help build the business case for childcare
Childcare that works
for
workers
The Case for Childcare Collaborative provides resources and easy-to-navigate solutions to help every employer invest in childcare benefits for all of their workers.
We’ve been on a journey to make the business case for childcare. In 2022, we formed the Case for Childcare Collaborative because we believe the cost of childcare cannot be shouldered by families alone. Investing in childcare is an opportunity for businesses to enhance revenue and retention, while also supporting parents, caregivers, families, and the future workforce for generations to come. Interested to get in touch with us? Say hello.
We’ve set ambitious goals, help us reach them
Close the family benefits gap by 2035
Increase family benefits to cover 20% of U.S. workers by 2035
Childcare coverage falls to 8% for those in the lowest income quartile and for part-time workers
This demonstrates a childcare benefits gap, revealing those with the most opportunity to gain from these benefits are traditionally excluded from qualifying.
We envision a world in which childcare benefits cover at least 20% of all U.S. workers
Companies can boost their bottom line and enhance work life for caregivers and families by including childcare benefits for workers who are traditionally excluded from benefits packages—including frontline, hourly, part-time, gig, or contract workers.
Smart employers see childcare as a competitive edge
60% of businesses report that offering paid leave increases employee engagement, 58% say it attracts talent, and 55% say it retains employees.
Visionary employers see childcare for all workers as good business
Increasing childcare support for all workers—frontline, part-time, hourly, gig, and contract workers—serves those most in need of these benefits while also benefiting the bottom line.
Frontline workers are the bedrock of the U.S. economy
Frontline workers represent about 100 million employees, which is roughly 70% of the American workforce.
90% of companies rely on frontline workers.
Frontline workers are employed across key industries including customer service, health care, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, shipping, transportation, and more. Scroll through some of the roles on the right to explore some of the roles we’re referring to when we say, ‘frontline workers.’
Frontline Jobs
Frontline workers want to stay in their jobs and progress along a career trajectory. In fact, lack of career advancement opportunities is the second-leading motivator of attrition (41%) after lack of flexibility and work-life balance (50%), followed by insufficient pay, lack of enjoyment of current role, and lack of recognition for contributions.
50% of frontline workers are ready to quit their jobs in search of a better experience
Frontline workers most value managers who offer clear and transparent communication, recognize good work, and provide support when help is needed—and they bring those practices into their own management styles as they grow into leaders.
89% of frontline workers say they will stay with their companies if leaders will listen to their feedback.
The realities for frontline workers
"As a filmmaker and as a mother of a young child, having ongoing support financially would make all the difference in the world in terms of what I'm able to do professionally. You can't say yes to an opportunity if you don't know that your child is going to be taken care of and in good hands."
Jennica Carmona
Filmmaker
"During the pandemic, women were dropping out of our workforce at a shocking rate. Why was employee absenteeism increasing? We learned our people were calling in sick for themselves when they had a childcare issue. In their minds, there was a stigma associated with having childcare issues that they wanted to avoid."
Danelle McCusker Rees
President, Human Resources & Operational Training
UPS
"If I didn't have this resource, I wouldn't be able to be at UPS still. I was always having to call off due to my son's behavioral issues in school. I wouldn't have been able to keep a steady job with the situation I am in. Now I know three times a week that he will be covered at UPS."
SaVaughn Pembrook
Small Sort Worker
UPS
"Molly Moon's gives you a $1,000 childcare stipend, no questions asked. It's the reason why I can stay in the workforce. I have an employer that truly stands behind me through it all, whatever comes up—all these kinds of support just funnel into being able to have that peace of mind."
Min DeVaney
Manager
Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream
“I’ve seen employees have to turn down promotions and it’s one of the most devastating moments. The increase in earnings knocks them out of eligibility for public benefits, but those higher earnings don’t come close to covering the cost of childcare. This benefits cliff is really scary because it holds people down.”
