Child Care: Employers See Benefit : More Mothers on Job Prompting Firms to Consider Their Needs
When Deborah Hatchett and her 2-year-old daughter moved to Los Angeles from Kentucky, they must have visited 40 day-care centers before Hatchett found one she liked.
Two years later, Hatchett changed jobs, moved to Orange County and had the task of looking for day care once again. This time, through a referral service paid for by her employer, it only took Hatchett 24 hours to find three centers that met all her specifications: hot lunches, proximity to work, planned activities.
“I don’t have to come to work stressed,” said Hatchett, 31, a senior systems analyst at PacifiCare Health Systems in Cypress. “It’s been a real positive experience, and it makes me want to stay here. My last company was a $9-billion corporation, and they did nothing for their employees.”
While Marilyn Quayle and Hillary Clinton joust about the proper balance of employment and parenting, 4.4 million Americans face that balancing act daily, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: They are single mothers who work outside the home. (There are 1.2 million single fathers, but the bureau does not keep track of how many work.)
In two-parent families, the Census Bureau reports that 54% of women with children under age 3, and two-thirds of women with children under age 18, are employed outside the home.
The fact is, more and more people have family matters to consider before they can settle down to a full day’s work. And a growing number of employers are trying to make that combination easier by locating child care or building child-care centers, by offering flexible hours or allowing two or more employees to share one full-time job.
Employers are in turn rewarded with loyal employees who use fewer sick days, work harder and feel positive about their work.
“There are more studies showing that family benefits don’t cost employers, they pay off,” said Betty Holcomb, an editor at Working Mother magazine who coordinates its annual list of best companies for working mothers. She added that some Fortune 500 companies that make the Working Mother list have begun including that plaudit in their annual reports, as a measure of their commitment to attracting and retaining employees.
Companies are adding child care assistance and other so-called family friendly benefit programs, Holcomb said, even during the recession. “That surprised us,” she said.
“Companies going through a huge change are more apt to offer these benefits, to comfort the survivors” of a layoff, Holcomb said. Also, “companies that are downsizing are looking to the future, and they’re adding family benefits to become more progressive. They foresee coming up against what people are calling diversity issues.”
“Diversity” is an industry buzzword linked to responding to the nation’s changing demographics. Only 15% of new entrants to the labor force between now and the end of the decade will be U.S.-born white males, according to the “Workforce 2000” study issued by the Hudson Institute in 1987.
Working Mother published its national list of 100 companies in its October issue, which hit newsstands last week. Using most of the same criteria that the magazine used, the Times Orange County Edition has assembled a list of the most progressive companies in Orange County for working mothers.
Factors considered include providing money for or help in finding child care, the existence of other so-called family-friendly benefits, and the potential for women to advance in a company, as measured by the percentage of women already working in management.
About two dozen Orange County companies were nominated, by human resources consultants, employment agencies and child-care providers. Choosing among them was not easy.
Southern California, particularly Orange County, is one of the two most progressive areas in the country for family benefits. The other is the Connecticut/New York area. That’s according to Carol Sladek, who runs the work and family consulting department for Hewitt Associates of Lincolnshire, Ill., a human resources consulting firm that has an office in Newport Beach.
“I think it’s because Southern California likes to be on the leading edge of everything,” Sladek said. “Also, one of the drivers of these benefits is the kind of company that’s in an area. Banks, insurance, health care--you’ll find these benefits more often in the service-intensive industries that tend to hire young women.”
In Southern California, for example, 3% of companies offer or subsidize child care on site or nearby, compared to 1% nationwide, according to a Hewitt Associates study of 1,006 employers, including 52 in Southern California. Here, 6% of companies have a sick child program, compared to 5% nationally; 12% of companies here provide in-house child care referral services, compared to 4% nationally.
The move toward family benefits began in the 1970s when women began entering the work force en masse and arguing for child care services. Today, the phrase family benefits describes a wide range of programs: from providing dry cleaning delivery services at the office to establishing management and mentorship programs for women and minorities, from part-time jobs for people who want to ease into retirement to allowing unpaid leave for workers to care for an elderly parent.
