Few companies offer parents an invitation to bring their children to the office every day, but offering on-site childcare is actually one of the best ways to attract skilled talent.
“A lack of childcare options and rigid work schedules make it difficult for many working mothers to stay in the workforce even when they want to continue advancing their careers,” says Julia Georgules, Senior Vice President and Director of Research in JLL’s New England region. “Companies that want to attract talent should take a close look at the benefits they offer to working parents—from expanding maternity and paternity leave to providing childcare on site.”
The benefits of on-site childcare
The majority of American parents – 62 percent as of 2015 — have a hard time finding and affording high-quality child care, according to Pew Research Center. As a result, many experienced and educated women are leaving the workforce.
This is exacerbating the skilled labor shortage in the U.S., since the very women leaving are the people most qualified to fill empty roles. Right now, roughly 4.7 million women who hold bachelors or advanced degrees aren’t working, compared with only 2 million unemployed men with the same credentials, according to JLL analysis of the Current Population Survey data.
Offering childcare at the office can attract women to fill stubborn vacancies for the roles that require the most experience and education.
It also directly supports employee engagement, says Georgules. JLL’s Workplace – powered by Human Experience research found that 84 percent of employees who had access to on-site “spaces for small children” felt engaged at work, far exceeding the average engagement rate of 65 percent.
Childcare also seems to have an impact on overall employee satisfaction. Roughly one quarter of Fortune magazine’s “Best 100 Companies to Work For” offer at least one on-site daycare center. Across all companies, the average is a mere 4-8 percent.
The poster child for the emerging trend is Patagonia, which has offered affordable, on-site childcare to all corporate employees since the 1980s. The investment appears to be paying off. In 2017, a Great Place to Work survey found 96 percent of employees are proud to work at Patagonia, and 94 percent agree the company offers special and unique benefits.
So, what does a company need to do to make take-your-child-to-work-day an everyday occurrence? If they don’t wish to develop the function in-house, they have options to outsource it to workplace-oriented childcare services that manage on-site daycares, such as Bright Horizons and KinderCare Education at Work.
“It’s easier for working parents to make that early morning meeting or stay for an evening event when their children are being cared for nearby,” says Georgules. “While onsite childcare may only be feasible for large companies, it’s a smart play for owners of multi-tenant buildings who are looking to attract office tenants.”