Siran Cao
CEO & Co-Founder
Mirza
“Our job market is based on the fact that to make enough money to make ends meet, you need to be away from home. But to be away from home, you need childcare. My parents worked at Motorola and I remember going to onsite care at their work. Having it right there is very helpful and I would love to find a job that had that for my kids.”
Kiana
Gig Worker
“The draw for doing gig work is the flexibility. A set schedule is hard with all the different activities my kids have. It’s nearly impossible to get everything done. With gig work, I can go to a doctor’s appointment or take personal appointments. Worst case scenario, I can throw kids in the back seat while I drive for DoorDash.”
Kiana
Gig Worker
“The math wasn’t mathing to pay for daycare. It didn’t make sense, so I left the workforce. Now I’m in my stay at home mom era and it’s harder than my hardest day at work. If I had a magic wand, I would go back in time and pick a different career. Hospital-based audiology was super demanding as a parent and I was forced to leave the workforce. It’s sad to say this because I love what I do.”
Erica
Former Clinical Audiologist
“There’s no help from my employer. I’m completely independent since I’m not technically an employee. I’m completely self-employed and have to figure out my own childcare arrangements. I thought I’d have more help. I thought the system was different. But I was forced to fall back into the role of a stereotypical housewife.”
Bri
Part-time Hairdresser
“We talked with 2,000+ frontline working parents. Historically, the innovation in care benefits have excluded these parents but you can’t assume you know what they want. Employers will roll out a childcare benefit, and it will go unused. But if you talk to the parents, it’s because the benefit didn’t make sense for the need.”
Olivia Rosenthal
Co-Founder
Patch Caregiving
What the research is saying
Many care benefits are reserved for full-time, salaried workers and leave out frontline, part-time, hourly, contract, temporary, or gig workers. We’ve compiled evidence for employers as to why investing in childcare for all workers benefits everyone.
The US will lose about $290 billion in GDP a year by 2030 by failing to confront the care crisis. There are too few care workers and too many productive workers forced to leave their jobs to handle care obligations. This creates an inefficient and disorganized workforce.
$290B
Up to 86% of workers said that they were more likely to stick with their employer because of its childcare benefit.
86%
If the US enacted family-friendly policies that exist in other developed countries, such as childcare subsidies or universal pre-K, its gross domestic product would rise by almost $1 trillion over the course of a decade, thanks to the resulting boost in women’s labor force participation.
$1T
Small businesses rely on childcare to be able to continue operations and retain their workforce.
During the recent pilot program of the new back-up childcare service offered by UPS, about 80% of eligible frontline workers took advantage of the benefit. As a result, the company avoided more than 120 unplanned absences and saw a remarkable drop in employee turnover, from 31% to 4%
31%
4%
Nontraditional workers face unique challenges that can impact their ability to parent and remain in the workforce.
Frontline workers occupy 70% of US jobs, need childcare the most, and, often, have the most at stake when their arrangements fall apart. Still, more than 75% of companies don’t design their benefits to meet the needs of these workers.
75%
Employees with higher satisfaction demonstrate a 17% increase in productivity, a 25% decrease in turnover, and a 41% decrease in absenteeism.
The US will lose about $290 billion in GDP a year by 2030 by failing to confront an evolving crisis in care. There are too few care workers, and too many productive people leaving their jobs—whether they want to or not—to handle care obligations in an inefficient and disorganized marketplace. (BCG)
$290B
Up to 86% of workers said that they were more likely to stick with their employer because of its childcare benefit. [BCG]
86%
If the US enacted family-friendly policies that exist in other developed countries, such as child-care subsidies or universal pre-K, its gross domestic product would rise by almost $1 trillion over the course of a decade, thanks to the resulting boost in women’s labor force participation.
$1T
Small businesses rely on childcare to be able to continue operations and retain their workforce.
During the recent pilot program of the new daycare service offered by UPS, about 80% of eligible frontline workers took advantage of the benefit. As a result, the company avoided more than 120 unplanned absences and saw a remarkable drop in employee turnover, from 31% to 4%
31%
4%
Nontraditional workers face unique challenges that can impact their ability to parent and remain in the workforce.