Orange County companies have developed some creative ideas. In Cypress, Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America offers workshops to help parents communicate better with their infants and teens. Pacific Mutual Life Insurance, in Newport Beach, offers similar programs during lunch on caring for aging parents. At United Western Medical Centers, with hospitals in Santa Ana and Anaheim, two women split a seven-day-a-week receptionist job.
Bergen Brunswig Corp. and four other local employers--AT&T;, International Business Machines, The Travelers and Western Digital--have pooled $212,500 to provide vacation day camps and a traveling resource van for child-care providers. The companies are working through a national project, American Business Collaboration, which was organized in April by 11 of the nation’s top companies to help employees care for children and elderly relatives. The businesses have committed $25.4 million to the project.
Local companies are planning to establish a resource library and purchase a van for a childhood specialist to make on-site visits to interested child care centers, suggesting ideas and educational materials.
“We were trying for a long time to find other companies to do something like this with us,” said Dorothy Bregozzo, director of media services for Bergen Brunswig. She added that an appreciation of the importance of such programs has often not reached senior managers at some companies.
Other senior managers, however, are sold on the programs.
Terry Hartshorn, chief executive of PacifiCare and father of three, said companies should not expect employees to leave their family concerns behind when they come to work.
“We like to think that we consider the whole person,” he said.
PacifiCare, which made $25.7 million in profit on $1.2 billion in 1991 sales, was the only Orange County-based company to make Working Mother’s list this year.
But several national companies that have operations in Orange County were selected, including Apple Computer, AT&T;, Avon, Baxter International, CIGNA, Citibank, Colgate-Palmolive, Dayton Hudson (owner of Target stores and Mervyn’s), Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, General Mills, Great Western Bank, Hewitt Associates, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, IDS Financial Services, law firm Morrison & Foerster, Northern Trust, Procter & Gamble, Prudential Insurance Company of America, Steelcase, Wells Fargo and Xerox.
Companies with family-friendly policies tend to be the larger companies, with 300 employees or more. In California, as of Jan. 1, companies with 50 employees or more were required to begin offering family leave. Employees can take up to four months of unpaid leave every two years for childbirth, to receive an adopted child or care for an immediate family member who is ill.
In anticipation of a national family-leave policy, companies such as Allergan Inc. in Irvine have extended the California policy to their offices around the country.
At the other end of the spectrum, even the smallest companies can offer a lot of flexibility, but they don’t always have formal policies.
The national family leave bill, which President Bush has vetoed saying it’s too costly for businesses, has created a public debate that has thrown the spotlight on balancing work and family. And it’s a rare speech this political season that does not call into question the “family values” of a candidate.
Deana Komar is one single mother who is trying to strike a balance between her job as a receptionist for FHP in Fountain Valley, and her role as mother to 11-month-old daughter, Berlyn.
Komar, 22, said she requested and received an early shift, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., so she could spend more time after work with her daughter. She takes sick days and vacation days, as needed, when Berlyn is ill, and appreciates that her supervisor has been understanding.
She said she is one of the people that Vice President Dan Quayle was indirectly criticizing when he said television mom Murphy Brown was mocking the importance of fathers by having a child on her own.
“I don’t appreciate what he says,” Komar said. “I don’t think (Berlyn) is lacking for anything.”
Family-Friendly Employers
Family values may be a hot topic among politicians these days, but some Orange County employers are ahead of the curve in providing family and child care benefits for working parents--especially working mothers. A partial list of companies with family-friendly benefits:
ALLERGAN INC.
Corporate headquarters: Irvine
Nature of business: Maker of pharmaceuticals and eye- and skin-care products.
Employees: 5,361, 51.6% female.
Women in management: Professionals, 54% out of 500; managers, 32% out of 450; one corporate officer.
Family care: Pretax deductions allow employees to have money taken out of their paychecks for child or elder care.
Other benefits: Nationwide family leave policy; limited work at home, on a case-by-case basis; job sharing; part-time work; flextime; option to work 80 hours in nine days with the 10th day off.
BERGEN BRUNSWIG CORP.
Corporate headquarters: Orange
Nature of business: Drug wholesaler and distributor.
Employees: 613, 58% female.
Women in management: 33% out of 175.
