRIAH: He just needed somebody else to reinforce it, I guess. And so [00:36:00.122] that's our college coach program. Both of those are free to team members. We have a lot of folks using that, which we're really excited about. We also have the the caregiver marketplace is what we call it, where they can go to find other resources if they want to have a nanny. Maybe they don't know what questions they should be asking, or where they can find nannies, or how much should they be paying, or things like that. So they can ask questions in there. There's [00:36:30.241] resources where they know they can click on to find good sources. They can find babysitters and have background checks, or if they need somebody to drive their kid to practice, they can get a motor vehicle records check and make sure that the person that is gonna take their kid is a good driver. 

They can find somebody to sit with their elderly family members, a companion type person to come in and sit with them. And then also lots of learning support in terms of tutoring [00:37:00.029] or different things like that. So that's in the caregiver suite. And then we also have emergency backup care, which is one of our newest services. We started that in 2021 and it has been hugely popular within all of our Toyota sites. So we give our team members 15 days of emergency backup care. And so what that means is if something happens maybe up in the North, it's a snow day, maybe the water main breaks, maybe it's a holiday that you don't have off work [00:37:30.784] but your kids have off school, or it's a gap between when summer camp starts or something like that, you can go and use a day of emergency backup care and you can either take your kids to a center, you can have somebody come to your home to care for them, there's different options. And Toyota covers the cost for the majority of that. There's just [inaudible 00:37:54.338] for team members to pay, but Toyota covers the majority of it. 

And then [00:38:00.549] if you don't need it for child care, you can also turn it in for tutoring support, you can turn it in for credit to use on rover.com or wag.com for pet care. You can have somebody come in to spend time with an elderly family member. So maybe somebody had surgery and you would have to take a day off work, now you don't have to take the time off work because you can have somebody come and sit with them [00:38:30.512] on your behalf. So a very, very popular program. So many people have commented on how amazing it is that they have emergency backup care and they get four hours of tutoring support. So if you don't know calculus or physics or one of those advanced classes, you don't know the work to be able to help your kid, you now have the resources to be able to give them that support that they need to be successful in school. So that one has been hugely popular as well. [00:39:00.769] 

JAMIE: I love how robust your programs are. And it was just like even listening to you talk, I felt like I was on this, like, trip down memory lane of how Bright Horizons has evolved, you know, over the last 10 years because...or the last 40 years we've been around, but really brought new things to help our clients support their employees over the last 5 or 10 years. So it's been great to see Toyota really embrace those things and find ways for them to be able to, you know, impact their employees. So it's been great to see Toyota really embrace those things and find ways for them to be able to, you know, [00:39:30.099] impact their employees. 

You mentioned elder care, like at the very beginning, and Matt talked about how, you know, elder care is just as important as child care kind of in this whole thing. Bright Horizons has been thinking a lot about sort of how we can reimagine our own senior care supports to help our own clients, you know, support their employees in deeper ways around elder care. Elder care is part of your backup [00:40:00.094] care program today. Is that something that you feel like you see, sort of, continuing to grow and the need continuing to grow within your own population, especially as you look out at your own demographics? 

MYRIAH: We do see a lot of it. You know, just personally looking around the team, our team right now, I have several people on my team that have parents that are in failing health or are needing a little bit of extra help. They're having to take time and go and take them to doctors' offices or [00:40:30.458] help them out with running to get medications or doing different things like that. So just anecdotally within our own team, we're seeing a lot of that. 

JAMIE: Yeah. Yes, caregiving isn't just for children. But I think a lot of times everyone thinks...when they hear the word caregiving, they automatically think child care. But as you just mentioned, family care is about so much more than just really awesome child care benefits. And Toyota's done such a great job of making sure that everything that you're offering, your [00:41:00.445] team members can see themselves reflected in that. You talked about personalization and how that's important. It sounds like that's a very critical part of how you've thought about bringing all these things to life at Toyota. As you think about, sort of, the impact on your employees, are you measuring kind of how they're being received by your team members and what people are saying about them? 

MYRIAH: You'll see, we've done some surveys of team members that are using the child care centers, [00:41:30.719] 93% of the users are saying that the hours of operation really sets us apart from the other centers. It really makes it possible for them to be at work. Seventy-two percent of the users are saying the center has a major impact on their ability to work full time. And then 86% are saying it has an impact on their decision to stay with Toyota. So we really see from the users and the people that are there, it makes a difference for them, it makes it possible for them to come to work [00:42:00.489] and to be there and be ready to work and focus on what they need to be doing on the line or wherever they work in Toyota. 

