Subsidized Daycare Staff benefit

HR Hat

Childcare is expensive as everyone knows. We can't afford to set up an in-house daycare (wouldn't want the liability headache if we could), but we are thinking about the possibility of offering to subsidize a portion of daycare costs for our Staff.

Does anyone here do this? I'm looking for ideas, pitfalls to avoid, etc. If you do subsidize daycare costs, I would be especially appreciative if you could send me a copy of your policy. E-mail address is: [email]JIM@bgark.com[/email].

Thank you for your help!

HR Hat

C Wilson

We do not subsidize daycare cost nor do I know of any one in our area who does. We do offer a Flex Spending account which allow employees to save money for day care by using pretax dollars.

Dutch2

Same here.. we have a Flex Spending account allowing employees to contribute up to $5,000 each year for dependent childcare. It is amazing how many ee's we have putting in the maximum amount.

HRQ

We are a childcare provider. We provide discounts to employers, based on the volume of business they are able to provide us. The employer doesn't actually pay us anything, they promise to market the discount to their employees in order to maintain their volume with us.

The employer may market it to the employees that they are "subsidizing" a portion of their childcare, however...

Childcare tuition rates will vary greatly depending on the center or company: some charge a flat weekly tuition which will vary based on age of the child, some charge an hourly fee based on the child's attendance, etc.

Of course the employer would be responsible for providing disclaimers, policy, etc. to their staff members, which is what you were asking for in the first place. THAT, I don't have for you, but I hope I helped you at least get started!

HR Hat

Thanks for your responses. I thought that there might be more people offering some type of childcare benefit here.

We have a Flexible Spending Account as well. I need to see how many take advantage of that. My preference at this point is to not reommend a specific childcare; let the staff pick that out. It seems like that minimizes any liability situation. We just want to consider financially subsidizing the childcare cost. Thanks again.

HR Hat

System

I work for a nonprofit that offers multiple services - one of which is a daycare, so it only makes sense to subsidize it for our EEs. Our policy (pulled directly from the benefits section of our EE handbook) is brief:

SUBSIDIZED OFF-SITE CHILD CARE FACILITY: Currently, XXX, Inc., subsidizes slots at XXX child care centers and charges eligible employees a reduced fee for the spaces. The fees for such services are subject to change at any time and for any reason by XXX, Inc. Note: Subsidized rates for day care facilities are not available to employees during scheduled vacation time and compensatory time.


Also, this link is an article about work perks, one of which is on-site daycare. [url]http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/8WorkPerksYouWishYouHad.aspx?GT1=9216&su=hotmail.com/cgi-bin/hmhome&wa=wsignin1.0[/url]

HR Hat

Thanks for your policy and the article!

HR Hat