“Deskless workers,” who occupy 70% of US jobs, have the greatest need for help with childcare and, often, the most at stake when their arrangements fall apart. Still, more than 75% of companies don’t design their benefits to meet the needs of deskless workers. (BCG)
70%
Employees with higher satisfaction demonstrate a 17% increase in productivity, a 25% decrease in turnover, and a 41% decrease in absenteeism.
What you can do today
We encourage HR & C-Suite leaders to take action to help us achieve a world where all workers have access to childcare benefits.
Educate
Understand the solutions that are most relevant to your company and talk with other leaders & decision-makers about how to enhance your caregiving benefits for more workers.
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Commit
Commit to assessing how your childcare benefits impact your employees and affect your bottom line. Pledge to review your benefits package once per quarter, taking small actions to grow support for more workers.
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Share this site to build the business case across your company for why including more workers in your caregiving benefits is both the right thing to do for your employees and your business.
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The Building Blocks of Care
Learning & Assessment
Tools to understand the solutions that your company needs to support caregivers
Employee Engagement & Culture
Tactics to create a celebratory care culture at your company
Direct Care Solutions
Offerings that will provide childcare to employees or make childcare options more easily accessible
Flexible Work & Leave Policies
Strategies to change workplace processes to be more inclusive for caregivers
Explore Childcare Solutions
The Case for Childcare Collaborative's guide to help every employer invest in childcare benefits for all workers. Hover and click on solutions in the diagram below to help inform your childcare plan.
Financial Support & Benefits
Internal policies and resources that provide monetary support or knowledge-sharing tools
Policy, Advocacy, & Systemic Change
Collaboration with local, state, or national governments, along with other corporations to scale support for care across the country
Explore Childcare Solutions
The Case for Childcare Collaborative's guide to help every employer invest in childcare benefits for all workers. Hover and click on solutions in the diagram below to help inform your childcare plan.
Where to start
Click through the interactive graphic to learn more about each solution, explore resources, and see case studies of companies that are implementing these benefits.
Explore solutions
Childcare solutions for every employer
Click on a solution to see details and resources.
Childcare Stories in Action
Employers
"I want to prove that a for-profit business operating in the capitalist U.S. economy can make money and do the right thing for their workers, like providing childcare benefits."
Writing a business plan for Molly Moon’s was an exercise in, can a for-profit business make money and do the right thing?
I got to open a little ice cream shop and provide free health insurance, pay living wages, buy local ingredients from farmers that I shook hands with, and really bake my values into something. And it did make money.
I want to prove that a for-profit business that operates in the United States of America that is a capitalist economy and system can do the right thing for their workers and make money.
I hope that Molly Moon’s is an example of what every company should have to do. We do all this stuff voluntarily, right? We provide free health insurance—voluntarily. We provide a huge childcare benefit—voluntarily. We match 401ks and help people build toward retirement—voluntarily. We provide a transportation benefit—voluntarily. These are all things that, in my opinion, either the government should provide or the government should require companies to provide.
If you want to learn how to ski and ride, come to Steamboat. If you want to learn how to open a childcare center, we're not pros, so we needed to rely on other people.
We come from a for-profit business where a lot of information is very proprietary, and people don't want to share their secrets to success. We find that childcare is not the same kind of sphere. People want other businesses and other people to expand childcare support, so information on how to do it successfully is widely and readily available.
We were so excited to reach out to colleagues at Patagonia, to reach out to colleagues at Winter Park, and other businesses who had opened facilities to find out what their pain points were, what their problems were, what their successes were, and be able to use those to leverage both our pitch and our proposal. Then, ultimately for us, it was being able to partner with an organization called EPIC that had a design lab and it walked us through every single step of the way.
We are in the business of skiing—if you want to learn how to ski and ride, come to Steamboat. If you want to learn about how to open a childcare center, we're not pros at that, so we needed to rely on other people who that was their area of expertise. And there were so many resources available.