Family care: Priority enrollment agreement with one day-care center, 10% discount at a second center; referral service and pretax deductions for dependent care.
Other benefits: Option to work 40 hours in four days or 80 hours in nine days; 30% of employees are on alternate work schedules; 35 employees work at home regularly; lunchtime seminars on parenting topics; in-house parenting newsletter; job sharing; part time; referral for elder care.
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY
Corporate headquarters: Orange
Nature of business: Private, four-year university.
Employees: 467, 55% female.
Women in management: 53% out of 216.
Family care: On-site child-care center; pretax deductions for dependent care through a voucher system.
Other benefits: Unpaid leave up to six months; telecommuting; flexible work hours; free tuition for spouses and children.
FHP INTERNATIONAL CORP.
Corporate headquarters: Fountain Valley
Nature of business: Health maintenance organization.
Employees: 10,172, 73% female.
Women in management: 62% out of 1,110.
Child care: Referral and placement service; agreement with sick child care provider to offer discount to FHP employees; pretax deductions for dependent care.
Other benefits: Counseling; five-month maternity leave with up to 60% of employee’s salary paid, minus state disability payments; flexible hours; part time.
HOAG HOSPITAL
Corporate headquarters: Newport Beach
Nature of business: A 421-bed acute-care hospital with satellite surgery centers in Irvine and Huntington Beach.
Employees: 2,600, 78% female.
Women in management: 70% out of 128.
Family care: On-site child-care center.
Other benefits: Six-month unpaid leave option; part time; work at home (limited); job sharing; flextime.
*Figures are for Orange County facility only.
Source: Companies listed
MITSUBISHI MOTOR SALES OF AMERICA INC.*
Corporate headquarters: Cypress
Nature of business: United States marketer and distributor of Mitsubishi-brand vehicles. Employees: 435, 46% female.
Women in management: 23% out of 123.
Family care: Referral service; pretax deductions for dependent care; checkups for first two years of baby’s life.
Other benefits: Free child auto safety seats; counseling services; on-site workshops on choosing quality child care and communicating with children; company supplements state disability payments for women on maternity leave.
PACIFIC MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE CO.
Corporate headquarters: Newport Beach
Nature of business: Life and group insurer.
Employees: 1,500, 65% female.
Women in management: Supervisors, more than 60%; professionals, 60%; executives, 25%; vice president and above, 14%.
Family care: 10% of total child care and contracts with four care providers to reduce their charges to Pacific Mutual employees by an additional 10%; lactation room.
Other benefits: Up to five months maternity leave; work at home (limited); part time; flextime; lunchtime seminars and referral service for elder care; counseling service.
PACIFICARE HEALTH SYSTEMS INC.
Corporate headquarters: Cypress
Nature of business: Health maintenance organization.
Employees: 1,804 employees, 80% female.
Women in management: Professionals, 71%; managers, 30%; vice presidents, 26%.
Family care: Pays $15 per week to employees using child care; referral service to locate care; pretax deductions for dependent care; lactation room.
Other benefits: Work at home; flextime; part time; elder care referral.
TRW INFORMATION SERVICES DIVISION*
Division headquarters: Orange
Nature of business: Sells credit reports and marketing lists to credit grantors and direct marketers.
Employees: 1,100, 57% female.
Women in management: 44% out of 150; also, three vice presidents and the director of a business unit are women.
Family care: Employs a service that finds three nearby child care centers with confirmed vacancies within 48 hours.
Family benefits: Flexible work hours; work at home (limited).
UNITED WESTERN MEDICAL CENTERS
Corporate headquarters: Santa Ana
Nature of business: Includes Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, a 343-bed trauma center; Western Medical Center-Anaheim, a 248-bed acute care hospital; and Bartlett Skilled Nursing Facility in Santa Ana, a 241-bed hospital for long-term care and rehabilitation.
Employees: 2,000, 75% female.
Women in management: 74% out of 196.
Child care: Pretax deductions for dependent care; pays for one day of sick child care annually, offers discounts for days beyond that; contracts with a “telephone friends” service that provides adults who chat with children who are home alone.
Family benefits: Job sharing; option to transfer among three facilities to accommodate family needs.
