"34% of the parents interviewed reported that taking time off to care for a sick child had led to difficulties at work. Yet, if they did not take the time off, they subsequently reported a serious health or education crisis."
-Austin Our Kids Magazine, October '02

"23-46% of all employees have caregiving responsibilities, impacting absenteeism, retention, replacement costs and workday interruptions."
-Met Life

"It is estimated that absenteeism caused by child care related difficulties costs American businesses more than $3 billion annually."
-Families and Work Institute, 2002

In today’s workplace, working parents depend upon their childcare resources to be reliable, so that the parents are able to successfully manage their duties at the job without worrying about leaving their children with a caregiver. Accordingly, many of your employees and/or customers have arranged to have childcare, either through a daycare center or through a nanny. These people depend upon the childcare they have secured; without this childcare resource, many employees would not be able to earn their livelihood. Similarly, your business depends upon its employees to arrive at work on a regular, predictable schedule.

Back-up Emergency Child Care
Both your business and its employees suffer when the established avenue for childcare breaks down. This breakdown can occur in several ways. First, parents with a child in school or a daycare center are not allowed to bring their child to school/childcare center if the child is sick. Second, parents with a nanny occasionally must scramble to find substitute childcare when their nanny is unable to care for their children, whether because of an illness or personal business.

When the childcare resources are exhausted, the employee is faced with no alternative other than to remain at home with the child. This may have financial impact on the employee by requiring them to either not get paid, take vacation time, or take personal business allowance time.

Likewise, your business suffers when the childcare resource breaks down because the company’s most valuable assets—personnel—are taken out of service unexpectedly. Your business is forced to pay employees for not attending the job, and also suffers from the loss of productivity associated with having a busy employee who is unable to attend to his or her daily job responsibilities.

MBF also offers companies an emergency back-up care program for employees who face possible absenteeism due to a sick child. Based upon industry research, the statistics show that temporary childcare services were used by approximately 3% of the total workforce for an average of 5 days a year. Taking into account these numbers, this translates into direct savings for your company.

MBF Agency would provide reliable on-call caregiver services for designated employees resulting in a maximum savings to cost ratio. The amount paid by the employees can then be reimbursed via the dependent care flexible spending accounts, as well as any additional subsidy currently offered by your company to its employees. Even without a subsidy, your employees would benefit by having the services made available.

Summary
Decreased employee absence, increased profitability, boosted employee morale, and parental peace of mind are just a few of the many reasons that a partnership such as this could be so beneficial to your company. Your company can use this program not only as a public relations tool and to save money, but also to reiterate its ongoing commitment to your employees, both in and out of the workplace. You want to hire and retain highly skilled and productive workers and to provide recruitment incentives for those considering joining its team. Keeping workers happy and able to concentrate on their work is an invaluable asset that we can provide. Look no further than MBF Agency to provide proven, excellent customer service, the highest caliber professional nannies, and a wonderfully designed employee benefit program.

To request a customized proposal for your business, please complete the enclosed Proposal Information Form and fax it to 512.346.1134. If you have any further questions about this program, or would like to speak to any of our clients about their satisfaction with this program, please contact:

Jessica Sjölseth, Director of Marketing
800.204.2681 x5
jessica.sjolseth@mbfagency.com