Finding good quality, affordable childcare can be one of the biggest challenges facing parents, but employers could be doing a lot more to lessen the hassle and ease the financial burden on staff, the TUC said today.
A new TUC guide, ‘Who’s looking after the children?’ highlights a number of ways employers can help with childcare.
These include:
- Opening a workplace nursery that offers cheaper places to staff
- Joining forces with other local employers to offer a creche for all employees to use
- Introducing childcare vouchers – which are tax exempt for both employer and employee – or childcare subsidies
- Allowing parents the flexibility to change their hours to fit in with nursery drop off and pick up times.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Good quality, accessible and affordable childcare can go a long way towards making parents feel happier about coming to work. Workplaces offering no help with childcare risk losing the skills of female employees who can’t afford to return to work after the birth of their children.
“But employers who realise the benefits of offering childcare support to the mums and dads in their workforce are less likely to have stressed out employees, and instead have productive staff who get more done. The business case for providing some form of childcare support for employees is overwhelming.”
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