Childcare must become part of boardroom strategy

Citation

(2000), "Childcare must become part of boardroom strategy", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 21 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.2000.02221hab.003

Childcare must become part of boardroom strategy

Childcare must become part of boardroom strategy

Keywords Child care, Family-friendly organizations, United Kingdom

Seventy-four per cent of the UK's top 500 companies agree that there is a recognised business case for companies to introduce family-friendly policies. But only one in ten UK employers offer help with childcare to their staff and only 2 per cent have a workplace nursery. This figure contrasts dramatically with the USA, where 78 per cent of companies offer childcare services.

With 44 per cent of the labour force now women and 62 per cent of mothers in paid work, fewer mothers arestaying at home to care for their children full time. Furthermore, the new higher retirement age means fewer grandparents are available to care for their grandchildren during the working day.

More than two-thirds of mothers now return to work after maternity leave, but out of a total of 6,700 nurseries in England, there are only 650 workplace nurseries. By contrast, there are an estimated 8,000 workplace nurseries in the USA.

It is also significant that today women are having children later in life (the average age is currently 29). Therefore, if they choose not to return to work employers increasingly face the loss of senior and middle managers, losing with them the investment they made in training those employees.

The nature of work itself has also changed dramatically in the last few years with 90 per cent of UK employees working more than the "standard" 40-hour week.

Cranfield School of Management recently completed a study on human resource management practice and concluded that private organisations must re-think their poor record in the field of workplace childcare. Otherwise, they will lose experienced employees, especially female high-flyers, as they fail to return to work for their organisation due to lack of adequate support in childcare.