Child Care

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Here you'll find a range of potential supports for child care for working parents. To learn more about each area, download the complete Guide to Family-Friendly Workplaces in Florida.

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Backup or Emergency Care

Backup and emergency child care programs are offered at an employer’s work site, in centers, or in an employee’s home, and allow employees to continue working despite temporary disruptions in normal caregiving arrangements or when a child is mildly ill. Employers can negotiate rates with local child care facilities.

Benefits to Employers¹

• Increases productivity
• Improves recruitment
• Increases retention, reducing turnover costs
• Reduces employee absenteeism
• Reduces “fill-in” costs

Benefits to Children and Parents/Families²

• Reduces stress
• Improves work-life balance
• Emergency or backup care may reduce risk of spreading illness when a child is mildly ill by encouraging parents to keep the child out of normal daycare or school
• Reduces financial burden when employer negotiates a lower rate

Employers who need extra support getting started may want to enlist a child care resource and referral agency. To find an agency near you, search Florida’s Division of Early Learning: https://www.floridaearlylearning.com/parents/family-resources/child-care-resource-referral

On-Site or Consortium-Sponsored Child Care

On-site child care is located at an employers’ workplace. For consortium-sponsored child care, employers join forces to finance child care, often run by a contracted operator. Employers can subsidize the cost of care so employees can pay below-market rates, or employers can ask employees to pay full cost for care.

Employers who want to establish an on-site child care facility should:^3,4

• Start by talking with employees. Employee input is vital to ensuring that child care options meet employee needs with regard to availability, affordability, and accessibility.
• Explore the tax benefits. Providing child care can be expensive, but many of the costs can be taken as a deductible business expense or as a tax credit.
• Identify a high-quality child care vendor to provide the care.
• Consider connecting with a provider currently operating an employer child care facility to gain an understanding of operational costs.

Benefits to Employers⁵

• Increases retention, reducing turnover costs
• Allows tax credit of up to 25 percent of facility expenditures, plus 10 percent of any resource and referral expenditures, up to $150,000 in a calendar year; business expense tax deductions for remaining child care facility expenses
• Improves employee performance and reduces absenteeism compared to when using off-site child care
• Increases employment of women
• Increases employee loyalty

Benefits to Children⁶

• Improves overall health
• Access to quality child care improves high school graduation rates, overall educational attainment
• Access to an on-site facility may increase breastfeeding duration, which offers health benefits for children and mothers

Benefits to Parents/Families⁷

• Improves family economic security
• Saves employees time
• Highly ranked as a benefit, even by employees who do not have children
• Access to an on-site facility may increase breastfeeding duration, which offers health benefits for children and mothers

Subsidized/Reimbursed Child Care or Child Care

Employers who reimburse or subsidize employees’ child care pay all or part of approved arrangements and/or reserve slots at particular facilities for employees’ children. Through child care referral, employers offer resources to parents to help them find child care in the area.

Benefits to Employers⁸

• Increases retention, reducing turnover costs
• Reduces employee tardiness and absenteeism
• Increases employment of women
• Increases employee loyalty

Benefits to Children⁹

• Improves overall health
• Improves education

Benefits to Parents/Families¹⁰

• Improves family economic security
• Provides an option for summer care for school-aged children

Employers can contribute up to $5,000 to the cost of each employee’s child care without the subsidy being added to the employee’s taxable income.

Footnotes

1. North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “The Research Basis for Family-Friendly Workplaces.” June 14, 2018. https://files.familyforwardnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NCECF_FFNCpolicyfactsheet-061418.pdf
2. North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “The Research Basis for Family-Friendly Workplaces.” June 14, 2018. https://files.familyforwardnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NCECF_FFNCpolicyfactsheet-061418.pdf
3. Durekas, Fran. “Helping Get On-Site Child Care.” Working Mother. November 30, 2009. https://www.workingmother.com/helping-get-site-child-care
4. Marz, Michael. “Can a Business Write Off Childcare For Employees?” Houston Chronicle. https://work.chron.com/can-business-write-off-childcareemployees-16377.html
5. North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “The Research Basis for Family-Friendly Workplaces.” June 14, 2018. https://files.familyforwardnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NCECF_FFNCpolicyfactsheet-061418.pdf
6. North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “The Research Basis for Family-Friendly Workplaces.” June 14, 2018. https://files.familyforwardnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NCECF_FFNCpolicyfactsheet-061418.pdf
7. University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. http://whatworksforhealth.wisc.edu/program.php?t1=20&t2=4&t3=59&id=609
8. North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “The Research Basis for Family-Friendly Workplaces.” June 14, 2018. https://files.familyforwardnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NCECF_FFNCpolicyfactsheet-061418.pdf
9. North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “The Research Basis for Family-Friendly Workplaces.” June 14, 2018. https://files.familyforwardnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NCECF_FFNC-policyfactsheet-061418.pdf
10. North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “The Research Basis for Family-Friendly Workplaces.” June 14, 2018. https://files.familyforwardnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NCECF_FFNC-policyfactsheet-061418.pdf