What Are the Benefits of Employer-Sponsored Childcare?

What impacts can you expect by adding employer-sponsored childcare benefits? Employees are supported, employers get a happier, more productive workforce, and families get the childcare they need.

As you carefully weigh the pros and cons of any new employee benefit programs, the advantages of investing in childcare will surely start to jump off the screen. Spoiler alert: Employer-sponsored childcare is a win-win for everyone involved.

Offering childcare benefits for employees has been gaining momentum over the last several years, and has seen a heightened emphasis of late during the pandemic and “The Great Resignation.”

What do childcare benefits look like?

Employers have many options when considering offering employee childcare benefits. Choosing a flexible, affordable program is the best way to optimize utilization rates — and ultimately see the best results for your organization.

Employer-sponsored childcare that includes home daycares (also known as family childcare or in-home daycare) provides affordability for working families and their employers.

Home daycares are childcare facilities run by caregivers from their own homes. They are fully licensed by the state and typically offer more flexible schedules with earlier drop-off and later pick-up times. Plus they may have the option for evening, weekend, and overnight care.

Home daycares are also more affordable than larger daycare centers where childcare costs are often out of reach for most families.

Chat with Upwards about how childcare benefit programs can benefit you and your working families.

What are the positive impacts of employer-sponsored childcare benefits?

When contemplating the implementation of new employee benefits, it’s always helpful to get a better understanding of just what that might look like at your organization.

So what happens when employer-sponsored childcare benefits are provided to employees? There are positive ripple effects when childcare is taken off the list of concerns for your working parents.

• Employees can fully commit to their roles: No longer distracted by childcare issues, your workforce can focus 100% on the job at hand and their role in making the organization as successful as possible.
• Workers stay with their employers longer: Employees feel supported and this leads to lengthier tenures as a result.
• Working parents have happier, healthier families: Figuring out childcare is stressful and can cause long-term issues for families. With the right support to solve their childcare challenges, employees with children enjoy happier outcomes.

What happens to employers without childcare benefits?

On the other hand, let’s take a look at the ramifications for employers when these crucial childcare benefits for employees are not provided. There are several downsides to sticking with the status quo of no childcare benefits program.

Every business has a different makeup, employee population, and salary structure. Even so, there are some universal drawbacks to opting out of providing childcare benefits for employees. It can be instructive to see a baseline comparison with a sample company’s metrics.

For this example, we’ll break down an organization with 13,000 employees. The average entry-level, mid-level, and senior-level salaries are $40K, $55K, and $70K, respectively. 20% of this workforce have children. Factoring in 0.01% of workers lost annually due to childcare, this employer is losing 130 employees yearly because of childcare-related issues.

• Turnover and replacement costs: Out of the 130 employees, based on entry-level workers comprising 60% of lost personnel, 30% mid-level, and 10% senior level, the annual turnover and replacement costs due to lack of childcare total $8,105,500.00. Over 3 years, this works out to $24,316,000.00. As you can see, there are significant costs to replacing 130 employees a year, especially for such a preventable reason as lack of childcare.
• Absenteeism and presenteeism: Given an average organizational salary of $55K, 261 working days in a year, $210.73 expense per employee per day, 3 full days missed per employee due to childcare, 2,600 families among the workforce, and 7,800 missed full days across the organization, the total value of lost productivity attributable to lack of childcare is $1,643,678.16. Over 3 years, this number increases to $4,931,034.48.
• Cost of Upwards and total savings with Upwards: Based on these variables, the cost of Upwards for 1 year is $924,300.00, or $2,772,900.00 for 3 years. The total annual savings with Upwards works out to be $9,749,178.16, or $29,247,534.48 over a 3 year period. The ROI for either 1 year or 3 years is a robust 955%.

Check out our ROI calculator if you’d like to learn the unique ROI that Upwards’ employee childcare benefits programs can bring to your business.

Upwards’ childcare network benefits you and your employees

Now that you’re equipped with an understanding of what employer childcare benefits will bring to the table, it’s time to determine who can best deliver on your preferred employee benefits. Who is going to be able to match your childcare vision and provide a seamless rollout?

To fully maximize the impact of an employee childcare benefits program, you’ll need to select the right childcare network to facilitate care for your working families.

Upwards, as the largest childcare network in America and a leading provider of employee childcare benefits, can help you support your workforce while boosting your bottom line. Our network of over 60,000 small childcare providers offers high-quality, affordable childcare that works for both employees and employers.

Our Childcare Assistance program is built to help families find and access high-quality, affordable childcare. Upwards’ full and partial childcare stipends are utilized by employers to assist employees with childcare costs. We also offer emergency/backup care to support working families when the unexpected occurs and their regular childcare plans change at the last minute.

As an employer, you can customize these program offerings to create the customized childcare benefits needed for your workforce.