Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.
Alyssa Place (00:09):
Hi, Dan. Welcome. I'm Alyssa Place. I'm the editor in chief of EBN, and today we're joined by Dan Gersky. He is the president of KinderCare for Employers. Thank you so much for joining us today. You've now been at KinderCare for over a decade. Can you share how you got started there and what you're currently doing with the company today?
Dan Figurski (00:28):
Yeah, thank you, Alyssa for having me. Yeah, I started with the company just over 12 years ago. I'm currently the president for KinderCare for employers. We focus on for employer childcare benefits for companies across the country. We also focus on before and afterschool care for children across the country. So with KinderCare, my division covers ages from infant all the way to school aged children providing services through employers for then their employees for childcare benefits. I started with the company 12 years ago and got hooked on this passion of, I'm a father of four, so working, my wife worked, I worked, it was a very personal topic for us, and so when I started 12 years ago, I really felt with these parents and employers were looking for and the benefits they want to provide. So it's been an exciting journey.
Alyssa Place (01:20):
Yeah. I'm a new mom too. I have a son who's 11 months, and my husband and I are constantly debating where should we put him for daycare, continue with the grandparents. So I certainly understand that stress as well, and childcare is a huge source of stress for parents. Today you're talking about the logistics of finding a care provider that fits your family's needs, and then we're also talking about the financial side of being able to afford that care. So can you talk about some of the things that you hear from employers and employees alike about those challenges that they're facing, especially in today's environment?
Dan Figurski (01:55):
Sure, sure. Well, I think arguably since COVID, this has become a big topic. And before COVID, it was a topic as well, but certainly coming off of COVID, and I think there's a few things. I think the return to work is definitely a challenge for many families. I also think that people are beginning to have families a little later in life. And so where grandparent care was an option might not be the option it used to be, and certainly this what you just said, and where employers have to, we all have to recognize is affordability and accessibility are big. So when you think about the working family who in many companies have a very generous program for families when you're searching to have children, but after you have a child and how do you return to the workforce as a working mother or working father, how do you return to the workforce effectively is really a challenge as well. And I think often we think, Hey, the 12 weeks, three months is over. And then the question is now what? And so the challenge for most of those families from what we hear and is just what you said, is it's accessibility and affordability for those families. And then where can companies and employers start leading in with HR benefits to help support that return to work?
Alyssa Place (03:15):
And I think many employers assume that these efforts have to be all or nothing. You hear about some of these tech companies or the big really well-funded companies that have the onsite childcare in the ground floor of the office, or you have people saying, we'll pay for the entire year of tuition, and that might be really, really overwhelming to a smaller employer or even an employer that just doesn't have those resources. So can you talk to me a little bit about the full scope of childcare options and childcare benefits that could be available for employers today?
Dan Figurski (03:48):
Sure. Well, first off, anybody can participate in a childcare benefit. And you're right, it runs the gamut of what it looks like. Everything from onsite childcare to emergency backup care, to, quite frankly, just to subsidize tuition, helping subsidize tuition for families. So whether you have 10 employees or 30 employees, or you have 30,000 employees, much like KinderCare, there are solutions in childcare for almost any employer to take advantage of. And what I would say to you is I do think that we often gravitate towards, hey, onsite childcare where I drop my child off. But the truth is, listen in working, parents will know this. A lot of times I have a childcare center just right down the street. I may have a KinderCare or another childcare option right down the street. I'm literally driving past it where my child would be perfectly safe in our community, in a great home.
(04:42):
And so ours really is to customize a solution for an employer that doesn't always have to be onsite, that could be near or onsite in the home. That could be a child who's of school age, and we're looking for care just three hours after school let's out until mom or dad has the time to come pick 'em up at 6:00 PM. And I think that the idea is that you customize an approach for each employee. And what you do as an employer is you can offer a large, you can offer almost an onsite care without actually hosting an onsite care because we have a footprint, KinderCare happens to have a footprint of 1400 KinderCare community centers. We also have a footprint of over a thousand before and after school centers. And so there's a lot of variety out there for people to access high quality childcare. And so there isn't a solution that I've come across in meeting with employers where they say, Hey, we just want to participate in some way to say we have a childcare benefit. There's almost, in every instance, a solution that would match or at least come somewhat towards their employee and creating a really high quality benefit for them in childcare.
