Care emergencies and gaps in care  

It is often the unplanned absences and recurring gaps in childcare that present parents with particular challenges when it comes to balancing work and family life. The childminder is ill and an important appointment cannot be rescheduled, childcare center is closed for three weeks over the summer, a business trip is coming up or grandma and grandpa cannot look after the children for the entire vacation. There are countless unresolved childcare situations that parents have to solve time and time again. And it is precisely these situations that often cause particular stress.

Companies can support their employees in mitigating precisely these stressful situations. There are various measures and offers to help your employees close unplanned and planned gaps in care.

This not only helps the parents concerned, but is also a benefit for the company:

• Less absenteeism and more concentrated work,
• Parents are more willing to be flexible and participate in unscheduled events,
• Employees on parental leave can stay in contact with the company, take part in events (e.g. training for new software) or take on substitutes. When they return, they are fully operational again more quickly,
• Parents are more likely to return early from parental leave if not every childcare bottleneck causes stress or days of absence,
• An image boost and an advantage when recruiting new staff.

Three central services - in-house care, backup care and vacation care - are presented below, with which you can offer your employees planning security and support for the many small and large emergencies.

In-house support

In-house childcare means that children spend time with their parents at the company. This is already common practice in many companies, even without major conceptual and organizational planning. The mere possibility of bringing children with them is a very helpful support for many parents. The official announcement of this option already takes a lot of pressure off parents.

Even with small investments, companies can make in-house childcare more professional - for example with a play box. This should contain a few children's books, building blocks, Lego bricks, crayons, coloring books, blocks, stuffed animals and dolls. The next step would be to set up a play corner or playroom. Empty offices, meeting rooms, unused storage rooms or part of a break room are suitable for this. A parent-child room or parent-child office is another option. Here there is a workplace for the parents and at the same time play and activity options for the children brought along, such as a toy box, table with chairs as well as resting options and a changing table for the little ones. The room requirements and safety checklist in the info box offers a little help with the safe and practical design of rooms for in-house childcare. There you will also find a suggestion for basic equipment with toys for certain age groups.

If children are brought into the company, they need to be looked after in one way or another. The older the children are, the less effort is required. Schoolchildren are usually able to keep themselves busy on their own. On the one hand, care can of course be provided by the parents themselves, e.g. in the parent-child office. On the other hand, consideration can be given to whether there are employees who would be happy to take over the supervision and care of children temporarily and are released from their other duties during this time. Finally, consideration can be given to hiring external supervisors. This makes sense, for example, if several children are brought into the company at the same time due to an event/training course. External caregivers can perhaps be retired employees, but also babysitters and surrogate grandparents.

The great advantage of in-house support is that it can usually be implemented very quickly. On the one hand, the offer is a reserve that enables your employees to be available outside their regular working hours if necessary (e.g. for an event or an important meeting that cannot be postponed). On the other hand, parents do not have to stay at home if an (unplanned) gap in childcare arises (e.g. sick childminder, closed childcare center).

The services you offer for parents and their children on your company's premises should be decided according to actual need. In the info box, you will find a questionnaire to survey the needs of parents in your workforce. The list "Variants of childcare situations and suitable equipment" in the info box shows which services can be used to respond to the various work situations and childcare emergencies.

The costs incurred by the company also depend on the scope of the offer. In principle, in-house childcare is a very inexpensive measure. If parents simply bring their children to the workplace, the offer can even be free of charge for companies. If toys are purchased and/or a room is set up, some material costs will be incurred. Here you can consider involving the employees and, for example, donating toys that are no longer needed or are duplicates. Fees are incurred if additional childcare staff are hired.

Communicate the possibility of bringing children along proactively in your company. You are sure to reach parents who were previously afraid to ask for this option.

Backup support

Not always and not in every company will it be possible to bring children with you in an emergency. This may be because no suitable premises are available, or because employees are often on business trips or at customer meetings. In this case, it is worth considering working with an external service provider for backup care solutions.

What does back-up care actually mean? Back-up means that children are looked after by educational staff in a childcare facility similar to a regular facility - such as childcare center or daycare. Depending on the situation, care can be provided on an hourly, daily or weekly basis. Back-up care is intended to save parents from having to find spontaneous care on their own. Back-up solutions are available in the event that regular childcare is unavailable for various reasons and a replacement solution is required.

is urgently needed. It sees itself as a supplement and not as competition to the regular childcare facilities.

Back-ups can be our own facilities or individual places in childcare centers or daycare centers are kept free for back-up cases. The idea behind these childcare services is that they can also be booked and registered at very short notice. Professional back-up services are there precisely for unexpected and spontaneous emergencies. In addition, they often have very long opening hours that are adapted to the needs of parents.

So that parents do not have to bring their children to such a back-up facility completely unprepared, there are usually trial days to get to know each other.

Companies can support their employees by contractually reserving a contingent of back-up places in an existing facility for childcare emergencies and covering the costs.

Vacation care

When schools are closed during the vacations, many parents have to organize childcare themselves. The vacation time of employees with school-age children is often not enough to be permanently available during the vacation period. When vacations are coming up, parents regularly have the problem of finding good childcare. Many public and private kindergartens and daycare centers, as well as childminders, usually close for a few weeks over the summer.

With company vacation programs, companies can provide their employees with crucial support during this time and avoid conflicts. A good vacation program is worthwhile for companies, as employees can be deployed according to the workload and less consideration has to be given to vacations. Disputes within the team about coveted vacation time during the school vacations can be avoided. And even during the vacations, parents can concentrate more on their work if their children are well looked after - often even on the company premises.

Vacation care can take the form of daily or weekly programs on the company premises or close to the company. Ideally, the program should cover the entire vacation - especially in summer. Vacation programs are generally offered for school children or children aged four and over. They are generally possible for younger children, but require more staff. Companies can run the programmes themselves, but this involves a certain amount of time and organization. This includes finding, renting and preparing suitable premises; the concept, organization and implementation of the program as well as the search for good caregivers. The infobox contains an example of a weekly schedule as well as the requirements for the premises for running a vacation program.

It is recommended that you commission external providers to organize and run a vacation programme on your own premises. If there are already regional vacation programs, you can also consider the option of reserving places for your employees' children at these external programs. You may also be able to act as a cooperation partner for such a program.

For older children, usually from around 10 years of age, there is the option of offering vacation trips in addition to "on-site" vacation care. Here you should definitely work with an external service provider who organizes and offers vacation trips.

Such trips can range from regional adventure trips in the countryside to sports-related weeks in Germany and language trips abroad.

Before a company vacation program is planned, the needs of the employees should first be determined. The questionnaire from the info box can be used for this purpose. It is a template that can be supplemented or modified according to your company's wishes and general conditions. It is important to enquire about requirements at an early stage so that employees can plan with the offer and there is enough time for the organization. Experience has shown that a company vacation program is worthwhile for eight or more children - the more children take part, the less it costs per child and day or week. If only individual families need vacation care, you can also support them with in-house care (see above) as an alternative to your own vacation program.

At the end of the vacation program or very soon afterwards, you should ask the parents about their satisfaction. Our parent questionnaire for evaluation in the info box will help you with this. The survey will tell you whether the parents were satisfied with the content and quality of the program and whether they were relieved by their children's participation. The results of the parent survey will help you to assess whether a vacation program would be worthwhile again next year.

The costs of company-supported vacation care can vary greatly and depend on the type of program (in-house, external, vacation trip), the quality of the offer and whether you run the vacation program yourself or work with a partner. The costs are also influenced by regional differences in fees for childcare staff, the amount of parental contributions and the age of the children to be cared for and the associated childcare ratio.