Onsite childcare facilities help business grow as much as they benefit employees, a new study by the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank organisation, has found.
The report titled “Tackling childcare: The business case for employer-supported childcare” looks at 10 case studies across the world to examine how businesses that are more sensitive to the needs of parents have saved money by lowering attrition and absenteeism. Among the 10 case studies is Mindtree, an IT firm from Bengaluru.
It is a cold fact that 679 million human beings, almost one in 10 of the world’s population, are children younger than five.
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“Yet, in many parts of the world, childcare remains scarce, particularly for children younger than three,” said Carmen Niethammer, Programme Manager, Women in Work, IFC.
The study found that thanks to onsite childcare centres, the proportion of women among new recruits rose by 4% in just two years — in 2013-2014, only 26% of the workforce was women and by 2015-16, that number grew to 31%.
“We also noted that 90% of their employees came back after maternity and were employed even till a year later. Several fathers also use the onsite childcare facility, and some have even refused better job offers because onsite childcare was a huge attraction,” she said.
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Not quantifiable
The report, however, is not able to quantify the gains for business in purely financial terms. “It is hard to quantify this since each industry is likely to have different business drivers, as the report demonstrates. Some may be driven by higher retention, others by lower absenteeism rates, yet others to have a better relationship with the communities in which they work, or better access to markets,” Ms. Niethammer added.
What the report demonstrates on a case-to-case basis is how small steps can herald big gains.