Onsite childcare is rare in the UK. However, this could be great to help families who are facing the challenge of balancing childcare and work life. This can be an ideal solution to retain great staff, as well as help your team to balance their work and home life more efficiently. However, there are also downfalls that should be considered. If opening a crèche in your business is not possible, there are many other options you can look at.
Today was a particularly interesting encounter in that a prestigious long-term client had come to us with an HR issue. A certain member of their workforce wanted to reduce their hours in order to look after their young child. This was due to childcare costs being extremely high. As an extremely understanding employer, they were also concerned about the fact that, although reducing the employee’s outgoings, it is still making a large dent to the family income.
The Solutions
Whilst brainstorming and thinking of ways to combat this issue, we came across various suitable solutions for this such as:
* Flexible hours
* Homeworking when necessary
* Introducing childcare vouchers
*Onsite Childcare
Onsite Childcare
Not an unusual scenario so far, however, the reason this was particularly interesting is that our client had the idea of offering childcare within the workplace, more specifically a Crèche.
Whilst this is very uncommon in the UK, it is not unheard of. There are also a few constraints with implementing onsite childcare. One being the expense of doing so.
According to an article written by the guardian; “the biggest benefits for businesses are retention and recruitment. Flexibility and work-life balance are a huge deciding factor for people choosing a place to work and employees are far more likely to stay loyal to a particular organisation if they feel they are also supported in family life.”
The article claims “replacing staff because of family commitments is a huge cost to businesses, especially if it is a long-term employee who knows the company well and has built important relationships with contacts and clients.”
We would like to find out what you think! What could workplaces be doing to improve the work-life balance of working parents?. We would also like to find out what onsite childcare would mean to you.
Let us know in the comments section. You can also contact us now for more information.