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Top 10 Best Practices in HR Management
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- Healthcare in 2012
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April 15, 2002
Still Grappling with Child Care
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A few companies offer on-site child care, and some major employers offer day-care subsidies. It's more common, the newspaper reports, to give employees access to referral services and flexible spending accounts, which allow them to have money deducted from their paychecks before taxes.
But Dr. Francine Moccio, director of the Institute of Work and Women at Cornell University, called these Band-Aid approaches. Instead, businesses need to make a deeper, more philosophical change, she said.
"They are still relying on a division of labor of the past, where men used to be the breadwinners and women stayed at home and took care of the children," she said.
Businesses must make "family friendliness" a management priority - one that is even included in performance evaluations, she said.
Moccio also believes that companies would better serve working parents by offering flexible hours.
An equally important component that most companies lack is paid family leave, she said. Currently, Moccio's institute is supporting a bill that would allow workers on family leave, including maternity leave, to temporarily collect unemployment benefits.
"Parental leave is something that is assumed in Europe," she said, "And they haven't gone bankrupt."
Child care is by no means a mainstream concern at companies yet. And until a labor scarcity poses a threat to employers again, these changes are unlikely to happen, Moccio said.
To view the Democrat and Chronicle article, via USA Today, click here.
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