More and more companies are recognizing that providing benefits such as workplace child care centers are beneficial to the company because of increased productivity and decreased absence.
Often parents returning to the workplace are unable to, or find extremely difficult to find quality childcare, causing lowered productivity at work. Employee job satisfaction is also affected. Some parents consistently arrive at work late and leave early in order to drop-off and pick-up their children at day-care centers. Others are becoming even less dependable because they are forced to take days off to stay at home with their children when the day-care centres are closed.
As frustrating as this predicament is for the employer it is even more stressful for the employee. The parent forced to take days off because their children’s day-cares are on a different schedule than that of their company is very exasperating . Arriving and leaving work at irregular hours poses a threat to their job security and lowers possibilities for promotions and bonuses.
Having an on-site childcare centre offers a favourable corporate solution. All employees with children will have a dependable guaranteed spot in the facility. The childcare centre should ideally be located within or close by the company’s premises to ensure convenient drop-off and collection of kids.
Childcare in the workplace is obviously very appealing to parents with jobs. Firstly, the time travelled between work and the child-care centre is greatly reduced. The parent can bring his or her child to work and drop them off on the way to their office. This has more than one advantage. It cuts down on potential delays that may occur during travel to the day-care. In addition, this decreases daily distractions.
An employee can continue his or her work without having to leave the office to drop off or pick up his or her children. Through minimising distractions, the worker becomes more efficient and reliable. While at work the parent can be at ease knowing that their children are nearby. If an emergency involving the child occurs, the employee can quickly get to his or her child. If they need to be taken to a medical centre, the parent is able to get them there faster because they don’t have to travel to the day-care centre first.
An in-house day-care is also a big advantage for mothers who are currently breastfeeding. They can still attend to their infant at work. Instead of taking an extensive maternity leave, mothers can return to their jobs sooner.
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 a recent American survey parents were asked how important workplace child care was for them. 93% said it was very important. 25% of people said they turned down management opportunities because they valued their current workplace child care. 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 superior standard of child care that made them choose to work for that company.
For working women in a senior executive position in their company, studies found that 65% of them accepted promotion offers and stayed with the company because of the workplace child care program.
Our firm belief is 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 – as we can certify.
For more information please contact our Business Director, Mr. Peter Jones.