Alyssa Place (05:44):
And when you're working with a benefit manager, an HR leader to customize that, what is that process like? What are you offering to them? What are you taking to say after hearing the needs of your population, here's what we're providing.
Dan Figurski (05:59):
Yeah, yeah. So this is great timing. We're just coming off A-C-H-R-O event and meeting with chief HR officers. And I'll tell you, it's interesting what you realize, and I shouldn't be shocked by this after doing it for 12 years, everybody has a different need purpose. Sometimes that purpose is it's manufacturing frontline workers where they're struggling to retain, recruit, engage. Sometimes it's cashiers, potentially in remote locations. And so the first thing you realize when you're meeting with them is their employees run a huge spectrum, especially in a multi-site situation of needs. And so what we really start to do is we start surveying families and people who would take advantage of the benefit first, find out things like, do you have children? Are you expecting to have children? Is this something that's of interest to you? And then we go to an employer based on some of those survey results and really dig into what they're trying to address.
(06:53):
And in most cases, Alyssa, I will tell you, I think the landscape for competitive is highly competitive for talented people today. So talented people coming into the workforce or talented people trying to recruit and retain them is really highly competitive. And so they're looking, most of these HR, from my experiences, they're looking for that competitive edge. How do we, without taking up the hourly rate or taking up the salary or taking up the, how do we create customized benefits and benefit solutions to childcare being one of them that really entice people to come stay with us? What you hear from them, the people who have implemented illicit, is that childcare happens to be a very sticky benefit. And I'm not surprised by that because as you know, you said you were a working mother, I was a working father, my wife was a working mother.
(07:41):
When we found a childcare provider that we trusted in teachers that cared for our children, infant all the way to school age, boy, it was hard for us to leave them. And knowing that if we would've left, we may have lost the benefit of childcare and thus lost that place where we had our child would cause us to absolutely reevaluate whether we were staying at our current job or not. Childcare would definitely be at the top of our list because we just know that that change for children in that environment when they're learning and growing at those ages are so important. And so it can be a very sticky benefit. We talk about that lot chs, which is what are you trying to drive from this benefit? What are the results you hope to see? And I do think recruiting and retention are among the two top. I will add though that we even see this at KinderCare. Our people who take advantage of our childcare benefit are highly engaged, more engaged in our average employee. And I think for good reason, we're taking care of their greatest asset, right? Their children. And there's a little bit of a duty in that to us, so we pride ourselves on it.
Alyssa Place (08:43):
Yeah, it's an interesting point of the employers are making the investment, but they're also getting a lot out of it too. Can you talk about that financial give and take of this might be something that you're investing money in, and that might only serve perhaps a small portion of your population, but the payoff for that is actually quite great.
Dan Figurski (09:02):
Yeah, I mean, some of the employers have, I won't quote any numbers here, but I'll just say in general, and again, I would tell you we cover everything from high tech companies like Intel and Microsoft all the way to manufacturing frontline workers to nonprofits. And what I would tell you is that as best we could tell, in most businesses, you're looking anywhere from 10 to $15,000 to train an employee. That, and if you have any, would turnover rates in certain businesses being what they are, the economic advantage to providing childcare and getting someone just to stay a year longer. Childcare definitely pays for itself in that investment. Employers bank, specifically when you think about manufacturing and where there's higher turnover, and quite frankly, each of that turnover relates to a project or something that needs to be delivered to an end user. The cost of turnover, there's way too high.
