Child Friendly Employer Policies

Early Care = Economic Development

• Quality child care benefits all industries in the state by enabling parents to work productively outside of the home and attend higher education programs to upgrade their skills.
• Quality child care lays the groundwork for our economic future by preparing upcoming generations for school and workplace success and attracting business to our area's skilled workforce.

 
Our quality crisis will continue unless parents, business owners and other stakeholders get involved today and implement solutions to develop the workforce of tomorrow.
 
Employers can support families with children by incorporating the following types of policies into their workplace:

Alternative Work Schedules

The following alternative work schedules allow employees to adjust their work time to balance child care needs and the needs of their employer.
 
The benefits of alternative work schedules:
 

• Contributes to lower absenteeism and higher productivity.
• Reduces overtime costs.
• Improve morale and reduce stress for employees who are parents.
• Enhances recruitment, particularly of those employees who might not be available for a traditional work schedule.
• Business hours can be extended
• Economical use of office space and equipment

Flexible Leave Policies

​A policy that allows accrued sick and annual leave to be combined for employees’ to use as they choose. Policies may include paid or unpaid “personal leave time.”

Parental Leave

​Sometimes called “family leave,” Parental leave is a flexible policy that provides time off for mothers or fathers to care for newborn or very young children. These policies are designed to allow employees to balance the needs of work and family without having to choose between the two. These policies may include maternity leave time (paid or unpaid) or, depending on the number of employees, unpaid leave as defined by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

Flex-Time

A work schedule that allows employees to vary their arrival and/or departure times as long as they work a prescribed number of hours per pay period and are present during a daily “core time”-- usually peak business hours. Flex-time is the most commonly known of the alternative work schedule options.

Job Sharing

​Allows two or more workers to share the duties of one full-time job, each working part-time. Alternatively, two or more workers who have unrelated part-time assignments may share the same budget line.

Compressed Workweek

A work schedule enabling full-time employees to work the equivalent of a full week in less than 5 days, or for employees on biweekly pay schedules to work less than 10 full work days.

Part-Time Employment

​Can refer to portions of days, weeks, months, or years worked by temporary or permanent workers.

Voluntary Reduced Work Time

​Allows employees to reduce their work time and salary by a specified amount (usually 5 to 50 percent) for a specific period (6 to 12 months) or permanently, while retaining benefits and seniority on a pro-rated basis.

Flex-Place-Telecommuting

​Allows employees to work at home or at a satellite work site where they are connected to their offices by computer and/or telephone.

Phased Retirement

​Enables employees to transition gradually from full-time work to retirement. During an interim period of part time work, the employee may train a replacement worker.