As many Birmingham companies prepare to return to work in the coming weeks and months, for those with children, childcare is top of mind. Many childcare centers in the region are still closed from COVID-19 – and some may remain shuttered forever. The Birmingham Business Alliance sat down with Joan Wright, executive director of Childcare Resources, a comprehensive childcare resource and referral center for Central Alabama, to talk through childcare currently and what employers can do to respond to employee needs.
Birmingham Business Alliance: We’re hearing from Birmingham businesses that one of their main challenges in reopening is finding childcare for their employees. What’s the greatest challenge childcare facilities face in reopening?
Joan Wright: The greatest challenge childcare facilities face is the ability to manage their childcare operations in the new expectation of social distancing, the increased frequency and intensity of cleaning, sanitation and disinfecting, and concerns over whether staff are going to return and whether families are going to return and attend.
BBA: What do the next few months look like for childcare availability?
JW: Fortunately, in the last week we have started to see an increase in childcare programs reopening their doors. There’s still a small percentage of childcare centers across the area that are open, and that number is increasing.
What will really be a challenge is this coming summer – summer camps, day camps, overnight camps and activities like that – right now under the Safer at Home order and recommendations from the Alabama Department of Public Health, they will not be able to operate. Those opportunities will be reduced if not completely eliminated and folks will have to look to more traditional childcare options that are licensed to serve school-aged children.
On March 20, only 33 childcare providers were open across Alabama. Primarily these providers were families operating a daycare out of their homes, and because it’s in a home setting providers felt a lot more comfortable. Today, there are 112 childcare providers open across the state. Some are continuing to only serve essential employees; others are not taking anyone new. There are still only a quarter of providers in our service area that are open right now, and availability is even smaller than that, as centers are often operating at only a third or half capacity.
One of the biggest factors is that these providers are providing care at a greatly reduced capacity, yet they are still required to expend the same amount. They are serving less children overall, but the staffing structure is not very different. They’re still spending 75 to 100 percent of their operating budget, but only getting revenue for 30 to 50 percent of their normal operating revenue. People can’t stay in business like that – not to mention the cost of cleaning and PPE is up, too.
BBA: What can companies do now to help their employees face this challenge?
JW: First, I think it would be good to ask employees to assess their childcare needs. Who on your workforce needs childcare? What does it look like for them? Needs for someone who has school-aged children is very different than those who don’t. Take an assessment of your workforce and see what their needs are.
Find out which employees can continue to operate in a remote environment and provide reopening in stages. Find out who needs childcare, their children’s ages, the days of the week they need care and how many hours. Send a simple little questionnaire out to your workforce and see what their needs are. Half of people are not two parent homes and there are a lot of single parents – what are their needs if they have no spouse or partner to stay at home when childcare is not available?
The next thing employers can do, once they know what their workforce needs are, is to look at what available childcare is around them that can help meet these needs for their employees. I already anticipate 30 to 50 percent of childcare will not reopen – not just this summer, but they may never reopen because it doesn’t make business sense for them anymore.
Companies can get together to help meet the needs of employees in the area they work in and use a vacant childcare center to hire childcare providers, pay them a guarantee of 30 children a week or a month and make sure their staff can operate as these companies’ designated and preferred childcare provider. That’s another option to look into.
BBA: What are some best practices for companies to better prepare for the future?
JW: Really understand your workforce and their needs in regards to childcare. Consider ways to offer flexible shifts, or to sometimes work in the office and sometimes work remotely. Some companies are actually offering space in their building and providing shared childcare services.
My only hesitancy and caveat there is the importance of quality early education, not just convenient babysitting. It’s still very important for young children to get appropriate early quality education and care so we can help them develop into the workforce of the future. That only happens in early childhood. If you miss out on that opportunity, a child is perpetually delayed and behind, and that provides poor outcomes for the community, society, everything if children don’t get a good, quality start.
Something else employers are doing is offering scholarships to employees to pay for childcare. With so many families affected by reduced working hours or complete job loss and are now returning to the workforce with lower pay, employers can help by paying for childcare. Again, it all starts with companies have to assess their workforce. They can’t provide for what they don’t know is needed. It’s a real opportunity for companies to assess what their response is to childcare and how they want to be perceived by working families.
Sixty percent of women in the workforce have children under the age of five, so childcare is affecting half of the workforce. Oftentimes companies are silent on their stance for working families.
BBA: Will anything be changed for good in the childcare industry after COVID-19?
JW: I hope that now we can better recognize the important role childcare plays and how childcare should be very integral to our thoughts, discussions and plans. Perhaps one thing is we can also take a look at the childcare workforce and ask if employees are valued.
My biggest hope is an increase in pay for childcare workers. They make abysmal pay and are expected to perform at a very high level. They barely make above minimum wage, with no benefits, no paid leave. We also know from data that oftentimes childcare providers receive financial assistance to pay for childcare for their own children.
Now that we see the impact childcare has on the workforce, we need to do what we can to advocate for higher pay and pay parity for childcare workers. There is potential here to come out and join forces with leaders from the business community and say we cannot keep pay so low for a critical function of our present and future workforce.
This interview took place before Governor Kay Ivey released her amended Safer at Home order, which includes updates on summer camps and childcare.