(09:54):
Even in our business, I'll tell you that we see a decline of nearly 40% in turnover of people who take advantage of a childcare benefit. That's huge reduction in turnover for us when we employ over 40,000 teachers. So it's a critical benefit to us to offer to reduce turnover, the cost to hire, the cost to train. And again, we believe we recruit and retain the most talented people when we offer a childcare benefit. Not to mention, I'll throw this in there, Alyssa, because I said this last week and I'd say it again. I can't tell you how many people who don't take advantage of Bennett, who look at us, who work for us and say, Hey, I'm a grandparent. I love that you have this benefit. I wish my daughter or my son had this benefit at their employee. I'm going to tell them to go ask about this benefit. So I would tell you culturally, our people are proud of the fact that we offer childcare as a benefit. And I think you'd find that most of the companies who take childcare on as a benefit.
Alyssa Place (10:48):
And talk to me a little bit about KinderCare and what that childcare experience, how is that different from other childcare centers, other childcare benefits? What really sets you apart as sort of a benefit of choice?
Dan Figurski (11:01):
Sure. I think one of the keys to kinder, one, we've been doing this for 50 years and we have our curriculum and everything from infant all the way to school age is our curriculum. We built this in-house with a high quality education team. And our goal is not only to provide a high quality experience for families and children, but provide an education and give children an opportunity to excel in areas they otherwise couldn't excel in. So what you'll see if you walked into KinderCare is high quality experiences happening every day, high quality educational experience. I also tell you for an employer, there's no one that really, it's a chance for me to brag on us a little bit. So well, I'll just tell you, there's no one that really does it at scale. We have, again, over 1400 centers across the country. So there's almost anywhere you look or driving around in your local neighborhoods.
(11:50):
We're in communities where working families are in the suburbs of Chicago, the suburbs of New York. We are where working families are. And we also have another over 1100 before and after school program. So when they do leave the KinderCare, they have an opportunity to reengage with their local school district and a before and after school program. And so I would see our scale and our ability to provide services to an employer across a wide spectrum is really important to 'em. And many of them are. They may be centrally located in Chicago, but have workforce dispersed across the United States, and we can provide that childcare anywhere where they're at. And so it's consistent. It's a benefit that's accessible across multiple states and multiple workplaces. And I also would say, I would argue it's also really high quality. We're one of the only NACI accredited early childhood programs out there, and so each of our centers are NAA accredited. So we take pride in the quality of work we do is work with children each day.
Alyssa Place (12:51):
And for a benefit manager, I mean, obviously I do want to tout KinderCare for sure, but benefit managers are looking at some of their options. What are some of the things that you would recommend that they look for and consider when they're weighing the benefits of the benefit? What are some
Dan Figurski (13:06):
Asking
Alyssa Place (13:07):
Of their
Dan Figurski (13:07):
No? Yeah, that's a really, really good question. I think the first thing is to definitely figure out location, because what you don't want to do is you want to make sure you're matching where your employees are coming from. So if your permits are coming from the south suburbs of Atlanta, there's no childcare accessible to 'em, then that's a real challenge for families because now we're driving to three places to deliver childcare. I also think you have to discuss in depth things like quality of the curriculum or quality of the experience, what's happening. Do they use tools to measure engagement of teachers? Because ultimately, as a father, I know I did this as I really wanted to make sure that that teacher or that caregiver is coming in and felt really good about their job each day. So I would say accessibility and then quality and quality directly tied to the person and knowing that they're engaged and loving their job.
(13:57):
And so I would ask questions about, do you offer benefits? Do you offer full-time benefits? What kind of benefits do you offer your employees if you're looking for childcare because you want to make sure that people stay with their employer and that your child's not having a new teacher every week or a new caregiver every week, that's a challenge for families. And you see that when you walk into center. Great. Who's this new person at Ken in our center? I also think that accreditation piece is very big. You need some outside third party company validating the work you are doing and then just your experience. I would encourage every HR executive, whether it's a KinderCare or another center in your community, I would never just take the word for it. I'd ask to visit it. I would actually show up as an HR person. It's that meaningful of a benefit that if it wasn't onsite, it was nearby, I'd want to visit the inside of the center and feel what happens in there. And it doesn't have to be the fanciest on the outside and look great on the outside. It's what happens in the experience inside the center that you want to feel as an HR executive. If that center is a place you'd walk into as an HR executive and say, well, I'd send my child here, then you probably have the right company you're working with because that's how you want to feel when you walk in.