Employees
As a filmmaker and as a mother of a young child, for me, having ongoing support financially would make all the difference in the world in terms of what I'm able to do professionally.
As a filmmaker and as a mother of a young child, having ongoing support financially would make all the difference in the world in terms of what I'm able to do professionally.
While parents like myself are working on professional film projects, it really opens up the door to more creativity and it opens up the door to say yes to more opportunities that are granted to us. You can't say yes to an opportunity if you don't know your child is going to be taken care of and in good hands.
It's imperative that the filmmaking industry, just like any other industry, that these kinds of services are provided. I previously worked in other fields to support myself as an artist, such as corporate America, and they often had programs that were like this that allowed workers to pursue their profession while, at the same time, be good caregivers to their children. If we could implement some kind of system in the film industry as well, it would be life-changing for so many people.
I'm really hoping that Reel Families will serve as a role model for other organizations and we’ll have this as an existing long-term solution for balancing filmmaking with being a great parent.
I work late nights and weekends. How do you find childcare on the weekend? How do you find childcare when we close at midnight?
I got pregnant at 19, I was 20 when I found out. It's really scary—being a single parent and I was entry-level.
I was like, “How do I keep my job?” Having a kid isn't the most welcoming thing. With this job, you work late nights and weekends. How do you find childcare on the weekend? How do you find childcare when we close at midnight?
I called our HR manager and I was like, “Hey, I'm pregnant, really scared. What do I do? How do I keep my job?” I remember that phone call as the scariest thing that turned into the most reassuring situation. She was just like, “Okay, sounds good. We'll figure this out for you, and you'll have a job.”
They gave me an extra three months of leave—our state leave is 12 weeks, so I was able to take six months off, paid the whole time. My son didn't have to go to childcare right away. They paid for my diapers for a year, they gave me $400 a month for groceries, and I only had to work on the weekdays.
The biggest benefit is being able to keep my job. I worked my way from a scooper to a shift leader, which is a pay increase, still not salaried. Then, I worked my way to being an assistant manager, again, pay increase, not salaried. Most recently, I became a manager, which is salaried—and it's a pretty good salary.
You hear about Molly Moon’s, and you're like, “Yeah, it's a good company, but what does that really mean?” And then you call them as a 20-year-old, pregnant with your kid, as a single parent. And having a whole place, a whole environment, be like, “Okay, we'll figure this out with you and for you.”
“I now see there are corporations that care about single motherhood. This solidifies my role & it helps me to focus on my career because I expect to be at UPS for a very long time.”
I have a seven-year-old son who has recently been diagnosed with autism & ADHD. I started at UPS in the summer of 2023. Patch—it’s an accommodation that UPS has made that provides the necessary supervision of your child while you are at work. And it’s $10, so it's very, very affordable—you can't find that anywhere outside of UPS.
They're very supportive. I love that you're able to have a child with disabilities and have their needs be met.
When you make accommodations for your workers, it not only shows that you care about their struggles, but it shows that you take pride in your people and you want them to work for you as long as possible.
It would be very beneficial if other corporations could learn from this, so they don't experience people leaving due to not being able to satisfy the requirements of their job. It boosts your morale and your want to be on time and work your hardest.
I now see there are corporations that do care about single motherhood. This solidifies my role and it helps me to focus on my career because I do expect to be at UPS for a very long time.
Benefits Cliff
The benefits cliff is one of the most painful things that single parents and low-income working families in America face today.
The benefits cliff is when a family's income will exceed the threshold to still be eligible for public assistance programs.
The cliff effect is most drastic and most painful for childcare and housing, in part because those are the highest dollar-value benefits. The cliff is one of the most painful things that single parents face, but when we're talking about the benefits cliff, we're talking about low-income working families in America.
