Child care becomes a particularly difficult issue for 24-hour operations because shiftworkers need care for their kids during times when most child care centers are closed. Workers who can't arrange care often have no choice but to use a sick day or vacation time to stay home with their children, leaving their supervisors stuck finding last-minute replacements.

Finding child care around the clock isn't as big a problem in urban areas where 24-hour businesses are common, such as Las Vegas or New York City. But elsewhere, 24-hour centers are scarce. Often a worker's best option is to locate an individual who offers 24-hour care in their home--a situation that's ideal, but can be difficult to find.

Should you provide child care assistance?

Many businesses see a return on investment from helping workers arrange child care. The returns are seen in reduced absenteeism, increased productivity, increased retention, and decreased recruiting costs. Companies that employ more women and/or single parents tend to see higher returns from providing child care assistance.

It's not necessary to make a large investment in order to provide some form of child care assistance. Here are a few examples of the forms assistance can take:

Partner with other organizations. In Lemoore, Calif., a church will open a 24-hour child care center early next year. Called "The Community Center," the facility will operate 24/7/365. The area, home to two state prisons, a Navy air base, and numerous manufacturing and food-processing plants, created a 24-hour workforce and a subsequent demand for 24-hour child care.

If you're one of several 24-hour businesses in your area, it can be effective to work as a group to address the child care issue. You might approach your local city council for funds, as the church in Lemoore did. Pooling the resources of companies and community organizations can address the need without significant expenditure by any one party.

Establish your own on-site child care facility. This option can have a tremendous impact on hiring, retention, productivity, and morale. In terms of cost, however, on-site care makes more sense for larger facilities: You need about 1,500 to 2,500 employees to make it cost-effective (depending on what percentage of your workers are female or single parents).

Several employers that have gone this route found that being able to advertise on-site child care became a great tool for attracting and retaining workers. Companies who have established successful on-site centers include S.C. Johnson, The Longaberger Company, and several car companies, hospitals, call centers, and casinos.

To get help analyzing whether you'd achieve a return on investment from opening an on-site (or near-site) child care center, you can contact Children's Choice, a company that specializes in setting up 24-hour child care centers for companies. Contact Children's Choice at (972) 881-1900 or visit http://www.childrenschoice.com.

Establish a resource and referral network. An R&R network assists parents in locating child care providers. Employers may contract with a national or local agency to provide the referrals or collect and provide them in-house. This option requires minimal cost investment on the company's part.

Companies looking to establish their own R&R networks might contact the local government agency that licenses child care providers. That agency may be able to tell you which providers are licensed to operate in the evening or around the clock.

Caution: Before entering into any sort of child care endeavor, assess the needs of your workforce. Survey your workers to establish the need for and interest in such a program. It may turn out that the majority of your workers have other arrangements, such as leaving their children with family members. Then again, you may learn that your workers would prefer not to burden their families with babysitting duties, but have no other choice.

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