Fort Worth is the nation’s 12th largest city — with the second highest share of families with children in the U.S. Undoubtedly, COVID-19 has had lasting impacts on our workforce, families, and child care providers. Today, investing in child care and other family-friendly policies that enable working parents (and specifically, women, who have been disproportionately hurt by COVID) to reenter or stay in the workforce is a critical lever for our economic recovery.
A study conducted in May by The Best Place for Working Parents initiative in Fort Worth and SMU Center on Research and Evaluation found that 78% of currently unemployed parents need child care to return to work — and 84% of current working parents need child care full time, five days per week. The need for child care is not just a desired “perk” for today’s working parents — but has emerged as a necessity that impacts employee attendance, performance, and retention.
In addition to child care assistance, working parents in the study prioritized flexibility and paid time off as two other top employer supports post-COVID. While these and other family-friendly policies have a direct impact on working parents, local and national research proves that there is also a serious business case to being family-friendly:
83% of millennials would leave one job for another with stronger family-friendly supports.
Replacing an employee costs an employer six to nine months of that employee’s salary.
Over 60% of the May survey respondents said child care issues have caused them to miss work.
Employers lose $13 billion annually due to child care challenges faced by their workforce.
The Best Place for Working Parents is a growing network of businesses implementing research-backed policies that benefit working parents and businesses’ bottom line. In addition to lifting up the family-friendly innovations of the 400 Best Place for Working Parents-designated businesses statewide, the effort has helped motivate local organizations to change current practices to become more family-friendly: The City of Fort Worth and Girls Inc. have each passed a paid parental leave policy, while SigmaPro recently opened its own on-site child care for employees.
In his May 19 presentation to local business leaders, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas CEO Rob Kaplan said, “One of the keys to recovering from the pandemic is to encourage people to get back in the workforce — in a widespread way.”
Community organizations like The Miles Foundation, The Morris Foundation, The Rainwater Charitable Foundation, and the Fort Worth Chamber have rallied around The Best Place for Working Parents because it is a valuable tool for helping business leaders pursue impactful family-friendly policies — and a timely vehicle for helping get our parents back to work and our economy back on track.
To join the ranks as a Best Place for Working Parents® business, to take the “Back to Work” pledge, and/or to learn more about the top 10 family-friendly policies, visit bestplace4workingparents.com.
Brandom Gengelbach is CEO of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, a regular contributor to Fort Worth Inc.