Dive Brief:
- Employers with childcare initiatives have lower collective turnover among female employees, according to new research paper by Matthew M. Piszczek at Wayne State University.
- Research results also showed that higher turnover rates among women increase the likelihood that organizations will adopt childcare programs. Piszczek's paper, "Reciprocal Relationships Between Workplace Childcare Initiatives and Collective Turnover Rates of Men and Women," was published in the Journal of Management and focused on the relationship between organizational childcare initiatives and collective turnover of women and men in German organizations across industries between 2002 and 2012.
- Piszczek defined organizational childcare initiatives as "practices designed to mitigate the financial, temporal, or emotional demands associated with being a child caregiver." He added that initiatives can be in the form of low-cost or free on-site childcare, referrals to childcare services, and subsidies for third-party childcare givers.
Dive Insight:
The Caring Company reported earlier this year that employers underestimate the extent to which caregiving in all its forms affects employees. For many working people, caregiving duties requires them to put their careers or professional development goals on hold or leave the workforce for long periods of time. Caregiving needs may cost individuals large amounts of time and money, too. Caregiving initiatives, as Piszczek called them, can make invaluable benefits for employees and enticing recruitment and retention tools for employers.
It follows that some household names have introduced childcare benefits. Target expanded its paid parental leave policy from two weeks to include up to four weeks of paid time off for employees to care for a newborn or sick family member. And last year, Starbucks introduced Care@Work, a partnership with Care.com that provides subsidized back-up care days for those who need care for children, adults and senior family members when normal care isn't available.
Working mothers at Amazon showed the importance of childcare by calling on the tech giant to provide backup daycare benefits in March. The 1,800 mothers contended that the lack of backup daycare blocked women's career advancement. Amazon said in a previous statement that it it offers memberships to and discounts for childcare services, along with "flexible parental leave and health benefits starting on the first day of work."
