Dive Brief:

• Qualtrics will soon offer on-site child care with STEM programming at its Provo, Utah, headquarters, the company announced Nov. 21.
• The offering is part of a larger expansion that will see the worksite double in size and add 1,000 tech jobs.
• "Cloud Village" will accommodate 250 children and offer an age-appropriate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. "Emerging technology used at the daycare will transform the way teachers develop learning paths for each child," Qualtrics said in a media release.

Dive Insight:

When employers tackle office redesigns, they're increasingly considering employee engagement in those plans. "We're beginning to talk more about people and human performance and behavior, and how you can actually change someone's behavior by their environment, which is why HR is getting involved in a lot of this," Ada M. Tremonte, associate director of Drexel University's Interior Design Program, previously told HR Dive.​ Qualtrics' on-site child care fits this bill.

The same goes for redesigns of recruiting and retention initiatives; employers are coping with a tight talent market by finding ways to allow new parents to bring their newborns to work.

But beyond solving for engagement and retention, Qualtrics' child care programming gets at two more employer problems: STEM's skill and gender gaps. Employers have realized they have a role to play in shaping the future of the workforce, and they're forming talent pipelines earlier and earlier. IBM, for example, launched its own high school in New York. Likewise, employers are hoping that an introduction to STEM at an earlier age can help close the field's gender gap.