Alyssa Place (15:04):
And when you think about some of the challenges that working parents are continuing to face, you mentioned that it's not just about having the baby and being on leave. It's not even just about those first up to school age. You also have afterschool care, everything else. What is your advice to employers to really be thinking long-term about these kind of benefits and sort of keeping employees engaged in them over a long period of time?
Dan Figurski (15:31):
Yeah. Well, we, as an employee, I feel this way about, and I would tell you our HR execs do as well. We feel an obligation to our employees to take care of the total family regardless. And total family starts with your children without question. And so if we're taking care of a total family, you're right. That's just not from the time Alyssa decides she's going to start a family and that we have a great return to work policy for her and a great maternity policy for her. It is how are we making sure that Alyssa feels like we are supporting her and her family through their raising of a child? So that does start at infant, but it also does include your school age children. It does include college intuition and how do we look at total reimbursement of a child? And so to me, it becomes more of a cultural question of who do you want to be as an employer?
(16:18):
Do you want your, I would tell you people at KinderCare come engaged, love the company they work with because they know we care, we care about them. And I think that's a question some companies just have to ask themselves internally is, Hey, how do we want to be viewed? I can tell you that if you talk to any employee who feels like, boy from infant KinderCare or X Company has had my back all the way through, Johnny is now graduating high school, going into college, and we have a college fund that was, or whatever it might be, whatever that benefit looks like for each company that's meaningful, that's a story. And not many people can tell stories about their employers. I hope the way people can about KinderCare and the companies we work with would tell stories about KinderCare and the way we work with that.
Alyssa Place (17:03):
And you're certainly super passionate about KinderCare. You're also a dad. You mentioned you have four kids. How does that make your job more meaningful being a father yourself? And what kind of benefits are you taking advantage of to have that sort of full family support that you're talking about here?
Dan Figurski (17:20):
Sure, sure, sure. Well, I will say this, yeah, I have four kids, two boys and two girls. I will tell you that we're empty nesters officially, so I don't have the same, but I will tell you my oldest is 30 this August. So I will tell you 30 years ago, the challenges weren't that different. Alyssa, believe it or not, employers were not necessary, especially 30 years ago saying, Hey, Dan, we have a childcare benefit. You were grateful they had a health benefit when you showed up to work each day. And so for me, what I see in the families and the HR people I talk to knowing this is the father and my wife would say the same thing, is just a peace of mind that I know I can go to work each day and give my very best in the organization. I also know that I have a safe, secure, wonderful, nurturing environment for my child, lets me do my best work each day.
(18:14):
That's how I felt once we found a place with childcare benefit. It also is assurance that when a company has that type of benefit, at least this for me as a father, so I'll speak as a father here, when they have that kind of benefit that hey, they know you have to go to the doctor. Sometimes they know emergency situations pop up. They know, Hey, I have care scheduled each of the day of the week, but I need some backup care today because grandma's not available, grandpa's not available, the neighbor's not available. How do we help support that? And so I think when I look at from a point of view of a father and heaven, forgiveness, there's real challenges in raising a family today. And you feel pulled in so many ways, in so many environments. And so I would tell you it's that reassurance and comfort that the company you're working with definitely cares about you and cares about the whole employee and cares about your family and your child.
(19:04):
And it makes it much easier than when you have to do something like, Hey, we've got to run to a doctor's appointment. You already know the answer at KinderCare, the answer is, take care of your family first. And then we know we get a highly engaged employee in return. And so yeah, I probably come at it and almost everything I start with this is, listen, I'm not coming here not knowing this. I was a working father and my wife was working, I was working. We have four kids, and it was expensive and hard to find, and no one talked about it 30 years ago. Childcare.
