An HR awakening: How COVID-19 shifted the way companies look at essential benefits

COVID-19 has revealed the cracks in the caregiving experience and made benefits that address these critical needs essential.

Of the 43.5 million unpaid caregivers in the U.S., less than one in five has access to paid family leave benefits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, 98% of HR leaders have plans to expand their benefits, according to a survey by Care.com.

Child care benefits are high priority, with one-third of employers now considering those benefits essential. Fifty-percent are planning to expand or newly offer these benefits to their workers.

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“If you do not have care, you can’t work. And if you don’t work, you can’t have care. It comes full circle,” says Alyssa Johnson, vice president of global client management at care.com. “Organizations are aware that in order to keep participation in the workforce and drive their businesses forward, they need to be thinking about care as a business issue.”

In a recent one-on-one interview, Johnson discussed the survey results and how critical it is for employers to make child care benefits a priority during and after the pandemic.

How are employers planning to address their benefits strategy as it relates to the pandemic?

COVID has completely upended how we work. We wanted to a check in with HR decision makers about how they were experiencing these changes and what the impact was to their organization and how they were thinking differently about their benefits and supporting their teams.

What we learned is that child care is simply essential. Previously, there was a connection between child care and employee performance. COVID has really thrust that into the spotlight.

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Employers have a front row seat into people's homes. We've all been on Zoom seeing people in their homes with their children. All of the child care challenges have become very apparent and leaders in organizations are facing them ourselves. We can sympathize with that. That has driven a fundamental shift in truly seeing the whole person, not just the worker.

How has COVID changed the way employers view essential benefits?

Organizations are starting to think about what their workforce looks like. The majority of people are working from home and that has forced organizations to think about the types of benefits that they're offering. Amazing office snacks are really not all that attractive anymore. When you think about the benefits and perks that have worked for a centralized workforce in the past, they're no longer meeting the needs of today's workforce. We are seeing things like flexible care benefits that work for employees, wherever and whenever they need them.

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The reality is that the future of work is flexible. Employers are thinking about the perks and benefits that they have in place and whether or not those are meeting the needs of their workforce. Previously on site child care was the gold standard of benefits. But over 60% of HR leaders are now more favorable on flexible child care benefits. They are also looking at backup care and a variety of different ways they can support workers with child care that isn't necessarily an onsite center.