Working parents have been grappling with finding reliable child care since before the pandemic, an issue that has not only persisted, but worsened during the crisis.
That’s why software company Podium has teamed up with employer-sponsored child care provider Bright Horizons to launch Little Founders, an on-site daycare benefit that provides working parents with a safe and affordable care option for their young children. Located at the company’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, Little Founders is more than just baby-sitting. Children will be provided with an innovative learning curriculum provided by Bright Horizons.
“The pandemic put a microscope on how critical high quality child care is to the success of any working parent,” she says. “It's something that our society completely relies on to be able to be high-performing in your job.”
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Little Founders offers a full five-day-per-week program for employees looking to come back to the office full-time, but also provides two-day, three-day and drop-in tuition rates for parents who want to keep a hybrid work model or want to drop their kids off at the center, but continue working remotely — a tweak made to the original model after COVID.
“We had this major paradigm shift in the way we work with more people wanting to work from home,” Morrow says. “Ultimately, people love working from home but they don't love working from home with their children.”
Podium employee and new mom Bryce Hunt — who returned from maternity leave after the birth of her first daughter only a month before the office closed — has been able to transition back to an in-person schedule, from an unsteady hybrid model of work that didn’t feel like enough.
“Before Little Founders we had a nanny at home and I would sometimes work from home and sometimes come in,” she says. “But it's really important for me to [come in] and be able to work with my teammates, to collaborate and to know about any issues that pop up with a product.”
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The new addition has played a large part in not only being able to return to the office post-pandemic, but also provides parents some peace of mind. When at her desk, Hunt’s daughter is directly under her on the first floor, and in the interim Little Founders offers an app where Hunt has access to a live feed, so she can check in on her daughter without leaving her desk. Staff members also provide her with updates on her daughter’s care.
“I have the ability to go downstairs and visit her if I want to,” she says. “In case of emergencies, I'm here. The comfort and the security of knowing she's right there is so great.”
Podium is one of the only companies that offers an in-office child care facility in the Salt Lake City area, according to Morrow. The reason other companies are hesitant could be due to the
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Both will require companies to re-think their current benefit offerings and make potential cuts, Morrow says.
“Every company is making those trade-offs — that’s the space,” she says. “What is going to have the biggest impact for every dollar spent on the most employees at your organization? Our center has a max capacity of 60 spots but the
Little Founders serves a capacity of 50 children — ages six weeks through five years old — and is open to the children of benefit-eligible Podium employees and the children of other select companies based locally. In order to make it an accessible as well as an affordable option for parents, Podium partially subsidizes tuition rates for employees.
“Having high quality child care that's convenient and subsidized by your employer is a perk that I just can't even imagine as a working parent,” Morrow, whose children are too old for the program, says. “I know it would have made my ability to focus on work that much stronger.”