Alyssa Place (19:31):
Yeah, that's a lot of kids. I mean, I have one, and he given us a run for our money. So let's talk a little bit about what's next for KinderCare. Obviously needs are the same, but they also continue to evolve for parents and families today. So what are some of the ways that KinderCare is evolving in those ways as well?
Dan Figurski (19:52):
Yeah, they do. They do. I'll tell you what's emerging right now in childcare. I think there's two areas that are emerging, and KinderCare is going to be at the forefront of both of them. One is part-time care. Alyssa, you'll understand this, which is like, you know what? I don't need it every single day, but when I need it, I need it. And so if that's two days a week, three days a week, or it's the, I call it the hot. My wife and I used to play hot potatoes, although your kids are more potatoes, but we're like, pass off, drop off. I have an hour in between. You're like, it needs to be very flexible childcare in today's environment because you have everybody who's mandated to return to work. We talked to several employers who, when we say return to work, they laugh at Alyssa.
(20:27):
Alyssa like, we never left work. When you think about frontline workers, they never left work. Our teachers at KinderCare never had a work from home. So what I would tell you is they're looking for more flexibility in meeting them where they're at. And so I think part-time models, flexible models in childcare where you have available hours for families to drop in as they need to for care is a big, big trend. I think the other one is how do we support working families with 50 years of curriculum? Everything from, Hey, is this a diaper rash to, is this, I think there's something there to help families, especially in environments where they might not have the support at home, especially in areas where we really can lean in and support families that otherwise have no access to any other information except a highly expensive doctor's appointment.
(21:19):
And here we do it each and every day, whether it's bottles or sanitation or it's diaper change. We've been doing it so long and we're the experts, and we should share some of that because I think it would help a working family in cases where they don't have an answer necessarily. And so I think accessibility, I'm going to just say generally I think accessibility in childcare, but don't just think about it in the way that we've always thought about, which is drop off pickup, but an integrated approach to childcare that may look and feel very different for a working family than it ever did before.
Alyssa Place (21:53):
Well, I've really found this conversation inspiring and I hope the benefit managers and HR leaders listening due to what would be your action item and takeaway for this group of people, whether they have a program or don't have a program. What do you want them to take away and sort of go back to their desks and do right now around childcare
Dan Figurski (22:12):
Benefits? Yeah, listen, I would say start investigating, whether it's with KinderCare or any childcare company, maybe the one you're driving by, but I would say do the research is there are working families out there that are making tough, tough decisions of whether I come to work today or do I have access to childcare? And we don't want that to have to be a tough decision for any family. We have working mothers who have returned to workforce, by the way, since COVID, but they return much slower than their counterparts, than males. That has to change. We should make people feel like childcare should not have to be a decision a mother has to make, a father has to make. It should be accessible and ready. And I think if we start doing the research and asking the questions, although it may be a small percentage of people, the meaningful impact it has on those people will generate an employee for a lifetime potentially.
(23:04):
And so I would say start researching, start asking questions, and then you'll dig in and you'll see just how many people this matters for maybe a small percentage. It is a very important benefit to those families. I would say research and ask questions and survey your employees and you will slowly hear stories and challenges that you did not know exist for working families, and you would say, we should solve that for you. That should not be a challenge. Just like healthcare isn't a challenge, seeking great access to healthcare, this should not be a challenge for our employees. We should solve this for them.
Alyssa Place (23:41):
Great. Well, listen, Dan, thank you so much. It was so wonderful chatting with you. I really appreciate your time.
Dan Figurski (23:46):
Well, thank you.
Alyssa Place (23:47):
Yeah, enjoy the rest of your day. Yeah,
Dan Figurski (23:48):
You too. Listen, a great talking to you. Thanks so much.
