For working mothers flextime, childcare, paid leave are key issues

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2015/09/22/for-working-mothers-flextime-childcare-paid-leave-are-key-issues



Patricia Reaney, REUTERS


Tuesday, September 22, 2015 10:31:20 EDT AM


NEW YORK - Flextime, childcare options and paid maternity leave are the keys issues for working mothers in the United States and what set companies apart as the best places to work, employment experts said on Tuesday.

Top corporations are already providing those benefits and more to some of the 24 million mothers with children under the age of 18 in the U.S. workforce, but many other firms still do not have policies in place.

"Sadly, paid leave and flexibility is still innovative for a lot of employers in this country," said Jennifer Owens, the editorial director of "Working Mother' magazine, which released its list of the 100 best companies for working mothers on Tuesday.

"The smart companies are thinking about how they are serving their workforce and realize that their greatest resources are the people who work for them," she added in an interview.

When the annual list began 30 years ago, only five of the 30 best companies offered fully paid maternity leave and none had leave for new fathers or adoptive parents. Only seven had flextime.

Today the 100 best companies offer an average of eight weeks of leave, as well as flextime, telecommuting and other benefits.

But across the country only 5% of companies have fully paid maternity leave, and 58 percent have some paid leave, according to a 2014 study by the Families and Work Institute.

Many companies also do not provide flextime and childcare assistance.

"Broadly in the United States we have come a long way in our working environment, but we still have a way to go," said Wanda Hope, chief diversity officer at health products and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson.

"It will be wonderful when all companies support women in a way that allows them to really succeed and thrive at work."

Family-friendly culture, milk delivery service

Johnson & Johnson and technology giant IBM Corp are the only two companies that have made the list for all 30 years.

Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, human resources vice president for IBM and a mother of three young children, attributes the company's long-standing on the list to its family friendly culture.

"Corporations that are the best for working mothers have to have a family-friendly culture at the core of who they are," she explained.

In addition to expanding its paid leave for new mothers and fathers, this month IBM is launching a concierge-type milk delivery service for nursing mothers who are away on business.

Owens said the most advanced companies are providing benefits that were not even considered 30 years ago, such as subsidized childcare at company headquarters, elder care at a center or at home and in-vitro fertilization and adoption assistance.

With 70% of mothers with children working, Owens believes companies cannot afford to ignore the needs of their employees, both men and women.

"What these companies are doing to support working mothers, typically helps everyone," she added. "To retain the best employees they need to be thinking about the big questions, surveying them, finding out what the challenges are."

The full list of the 100 best companies can be found here.

kewl information,,,,good for them,,,

Most daycares in Ontario are open 7 am to 6pm so sometimes I need a sitter to pick the kids up from daycare lol.

ours are similar,,,but they are expensive if you are working full time,,,

For single parents you can ask for subsidy on child care. It depends how much the person is making.

You can ask for assistance with child care through Social Services (where you would go for food stamps and medicaid). They generally offer assistance for those under a fairly high cap (I believe it was 140% poverty level or something like that last time I checked).

The problem though is day care centers (especially those that specialize in special needs) know exactly how much assistance you get from social services and then charge exhorbitantly beyond that. A good example is the ONLY child care that I can register my youngest son in. He is diagnosed with high functioning autism and I can not leave him alone even though he is thirteen, for more than a half hour and then not on a regular basis (basically, say he gets sick and I don't have medicine on hand, I could leave him alone long enough to walk to the store 3/4 of a mile away and get the medicine). I can leave him in his older brothers care, but his brother is only fifteen and can not handle him on a full time basis.

The daycare he qualifies for, when I first looked into them is only open from 6am to 6pm Mopnday through Friday. Their fees worked out to $50 PER DAY< OVER what DHS was going to pay for assistance. Even if it was no assistance and the fee $50 per hour, if you figure one hour after dropping him off to get to work, another hour to go pick him up, thats ten hours per day. If you work 40 hours per week, Monday thru Friday (good luck on that) for minimum wage, you end up receiving an average of $829 after taxes. That's per month. You owe the daycare $250 per week, or $1,000 per month, which is more than you take home.

It is not affordable


Edit: Please note also that assistance for daycare is NOT dependent on being a single parent; that would be discrimination. Married parents can seek and receive as well