"This is just the right thing to do and a good thing to do and we don’t need a lot of numbers to support it"
In just one year, CIBC’s backup child-care centre in downtown Toronto has saved the bank more than 2,500 lost days. The centre was created so that employees of the bank who unexpectedly find themselves without child care have somewhere to turn.
It was clear that from time to time employees miss work because regular child-care arrangements fall through, said Joyce Phillips, executive vice-president of HR. Often, when a babysitter gets sick, the parent has to take a day off work to be with the child. And while employees weren’t asking for a backup day care to address those kinds of problems, that was probably because it is still so unusual in Canada. Most employees didn’t know it was an option, she said.
There is little doubt now that the demand was there. Children First, the company that runs the day care for CIBC, predicted that about 395 employees would register with the service, and about 1,400 lost days would be avoided. So far, more than 800 have registered and 2,528 lost days have been saved. (More than 3,500 child visits have been registered and 68 per cent of parents said they would have missed work if they did not have the backup option.) CIBC employs about 12,000 employees in the Toronto area.
CIBC was very familiar with the concept, after being involved for two years in an emergency day care consortium in downtown New York run by Children First, said Phillips.
After the success of the New York program, the senior management team already had a sense of the potential benefits for Toronto, but HR still had to present a business case, she said. It was important to look at absenteeism and try to determine what percentage of that absenteeism could be attributed to children.
“But I think the management team recognized that this is just the right thing to do and a good thing to do and we don’t need a lot of numbers to support it.”
Parent days saved help more than just the parent, she said. They reduce the stress put on co-workers who have to do extra work when an employee has to stay home to take care of a child.
The success has convinced CIBC to look at other options.
“Just having one centre is not going to resolve issues for parents we have throughout Canada. We look at this as a pilot and a stepping stone to do more.”
More centres across the country would help more employees and even give people the option of taking their kids with them when they have to travel, she said.
Nora Spinks, a work-life balance consultant, said emergency day care is one of the fastest growing initiatives in the United States. “I think it is something we are going to see a lot more of in this country,” she said. It fulfills a huge need and the benefits on morale, productivity and customer satisfaction are too good to ignore.
It was clear that from time to time employees miss work because regular child-care arrangements fall through, said Joyce Phillips, executive vice-president of HR. Often, when a babysitter gets sick, the parent has to take a day off work to be with the child. And while employees weren’t asking for a backup day care to address those kinds of problems, that was probably because it is still so unusual in Canada. Most employees didn’t know it was an option, she said.
There is little doubt now that the demand was there. Children First, the company that runs the day care for CIBC, predicted that about 395 employees would register with the service, and about 1,400 lost days would be avoided. So far, more than 800 have registered and 2,528 lost days have been saved. (More than 3,500 child visits have been registered and 68 per cent of parents said they would have missed work if they did not have the backup option.) CIBC employs about 12,000 employees in the Toronto area.
CIBC was very familiar with the concept, after being involved for two years in an emergency day care consortium in downtown New York run by Children First, said Phillips.
After the success of the New York program, the senior management team already had a sense of the potential benefits for Toronto, but HR still had to present a business case, she said. It was important to look at absenteeism and try to determine what percentage of that absenteeism could be attributed to children.
“But I think the management team recognized that this is just the right thing to do and a good thing to do and we don’t need a lot of numbers to support it.”
Parent days saved help more than just the parent, she said. They reduce the stress put on co-workers who have to do extra work when an employee has to stay home to take care of a child.
The success has convinced CIBC to look at other options.
“Just having one centre is not going to resolve issues for parents we have throughout Canada. We look at this as a pilot and a stepping stone to do more.”
More centres across the country would help more employees and even give people the option of taking their kids with them when they have to travel, she said.
Nora Spinks, a work-life balance consultant, said emergency day care is one of the fastest growing initiatives in the United States. “I think it is something we are going to see a lot more of in this country,” she said. It fulfills a huge need and the benefits on morale, productivity and customer satisfaction are too good to ignore.
