Nanny Employer Blog

Looking back, it doesn’t seem so long ago (to me, at least!) that MBF Agency was a company of just four employees housed in our lone office in Austin. After 13 years in business, though, I’m happy to report today that we are a thriving, rapidly growing company, with over 20 employees, offices in Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Fort Worth, and plans for expansion that should soon bring more MBF services to more customers in more parts of Texas (San Antonio!), as well as into other parts of the country. However, none of this could have happened without the dogged efforts of a talented and hard-working staff. As a business owner, I’m always thinking about the best ways to attract and retain the best people–an indispensable element to any successful company, especially a growing one.

In today’s job market, however, prospective employees discover stark differences among companies when they evaluate their respective employment policies. I recently ran across a startling statistic–nearly half of all private sector workers in the U.S. have no paid sick days available to them. It’s staggering when you think about it–almost half of all private sector workers must lose a full day’s pay not only when they’re ill but also when they have children or family members who need emergency care. Certainly, to deny employees some recourse in case of illness or family emergency doesn’t seem a very good way to boost morale or engender company loyalty (it actually seems to me a pretty effective way to increase employee turnover and profit losses). Among some of the best companies in the country, however, there has been a realization in recent years that to attract top talent and prevent rampant employee absenteeism (and all the business losses that result from it) they need to not only offer an adequate number of paid sick days–they also need to provide employees with the resources they need to prevent absences stemming from emergencies in family care arrangements. Perhaps this is why almost half of the companies on Forbes’s competitive “Top 100 Companies to Work For” list offer corporate emergency backup care as part of their employees’ benefits packages.

Corporate backup care is a benefit which offers employees a fixed number of emergency care days whenever they find themselves in need of family care for children or elder relatives. Companies contract family care providers, such as MBF, to send out reliable, qualified caregivers to their employees’ homes whenever one of their dependents is sick or when regular care arrangements fall through–meaning no more hurried daycare drop-offs or frantic calls to neighborhood babysitters in the last hours before work. It is obviously a true benefit to employees in every sense of the word, offering tremendous assurance to anyone who has ever experienced the panic that results from an emergency school cancellation or a child’s sudden sick day–the awful realization that you will have to miss that crucial meeting because you have no one you can turn to for last-minute childcare. As a mother, I know how stressful these moments can be; as an employer, I know what a negative financial impact these days can have on a business when they accumulate over time. In fact, according to a Work & Families Institute study published in 2002, in a three-month period, 29% of employed parents experienced some type of family care breakdown, resulting in absenteeism, tardiness and reduced concentration at work–and costing American businesses more than $3 billion annually. Perhaps this is why more and more businesses are willing to subsidize part or all of the cost of backup care benefits–it means guaranteed savings to a company in the long run, not to mention a more productive and contented staff.

Because I understand the premium value of corporate backup care both as a backup care provider and an employer who proudly offers this benefit to her staff, I am honored to report that at this month’s annual conference for Work Options Group, our Colorado-based backup care partner, MBF Agency was named Most Valuable Provider out of the over 2,000 family care providers with whom WOG is partnered. It’s a significant acknowledgement of all of our efforts in the area of backup care, which our company began providing to top companies such as Dell, AT&T, Alliance Data Systems, and Fullbright & Jaworski–among many others–almost four years ago. I predict this benefit will become more and more talked about in the coming years as companies in our increasingly specialized economy compete to attract the most desirable candidates in the workforce, and I am proud to be able to assist businesses across the state in providing this service.

If you are interested in learning more about how to introduce corporate backup care benefits to your company, we are always pleased to provide employees with all the information you need make a backup care presentation to your HR departments. Our MBF corporate backup care specialists will be happy to answer all of your questions and assist you in bringing this valuable service to your respective organization.