Is Backup Care Worth the Investment?
Nora Spinks, President Work-Life Harmony, discusses the challenges organizations and their employees face as they address the need for back-up childcare and eldercare services.
| Category | Childcare |
| Details | Nora Spinks, President Work-Life Harmony, discusses the challenges organizations and their employees face as they address the need for back-up childcare and eldercare services. Employers have to justify the costs, and ensure the program is equitable across all employee groups. The solutions aren't simple. Nora Spinks says, "Justifying the expense depends on the model. For example, if a school board is using backup care and a teacher doesn't show up because she has to take care of her own child, the school must still pay for a substitute teacher. In that situation, the advantage of having backup care can be easily calculated by the school board. For another type of full-time position, the math isn't easy." "In the U.S., the biggest users of backup child care are professional services, with billable hours and hard-to-replace employees, which is less connected to the size of the organization than the nature of the business and how revenue is generated and people are paid," says Spinks. "It's a complex set of issues involving every layer of government, employers, employees, community organizations, parents, grandparents," she says. "The thing with short-term or emergency child care and elder care is its very expensive to deliver because it's very challenging to manage." If child care isn't difficult enough, eldercare is hugely more complicated," says Spinks. "While child care involves parents making decisions about their child, they don't have the same say, when it comes to an elderly parent. And there are complexities such as travel and transportation, sibling rivalries and family histories." |
| Author | Sarah Dobson |
| Publication Date | November 3, 2008 |
| Source | Canadian HR Reporter |
| Availability | Download article |
