Are child care assistance programs a crucial investment?

• Author: O'Neill, Kathryn G.

Are child care assistance programs a crucial investment? The American labor force is experiencing a metamorphosis. With more and more women at work, we feel pressures that didn't exist in a predominantly male workforce. In 1940, for instance, only 8.6 percent of all women with children worked. Today, that figure is 62.8 percent, and by the year 2000 it is expected to rise to approximately 75 percent. Whether from single-parent or dual-career families, 10 million children under the age of six have parents who currently work.

Finding affordable, quality child care for employees' children is a major problem that impacts every company. Parents must pay for child care in order to work. The cost for one preschool-aged child averages one-fifth of the gross income for working families and one-third of the gross income for low-income families. And unresolved child care issues "spill over" to negatively affect the attitude and productivity of all employees.

That's why some leading organizations, like Hoffmann-La Roche and the General Services Administration (GSA), are launching comprehensive child care assistance programs that they feel are an investment in human capital. They're raising the stakes for personnel recruitment at a time when the nation is anticipating a shrinking growth rate in the labor pool by the early 1990s. These companies believe progressive personnel programs such as child care assistance will give them a cost-effective edge and ultimately improve their bottom line profits.

Should your firm

help with child care?

People often think on-site child care is the only option for employer assistance. But a company exploring ways to help with child care shouldn't respond hastily by investing large dollar amounts in child care facilities.

You have to evaluate your need for child care, then determine the depth and the scope that you require. In this way, you can design a child care plan that uses the corporation's resources efficiently and yields the most benefits.

First, consider the child care options currently available during worwork hours to single-parent and dual-career households, such as hiring nannies and using day care homes or licensed child care centers. After identifying these alternatives, consider the child care assistance options that fit your firm's goals and are in line with the company resources allocated for the project. The choices probably are broader than you imagined. Here's what you can do:

* Establish an information and referral service--An information and referral service for child care provides the employee with a listing of licensed offsite child care facilities in the area. You can make available a description of the hours, fees, type of program, and number of current openings for each child care facility listed. The employee then chooses the child care facility that best meets his or her need.

* Offer counseling and parenting seminars--Help employees ease the stress of balancing work and family by offering counseling or parenting seminars. Sessions can be scheduled for breakfast, lunch, or after hours, and cover such topics as the selection and evaluation of child care services, agencies that provide child care for children with special needs, and age-appropriate behavior and disciplining methods.

* Provide support of existing programs--Support the existing child care programs through contributions of money, space, and/or inkind services, or by funding or underwriting a loan to local child care facilities or local child care planning and advocacy groups that cultivate the development of additional community child care...