A Totally New Way to Think About Backup Care

(Article originally published by WFC Resources, March 2004, as a Guest Column written by Cindy Carrillo, MSW, CEO of Work Options Group, based in Lafayette, Colorado)

Helping employees get to work when their normal childcare arrangements fall through, has recently taken on a new and expanded definition. Beginning several years ago as "emergency care" or "sick care," and geared primarily toward the care of young children, new programs are now taking on the broader label of "backup care."

"Backup care" expands our thinking to all types of breakdowns in care, regardless of age, relationship, health status, or personal care situation. It addresses everything from a last minute breakdown in care (babysitter doesn’t show up or caregiver gets ill) to those expected breakdowns that still cause difficulty in filling a normal schedule (school holiday closures, parent/teacher conference days, caregiver vacations, etc.) The term "backup care" removes the preconceived notions and limitations we have associated with "emergencies" and opens our minds to addressing a broader range of situations that occur on an ongoing basis in employee’s lives.

Traditional Model

Up until recently, the most common model for emergency drop-in care was the "bricks and mortar" childcare center approach. These centers were most often built from dollars raised from local employers on a "purchased slot" scenario allowing employees to bring their healthy children to a specific center location on a temporary or drop-in basis during normal business hours. While offering some employees help in getting to work, this model failed to offer these same working parents an option when their children suffered from a mild illness, or for those with an adult or elderly relative who became injured or ill and required care from the employee.

A New Combination Approach

Today, in order for employers to meet the wide range of caregiving breakdowns that prevent employees from getting to work, they must provide solutions that offer more choices and address more needs. The most effective programs offer employees both in-home and center-based care, which can provide options for all ages, healthy or sick, 24/7, both close to home or close to work. A good backup care program addresses the breakdowns that occur in childcare and eldercare, for both the healthy and sick, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It will provide employees with a choice for either in-home care from top-notch, well qualified home healthcare agencies, or drop-in care in high quality licensed childcare centers. Through the combined network of providers, employees can be given geographic choices both close to home or close to work, and depending upon the nature of their breakdown, an opportunity to get to work, no matter what time of day, or day of the week.

Meeting Geographic Needs

"One of the greatest challenges employers face," according to Bernadette Fusaro, president of Fusaro and Associates, "is in finding program solutions that can be consistent throughout the company for all employees, no matter if they work in a corporate headquarters site, or in the field." "It’s difficult to offer only some employees an important benefit like backup care, without giving the same support to everyone else." For companies with multiple locations, it's important to have a national network of providers to offer a consistent benefit to employees in both larger and smaller offices or manufacturing locations, as well as in both urban and rural areas.

Reducing Stress

When employees find themselves in a situation when their normal caregiving arrangements fall through, they experience stress and anxiety over how to meet the needs of their family and loved ones, while balancing their requirements and responsibilities at work. This stress is not limited to one type of situation or another. It occurs when there is a teacher in-service day and the child is only 7 years old and can’t stay home alone, but the parent must still work. It occurs when a child gets strep throat, and even though is on antibiotics, should still stay home from school for the remainder of the week. It occurs when an employee’s mother breaks a hip and is required to have bed rest for two weeks and no caregiving options are available other than the employee-child.

Take the case of Rosie for example. Rosie is a single mom working in Denver for a financial services company. She has two children under the age of ten, and her only family in town is her ailing 76 year old mother. Last fall, Rosie’s mother fell and broke her hip. She was able to take three days off from work to be with her mom in the hospital, but had to get back to work to meet her growing work responsibilities. After being discharged from the hospital, her mother required in-home caregiving to help meet her daily needs. Because Rosie's employer had contracted with our "Backup Care Options" service, Rosie was able to get a trained caregiver into her mother’s home to provide the necessary daily care, allowing Rosie to get to work and fulfill her responsibilities there.

Reduced Absenteeism

Breakdowns in caregiving arrangements translate directly into missed time from work. The average American working parent misses nine days of work per year. As their children move through daycare and into elementary school, the number of days increases to thirteen. As the employee ages, they miss an average of ten days per year due to a myriad of adult and elder care situations that arise with the problems associated with aging parents and spouses. This level of absenteeism across all age groups, for problems associated with breakdowns in childcare and eldercare, translates to over three billion dollars annually to American business every year.

Research conducted by Work Options Group indicates that the true cost of absenteeism equals a minimum of two times the actual hourly wage of workers. Christopher Gatti, our president, says "an employer must take into account the actual wage, benefits, supervisors time and lost opportunities resulting from absenteeism, when calculating the true cost to a company. In some cases, as in the case of employees responsible for direct revenue for a company, this might even be a conservative number." The average employee really wants to try to figure out the best way to meet the needs of their family – and meet the needs of their job. If a reliable, affordable and trustworthy option is available to do both, they're open to trying it.

As companies begin to understand the direct correlation between effectively addressing employee’s temporary breakdowns in caregiving arrangements, and the reduction in costs associated with absenteeism, they are seeking broader based solutions to maximize their return on investment.

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Cindy Carrillo is the founder of Work Options Group, a company that provides a variety of services including backup care, information and referral, wellness-related services, employee needs assessments and consulting. She can be reached at (303) 604-6545 or by e-mailing CCarrillo@workoptionsgroup.com. Her Website is at www.workoptionsgroup.com.