In crisis, employers do calculus
Some see benefit in aid to parents. Math doesn’t add up for other firms.
Parents doing several jobs at once during the pandemic — employee, teacher and full-time child care provider — need help. But whether they get it largely depends on where they work.
Some of the country’s biggest companies, including Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have offered paid time off and subsidized child care. Other companies have gotten creative, hosting online camps or hiring teachers and turning their empty offices into remote schools for employees’ children.
Yet more than three-quarters of working parents say their employers have not provided additional time off or money for child care, according to a survey of 1,081 parents by Morning Consult for The New York Times. Workers who are highly educated and high-earning are significantly more likely to receive time off, the ability to work flexible hours or subsidized child care or tutoring.
The United States has long treated child care as something that families should figure out on their own: It is alone among rich countries with no federal requirement to provide paid leave and is far behind manyother advanced nations in subsidizing child care for working parents. But the pandemic has highlighted how dependent the U.S. economy is on child care.
“Especially in the U.S., where we’re really lacking leadership right now, employees are looking more and more to workplaces to bridge the gaps in support that parents have traditionally cobbled together on their own,” said Erin Thomas, vice president for diversity and talent acquisition at Upwork, which connects freelancers and businesses.
During the pandemic, Congress authorized 12 weeks of partial paid leave for parents whose children’s schools or child care centers were closed. But at least half of workers were ineligible, and the crisis has lasted much longer than the leave covered.
Many companies can’t afford to offer extra benefits. Those who can say it’s the humane thing to do for employees — and an investment that will pay off.
“These employees are doing really important work, they’re generating a ton of value to the customers, and it’s probably worth a considerable amount to have them on the job and doing the best they can,” said Shawn Busse, chief executive of Kinesis, a marketing and strategy firm in Portland, Oregon. Kinesis has hired a teacher to oversee online school for employees’ children.
Employers are having to rethink caregiving benefits for the pandemic because the circumstances are so different from what workers typically need.
Flexibility is the most common benefit employers are providing, according to surveys. Eighty-six percent of 1,087 human resource professionals
surveyed by the Society of Human Resource Management said they were offering flexible hours. Half of working parents in the survey by Morning Consult for the Times said their employers were letting them shift their hours.
Fewer than 10% of employers are offering subsidies to pay for child care. Yet money for babysitters or teachers may be more valuable for parents than flexibility or even time off. Although a parent might ordinarily need a finite period at home for something like the birth of a baby, now children need long-term care or daily in-person help with online school.
And while the costs to employers of providing flexible hours are minimal, the costs to workers can be high. For many parents, it’s unsustainable to continue working during nighttime or predawn hours or to take pay cuts as part of a reduced schedule.