Early Childhood Programs and Practices: Employer-Based Child Care Benefits

This practice encompasses workplace policies and programs designed to support employees with their early care and education (ECE) needs. These benefits are offered by employers to foster a family-friendly workplace culture and supportive working conditions that allow employees to balance their work responsibilities with their family obligationsⁱ.  They help to recruit and retain talent, increase employee productivity and moraleⁱⁱ, foster upward mobility within the organization, and maximize the employer’s training and development investment in employeesⁱⁱⁱ.  Common employer-based child care benefits include:

• Subsidized Child Care: financial assistance or subsidies^iv to help employees cover the costs of childcare, such as discounts on childcare fees, reimbursement for childcare expenses, or contributions to dependent care flexible spending accounts (FSAs).

• On-Site Childcare Facilities: ECE facilities or services located within or near the workplace^v, allowing employees to drop off and pick up their children before and after work.

• Flexible Work Arrangements: flexible work arrangements^vi to help employees manage their childcare responsibilities more effectively while meeting job requirements.  

• Backup Childcare Services: backup or emergency care assistance^vii when regular childcare arrangements fall through unexpectedly through backup childcare centers, in-home care providers, or subsidies for temporary childcare arrangements.

• Parental Leave Policies: allow employees to take time off from work to care for a newborn or newly adopted child through paid or unpaid leave, job protection, and flexibility in scheduling return-to-work arrangements^viii.

• Childcare Resource and Referral Services^ix: help employees find quality childcare options through information, guidance, and support to parents in selecting and evaluating childcare providers.

• Educational Assistance Programs: provide financial support or scholarships for employees' children to help offset the cost of attending ECE programs^x.

• Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)^xi: counseling, support, and resources to help employees manage stress, work-life balance, and family-related issues, including childcare concerns.

Resources Required

Collaboration between private and public sectors, and governmental and non-governmental entities that foster such collaboration, are key to ensuring employers understand the win-win results created by family-friendly, and specifically childcare-friendly policies and practices. Involving organizational leadership, particularly human resource managers, is beneficial in creating synergy around access to quality early care and education for current and prospective employees. Local organizational assets such as the Chamber of Commerce and small business development organizations are instrumental in educating government, business and industry, and parents of young children, as well as the larger community, to influence local and state policies and investments.

This Program/Activity Supports These Strategies

• Public-Private Partnerships

See it in Action

• Employee Child Care Assistance Partnership (ECCAP)
• University of Louisville Early Learning Campus
• Bright Horizons/ Toyota Child Development Center
• NKY Works/Grow NKY
• US Chamber of Commerce Foundation Child Care Roadmap for Employers
• Bright Horizons Back Up Care
• Corporate Care Solutions: National Back Up Care