Last December, Baxter Healthcare executive Fred Ruda and his wife, Sara Dioguardi, an information systems consultant, were squeezed into a most uncomfortable child-care predicament.
Their babysitter was pregnant and leaving as of a certain date; their new sitter could not start until two weeks after that; and the arrangements they made for an interim nanny fell through.
“At the 11th hour, we were stuck,” recalled Ruda, area operations director for national accounts in the renal division of Deerfield-based Baxter Healthcare Corp.
“My wife was on an important consulting project in New Jersey and I’d have had to stay home” to care for son Evan, who is almost 3, he said. “I was facing the prospect of being out of the office for two weeks.”
As it turns out, Ruda and his wife, director of systems integration for Blackwell Consulting Services in Chicago, solved their problem by trying out Baxter’s new backup child- and elder-care program, which helps employees locate and hire interim caregivers when regular sitting arrangements fall apart, when a child is mildly ill, when schools close unexpectedly, or when an employee has unanticipated business travel. Baxter picks up 75 percent of the tab.
In rolling out the pilot program last fall, Baxter joined a small but growing number of blue-chip companies that are taking child- and elder-care assistance a rung higher by offering programs for emergency or backup care. It did so after determining that on any given day, 8 of every 1,000 employees were absent due to child-care needs.
With increasing numbers of families headed by two working parents or a single parent, the need for backup care has become more acute, particularly because traditional avenues of support appear to be dwindling in the nation’s mobile society. Grandparents may live out of state and neighbors may be strangers.
As well, corporations’ efforts to thin their ranks through layoffs and their increasing emphasis on teamwork means each individual absence is more keenly felt, noted Judith Presser, a manager in the Boston headquarters of WFD, a human resources consulting firm.
“There are fewer people to do the job,” she said.
Backup programs were identified as an emerging trend in two separate, nationwide surveys of major employers by consultants Hewitt Associates and William M. Mercer Inc.
In Mercer’s 1996 survey, 13 percent of all responding firms offered backup assistance, while another 11 percent were developing it or considering doing so. Hewitt’s 1996 survey found 13 percent of employers with child-care assistance also were offering backup help, up from less than 5 percent in 1990.
“For employers that already have a range of family-friendly benefits, this is another way to meet employee needs,” said Marie Lipari, a work/life consultant in Hewitt’s Lincolnshire headquarters.
“But it is being done from a business perspective,” she said, the idea being that an employee who has solid backup child care will be comfortable enough to come to work and function effectively.
“We don’t want a person standing in front of a group, presenting, while in their mind, they’re thinking, `God, I hope everything is all right at home,’ ” said Marilyn Timbers, the Life Cycle Program manager for Xerox Corp., which began contracting for emergency child-care services for its 2,000 Chicago-area employees a year ago.
Baxter and Xerox are among 16 local employers that are part of the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care, a nationwide coalition that intends to invest $100 million in child- and elder-care programs over the next five years.
In the Chicago area, beefing up backup-care alternatives is a major priority, according to Laureen Lamb, a consultant for WFD (formerly called Work/Family Directions Inc.), which manages the coalition’s initiatives. Local employers in the collaboration have spent $350,000 on backup care since June of 1995, with $175,000 of that spent within the past year.
While some efforts–such as programs to provide care during school vacations and holidays–have been around for several years, the latest initiatives have been “much more aggressive and have had more components,” she said.
The in-home backup program offered by Baxter and Xerox, among others, is one option for companies within the collaboration. The two companies report the costs are low relative to other benefit programs.
Baxter, for example, contracts with Relief Medical Services Inc. of Chicago to provide nurse’s aides for in-home care. The rates range from $11.90 an hour for one child to $15.90 for two or more children. Baxter pays 75 percent of the rate, and employees pay the remaining $3 to $4 an hour.
Since launching the program in August on a trial basis, Baxter has paid for 332 hours of care, for an estimated cost of $3,500. Administrators estimate the company recouped $4,300 worth of work in that period.
“Even if we get to $2,000 a month (in costs), I don’t think that will be a problem when you think of what we get back,” said Alice Campbell, director of work and life programs for Baxter.
Another program identifies home-based child-care providers who can handle additional children in the event of emergency school closings, and trains those providers on how to work with school-age children. There is also a phone line that offers referrals for backup care.
Another approach, taken by companies within the collaboration as well as those acting on their own, involves making provisions for on-site child-care centers to offer backup as well as regular care. Allstate Corp. soon will be doing that at its Northbrook headquarters.
Some firms also reimburse employees for additional child-care costs incurred because of business travel. In addition, some contract for backup slots at day-care centers, as 28 prominent Chicago firms have done with Children First Inc., a Boston-based firm that runs a backup child-care facility in the West Loop. Such programs generally assist in cases when regular care falls through, but they do not care for mildly ill children.
The staff at the Children First center, an imaginatively designed, well-equipped, well-secured facility with plenty of natural light, all have degrees in early childhood education. The ratios of staff to children are kept low, never exceeding 1-to-1 for infants or 1-to-5 for preschoolers.
The staff uses a thematic curriculum that focuses on a different topic each month, said Angela Sotos, Midwest regional marketing manager. In one month, for example, the theme might be dinosaurs, with older kids making papier-mache bones and younger ones embarking on an “archeological dig” at the sand table.
“We want the kids to be challenged, to be learning and to have fun,” said Sotos.
The biggest, and toughest, decision an employer must make when weighing backup care programs is whether to share their employees’ costs. Without an employer subsidy, the programs are unlikely to attract many working parents.
“If an employee faces paying $15 an hour for backup care, the choice is simple,” said Lamb, of WFD. “They either work at home or they do not work at all.”
Employers who participate in these programs stress no one expects parents to come to work when a child or parent is really ill.
“But if you’re comfortable being in the office, then we want to make it happen for you,” said Campbell, Baxter’s director of work and life programs.
As might be expected, many parents are hesitant, at least initially, about leaving their children with temporary caretakers, whether in their own homes or at a center. Yet a number of parents who have tested out programs offered through their companies are reporting happy results.
Coopers & Lybrand LLP in Chicago contracts with Children First for a backup slot at its center, and employee Debbie Lipski, who coordinates the program, said many parents initially resist the idea of dragging their kids downtown to a new center.
“But when they try it,” she said, “it becomes quite an adventure for the children. And it’s really secure–the windows are frosted and there’s no signage.”
She has used the center for her own daughters, Jessica, 7, and Jennifer, 4, and calls it “the most fabulous place.
“My children prefer it to school,” she said. “They’re very bashful, I might add, but the instructors are very good with kids.”
For Baxter executive Ruda, the litmus test for the backup in-home care was his son Evan’s reaction at the end of the day when his temporary caretaker prepared to leave.
“He was sad to see her go,” he recalled, “so I know we had a good situation going.”
