Needs analysis and decision support

As an entrepreneur, what support can I offer my employees with regard to childcare? Do they want and need help at all or is childcare already well taken care of?

Before you start childcare activities, you should know exactly what your employees need and want. Only then is it possible to provide tailor-made support that benefits both you and your employees. The needs analysis presented here offers an opportunity to work out the childcare requirements in your company. Once you know this, you can use the decision-making aid presented here to find the most suitable solution for you, or even several or combined solutions.
 

Contents of the needs analysis

The needs analysis is a survey of your employees. It enables you to find out how many employees currently need childcare, for how many children, at what age and at what times. You can also find out whether this care is needed permanently or only irregularly and in emergencies, and how much the care may cost the parents at most. Finally, the survey also asks whether employees expect to need childcare in the next three years.

The survey of your employees serves solely to assess your needs. You should bear in mind that this does not constitute a commitment on your part or on the part of your employees. Furthermore, the needs analysis is a snapshot. Even if future needs are surveyed, conditions can change again quickly: suddenly a childcare place is available at the preferred kindergarten in the neighborhood or the whole family moves to another city due to a career change of the partner.

The needs analysis shows a trend. Do your employees need support for regular childcare or are there temporary and irregular gaps in childcare that need to be filled? Does advice and the provision of childcare services already help or do your employees need specific childcare places?
 

Carrying out the needs analysis

You can use a questionnaire developed by us to determine the need for childcare and support measures in your company. A written survey is recommended for larger companies, several company locations or if many employees are on parental leave, i.e. if you can no longer determine the need in person. For a smaller and more manageable workforce, a focus group is a more suitable method, in which the needs are determined and discussed directly in a workshop round. You can find more details on this below.

Before you can carry out a written survey in your company, you are obliged under Section 94 BetrVG to inform the employee representatives. This can also be of great benefit if you involve the works council in the needs analysis and the topic of childcare. In this way, the survey can be planned, carried out and evaluated jointly. The employee representatives can act as multipliers to publicize the survey among your employees.

For the further procedure, it must be decided whether a "classic" form of written survey should be chosen, i.e. every employee is sent a questionnaire. A second option is to create an online survey and invite all employees to participate, e.g. via email or the company intranet. You should carefully consider which option is better for your company. If the employees are mainly involved in computer-related activities, an online survey is probably the best option. However, if the computer is not part of the daily work tool, the classic paper form should be considered.

The following documents will help you to prepare and conduct your own childcare needs analysis. You are welcome to use the questionnaire provided here and the accompanying cover letter for your own survey or as a suggestion for further additions. The checklist helps you to think about all the important steps of the survey.

Once the survey has been completed and evaluated, you should announce the results within the company and discuss the next steps with suitable contacts. You will now be in a better position to decide whether and how you or your company would like to support the required childcare. Above all, you can now weigh up more specifically whether it is worth setting up your own company daycare center or whether you should set up a small daycare facility or whether a more flexible, less binding solution might be an option.
 

Alternatives to the written survey - the focus group

A less costly method for smaller workforces is a workshop or focus group on the topic of childcare. This event lasts around half a day. You can either address specific people, for example employees with children or HR managers, or you can keep the event open to everyone. The aim is to gain an overview of the possible need for childcare and also to discuss possible forms of childcare.

An example of the content and structure of a focus group can be found in the following document: Focus group. With the help of an external moderator, the participants can concentrate on the content of the discussion.
 

Decision-making aid for choosing the right support

The results from the survey and/or the focus group can now be used to discuss and work out what support services your company can offer. What are the key needs of employees and how can you as a company respond to them?

You can use our decision aid to work out suitable support measures from the results of the needs analysis. All the measures available for selection in the decision aid are presented in detail on the website. The following information may be helpful when working with the decision aid:

• Fill out the form. Compare your requirements with the information on the measures. Is there a measure that meets all your requirements?
• If several measures seem interesting, you can of course find out about each one. It is also possible that several offers may be suitable for your company.
• However, your requirements may also be incompatible. For example, it does not make sense to set up an in-house facility if you have very low care requirements.