Employers’ Benefits and Roles

What This Means to You

What if you could increase your employees’ loyalty and retention, participation in job training, productivity, morale, as well as concentration and job performance? Developing family-friendly policies and benefits can make your business thrive. For example:

  • 40 – 65% of companies that offer family-friendly policies reported higher morale.
  • 54% reported increases in productivity of up to 52%.
  • Increased competitive advantage for attracting skilled employees.

What if you could reduce tardiness, absenteeism, turnover, distraction and lack of focus, and frustration among your employees? Companies with family-friendly policies and benefits can:

  • Reduce absenteeism by 54%, more if the employee is a single-parent.
  • Reduce turnover rates by 37% – 60%.
  • Reduce tardiness.
  • Reduce employee dissatisfaction.

What You Can Do

You’ve already taken an important step by visiting this website and showing your interest in learning about the critical importance of early care and education.

Other first steps, suggested by the US Chamber of Commerce, include getting in touch with MECC through our Council Coordinator, Vangi McCoy, and visiting a high quality early learning center in our area. We would love to have you attend a meeting, and can help you make arrangements to visit a site.

Invite a MECC member to speak to a business organization or attend a business roundtable.

Check out what business leaders are doing at the state level by visiting the EPIC website. Executives Partnering to Invest in Children is an outgrowth of the national movement, ReadyNation, dedicated to preparing citizens for a global economy by investing in early childhood development. Jump on the bandwagon! EPIC has developed a toolkit to help local employers and business leaders take action. Their toolkit clearly outlines the many ways you can make your business family-friendly and save on taxes as well.

Consider taking time to understand what your employees need by using three specific tools on the EPIC website:

Employee Needs Assessment

Business Self-Assessment Checklist

Cost-Benefit Analysis – A Step-by-Step Example

Consider options like flexible scheduling, letting employees work-from-home when a child is sick, flex savings accounts for child care, assuming part of the cost of childcare, and other policies that convey your understanding and support to your employees that their roles as both employees and parents nurturing tomorrow’s citizens are important.

It Takes A Community to Build A Community!

Click here to read additional resources used in this section.

Ready, Set, Go! Why Business Should Support Early Childhood Education, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 9/8/2010