JAMIE: Yeah. And just a plug for your 24/7 child care centers, I mean it's hard to imagine what being inside a child care center open around the clock like that really looks like, but it's a pretty amazing kind of experience to walk into a classroom at 4 in the morning and see children playing in the water table, you know, because they stay on the same schedule that [00:42:30.373] their working parent is. So it's incredible, Myriah, what you have done for your employees and how you've gone deep where you need to go deep and you've provided all this equity through all these other benefits and that everybody across the country has access to something. So, really well done. 

MYRIAH: Thank you. yeah, I think we can't build a child care center for every...We have 120 sites across the U.S. We can't build a center at every single one of those. Some of those [00:43:00.042] sites might only have 10 people on them. But what we do try to do is provide discounts, we provide priority access to centers in their area, or different things like that as well to try to help all of our team members. 

JAMIE: Yeah, that's great. So before we wrap up, there is a QR code I think that we're going to flash on the screen right now. And that is going to give folks access to all the amazing data and research that Matt shared. We threw some other research in [00:43:30.039] there so that you have access to some great resources about some of the things that we talked about today. But before we let everybody go, I would love for you both to just maybe share some parting words of wisdom, some advice for those folks out there that are listening to you talk, maybe thinking to themselves, there's things that I want to do that I can't get approval for, or there's things I'd love to expand that I just can't get my leadership to get on board with. So as you think [00:44:00.000] about advice that you have for others, is there anything that you would share to maybe get executive leadership or senior leadership to kind of buy in to these kinds of things? Myriah, maybe we start with you first? 

MYRIAH: Yeah, I think there's two ways to look at it. You can look at the financial perspective. And like Matt said earlier, you can always make the case. We look at it and we say, how much does it cost if we lose a team member or to rehire a team member that leaves? [00:44:30.119] And then we calculate that in and you can absolutely make the case financially for the value that a child care center brings. But then you also need to look at it in terms of what does it do for your community and what's the right thing to do as a company? You know, we see it as these are our family members. And so being part of this, right, a family means we want to take care of everybody that we can. And what we love to see and what I remind [00:45:00.360] our executives when we're talking about child care centers is these kids actually grow up and they come to work in our plants. We have so many different generations of people, kids that started in our child care centers when they were little babies, and now they're working on our line or working as executives or doing different things. And it really makes a difference for people's lives. And that's what we're about. And so I think you gotta kind of balance both sides of the message and both sides [00:45:30.159] of the story. 

JAMIE: That's a really good point. And you have a great story from one of your team members. It was a child in a child care center who then used college coach. So like to see the evolution and see your benefits follow these people, these families through, you know, their own journey of raising families and, like you said, become Toyota team members themselves. It's a pretty cool story. You know, people talk a lot about cost. Cost is a major factor in doing benefits [00:46:00.119] like this. And like we talked about, Matt, you talked about state funding and federal funding. And there was a very, very recent development that came out of the Big Beautiful Bill Act related to a federal tax credit for employers who step into this. For quite a while there has been a $150,000 federal tax credit for employers who, you know, build or operate a child care center for their employees or offer [00:46:30.559] child care or resource and referral through a third party. 

But through the recent passage of the Big Beautiful Bill Act, that federal tax credit increased from $150,000 to $500,000 in 2026. So, you know, hopefully that will be more incentive for employers to kind of step into this or do more than maybe what they're doing today. So I encourage you to talk to your tax folks, see if you're eligible for that credit, [00:47:00.019] because it is more financial incentive than existed before. So that's happening in 2026. So, Matt, okay, back to the original question, over to you. Any any parting words of advice that you'd have for folks? 

MATT: Yeah, I mean, I think as you mentioned, that 45F from the reconciliation bill, that definitely helps. There's also 45S in terms of extending a tax credit for paid leave as well. And that that definitely [00:47:30.019] will make a difference. The last thing, you know, what I was talking about earlier about changing that frame, think about the fact that there is, it may be hidden, but an ongoing and present cost to your workforce from your employees' child care and other caregiving challenges. You know, there are really ways to help mitigate that in addition to making financial investments. So there are ways to change culture that you can do very [00:48:00.099] immediately, encouraging leaders to talk about their own caregiving challenges to help destigmatize the topic, helping train managers about how to manage their direct reports who are caregivers, and finally, with some employee resource groups as well. These are all immediate things that can be done that can help alter that culture of caregiving that can really help make that workplace amenable to caregivers who want to be [00:48:30.099] fully present as both workers and caregivers. 

JAMIE: That's great. Well, thank you both so much. Your expertise was amazing. Myriah, love the stories. Matt, love the data. And just thank you both so much. And really thank you to all of you out there for taking time to join us today and we will see you next time. Thank you.