Urbansitter and Kinside team up on joint caregiving platform to support working parents

After nearly two years of demand from employees, caregiving benefits have finally become staples in most companies. Still, caregivers are struggling to use these programs to meet all of their needs. 

While 42% of employers wanted to prioritize caregiving benefits like subsidized childcare and virtual babysitting, single-point solutions are often difficult for caregivers to navigate. That’s why Kinside, a company that connects parents with open child care spots and resources, recently partnered with in-home caregiving provider Urbansitter to launch Complete Care. The joint effort offers caregivers the widest variety of caregiving options, with the least amount of pressure on HR departments. 

Caregivers will have access to preferred tuition at daycares, preschools, camps and afterschool programs thanks to Kinside, as well as in-home care options including nannies, babysitters, emergency and backup care, eldercare, tutors and petcare from Urbansitter.

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“We were hearing from brokers and HR leaders and buyers that they were tired of having a point benefit or point solutions,” says Brittney Barrett, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Kinside. “We wanted to create a single source where you could check every single box from a caregiving perspective, from elder care and babysitting to emergency care tutors. Just one single place where a parent can go to find all the care they need.” 

Employers will need to be already partnering with these vendors in order to offer the Complete Care platform. Once enrolled, both Urbansitter and Kinside  screens the company’s employee base to gather information on what benefits would be most beneficial to those employees, especially if they need location-based benefits such as in-home elder care or emergency care. 

Because employers are sometimes so concerned with providing one or multiple caregiving options, they don’t always cater to the specific needs of their employees, Barrett says. While something is better than nothing, employers shouldn’t cut corners when it comes to these benefits. 

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“When [HR departments] can't find the right caregiving solution, then they'll either add multiple benefits or put it off,” says Barrett. “Or maybe something that’s not exactly what they want, but they feel like it has like most of the elements they want so they'll go with something that's not quite perfect.” 

Instead of competing benefits, Urbansitter and Kinside joined forces — Barrett and Urbansitter’s CEO Lynn Perkins recognized that they were solving opposite ends of the spectrum, competing against each other. But together, they realized they could have a greater impact on employees, and empower employers to tackle the caregiving crisis, as well as improve their recruiting and retention strategies. 

“For many parents going to work when they have children at home that need to be taken care of, it's like they’re paying to be at work,” Barret says. “Employers need to understand the sacrifice that those employees are making and support them long-term.”