I've unfortunately seen the benefits cliff play out in many different instances. One was having worked with an absolutely incredible single mom who was not able to take on a promotion because that jump to a supervisor would mean losing access to childcare vouchers. That is absolutely devastating. That next promotion up was a pretty small increase in pay, but it is ultimately what can unlock better economic opportunity.
Frontline Workers
When we talk about employer-supported care, we need to make sure that it's really inclusive of those who may not necessarily go to a corporate job every day.
The biggest thing that I think is important for people to understand about care and comprehensive care coverage is that the solution has to be beneficial for all workers.
When you're talking about gig workers, when you're talking about those with unconventional hours, you're talking about the fact that childcare in most states is not past 12 hours of care. There's limited overnight care. There’s limited access to care before 5 a.m. So if I'm a gig worker who may be doing a long distance run—in terms of delivery, travel or film—there's no care coverage.
When we're talking about policy, practice, and protocol that is supportive for them, it needs to ensure that they actually have access—that it's both affordable and accessible. So when we talk about employer-supported care, we need to make sure that it's inclusive of those who may not necessarily go to a corporate job every day.
Employer
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Employee
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Together we can build a business community for care
Employers and employees across the country are sharing the importance of childcare support at work. Share your story below to change the conversation on care and encourage more employers to implement childcare benefits.
In 2022, UPS implemented a pilot program for onsite emergency childcare in one Northern California facility. The company, which employs nearly 500,000 people, is expanding this childcare benefit to 8 sites in 6 states by the end of 2024.
At Etsy, employees are entitled to $4,000 in backup childcare credits each year, along with a $1,000 stipend. Etsy also provides 26 weeks of paid parental leave.
Intel is going to invest over $100M in manufacturing capabilities for 100K jobs. We need to attract and retain a workforce moving forward. We’re making enhancements – like extending the number of days for back-up programs. We’re partnering with Patch Caregiving to have a dedicated facility for 24/7 back-up care. We're focused on helping build facilities that will serve contingent workers to ensure they have access to discounted programs. We think this will help us attract the workforce of tomorrow and we can care for the future generation of innovators while we’re doing this.
Steamboat is a remote location and with the implementation of the Resort’s on-site childcare center for employees, we’ve seen a spike in people who want to move to Steamboat to work here. For employees utilizing the center, we’ve seen job satisfaction jump to 8 out of 10. We also found that 90% of parents had plans to stay with us in the next year. Absentee days went down to 13 days per year. We’re seeing recruitment and retention pay off dividends.
One of the biggest challenges in Texas is the lack of affordable child care slots because of teacher recruitment issues. That's why we started the Employers for Child Care Task Force. We look at how we can improve our child care infrastructure so that we have a system for employer partnerships.
Early Matters of Greater Austin, is a coalition of business leaders using their voice to advocate for family-friendly workplace policies and looking at the access to childcare as an economic development issue.
Accenture listened to the needs of our people by establishing a Parent ERG where we have a direct forum to get feedback on childcare programs that will be meaningful to employees.
Michigan Tri-Share is a great tool for employers. When businesses utilize it, they experience significant cost savings from retention and recruitment costs.
Guardian Life Insurance has a care ERG that all of our employees can participate in, including frontline and part-time employees. It's a really great option to hear the feedback from what people are looking for, what they need, and then we can provide support. They've also been able to advocate for some additional resources, like a caregiving coach who can help look for care options in your area that fit your needs
We support people with children through a connected system of benefits. We're a wage transparent company so you know what you're going to make. We offer paid family leave at 100% of your pay and we lobbied the state of Washington to create the paid family leave policy. Then, we're constantly communicating with our Moon crew members when they're ready for a promotion. And we have a child care benefit where we provide $1,000 per month per child up until kindergarten to everyone who works at Molly Moon's more than 20 hours a week. After kids go to kindergarten, we provide up to $4,000 per year per child until your kids turn 12.
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This research was supported by and designed with these organizations. We are grateful for their partnership. The findings and conclusions presented on this website are those of the author(s) alone, and do not necessarily reflect the sole opinions of the following organizations.
