Stephanie:
Good morning, good afternoon to everybody that's joining us today on the webinar, "Companies Winning the Talent War: How Are They Doing It?" And I will be moderating and joined by two visionaries who are actually winning the war on talent and are happy to share what they're doing. As many of you know, the competition for talent has been fierce since the beginning of what some dub the Great Resignation or the Great Reset or Reshuffle, and is expected to remain high the rest of the year and beyond.

As I said, our speakers have some terrific insight and will be able to share how they personalized their benefits to attract and retain their talent. I will turn it over to Jason to introduce himself and then Erica.

Jason:
Thanks, Stephanie. My name's Jason Partin. I work at Genentech, which is a biotech company headquartered in South San Francisco, California. I've been at Genentech for about six years now and I've worn a few different hats while I've been here. I actually started in the design and construction department. I was also very involved in the pandemic response at Genentech, where I was the project manager for our return to campus effort.

And currently, I am a program manager on our workforce services in our workforce services department on the campus services team where I am the program manager for...among other things, I'm primarily responsible as the program manager for our childcare program. Erica.

Erica:
Hi. Erica White. I'm with HCA Healthcare. Here at HCA Healthcare, I am in the benefit operations space. To tell you a little bit about HCA Healthcare, we own and operate hospitals. So, we have about 180-plus hospitals spread across 20 states. So we're across the footprint of the country. We also have other lines of business. We have over 200 surgery centers, as well as expanding into the urgent care space. So, we have a wide variety of employees in our base.

The majority of our population is nursing. So, you'll hear me talk about that a lot today. We care very deeply about our nurses. But Stephanie, thank you for having us here. I work closely with the Bright Horizons relationship on the EdAssist side as well. My team supports the education program. So, we'll talk a little bit about that throughout our presentation today.

Stephanie:
Thank you both. Thanks, Erica. So, let's get started. According to the most recent job opening and labor turnover from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 11.3 million jobs opening. And one of the largest talent pools are working parents who are still struggling to figure out how to juggle both work and family. According to our Modern Family Index this year, it's two-thirds. Two-thirds of parents that are working feel fatigued, exhausted, or best way to say it, they're burnt out.

In fact, our recent Modern Family Index poll also shared that a lot of people are being asked to come back to the office. And coupled on that with the lack of family care, it's making it a challenge. So, I'm gonna turn it over to all of you because we're going to do our very first panel. Great. So, the panel's to the right, and first question is what is causing stress and burnout regarding working parents? And click all that apply. You know, it doesn't have to be just one, your top one, click all that apply.

I'm sure lots of you, you know, paying for education is a big one and people are still really nervous about the ongoing pandemic. So, I'm anxious to see the survey results.

Wow. Yeah. Work responsibility, caregiving. Yeah. We're seeing that a lot. But for all of you that actually clicked them all, you hit it on the head. You know, the same study found, our Modern Family Index, more than one-third of working parents go as far as to say a job that meets their family responsibility is just as much a motivator to stay with their organization in the year as doubling their compensation. You know, meeting people's family needs, caring like family, which Erica will talk about, but this is a truly powerful stat for all of you.

Now I'm gonna turn it over to Jason and Erica as we would love to hear your thoughts on supporting your working parents. I'll turn to Erica first.

Erica:
Yeah. So, Stephanie, here at HCA Healthcare, we're feeling a lot of this too, especially coming out of the pandemic, this fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout is real. We're really feeling the impacts of it. So, you know, one of the things that I always look to is our employee value proposition. And one of those principles is caring like family. So, we always have to be mindful in the 280,000-plus colleagues that we're serving across 20 states that we're really thinking that we're taking care of them and treating them like family. You know, to go along with that, they have dependents.

So, it's more like 360,000 people you're trying to take care of when you think about your employees and your dependents. So, we take that very seriously because not only do they have their family inside of work, they have their family outside of work. And we need to be able to make sure that they're taken care of so when they come to work, they can provide the best quality care they can for the patients that we serve. So, one of the most notable things that we've done, we have seven childcare centers and we are gonna be adding three more childcare centers here in the near future.

Stephanie:
Amazing. Amazing, Erica, and really attributes to HCA's culture. Jason, would love to hear from you.

Jason:
Yeah. So, as I mentioned, I work at Genentech which is a biotech company. And, you know, at Genentech, we're dedicated to pursuing science that meets the needs of patients that are struggling with serious and life-threatening diseases and being that we're focused on tackling complex issues. And certainly, I think anyone who is trying to provide childcare for their employees or any working parents would agree that meeting those needs in childcare right now is a complex issue for sure.

At Genentech, we have a long history of committing to that support, certainly longer than I've been here. So, our relationship with Bright Horizons goes back decades. It's not really uncommon for me to meet colleagues who are sending kids off to college who were, you know, little preschool munchkins at Bright Horizons here at Genentech.

So, you know, we have a long history of this support and right now we have two centers on campus at our headquarters that each can accommodate about 500 children. So, two very big centers here at our headquarters and then also other benefits and support that we offer families and employees at our other locations around the country.

Stephanie:
Wow. Two centers serving 1,000 children is incredible. And, you know, having one center is very progressive and it's unique in the benefits world, but you both have more than one center. Jason, what played a role in expanding to build the second center?

Jason:
Yeah. Well, in Northern California, we're really competing for talent with some of the, you know, biggest names that you can think of. And the culture here at Genetech is for us to...you know, we take a lot of pride in being an employer of choice. So, part of that is being able to offer great benefits and offer support that allows our people to do their best work. So, you know, when you think about the difficulty of finding childcare and especially in this region, it can be very difficult even before the pandemic, but the pandemic has really compounded that.

As you can see in the slide that's just been brought up, studies have shown that over the last couple of years, as many as 18,000 licensed childcare slots have been lost due to closures and due to other factors that the pandemic has impacted the entire economy. So that presents a real challenge, as I said, for employers that wanna support their staff and also just for working parents that are trying to find a way to do their best work and pursue their careers.

Stephanie:
Absolutely. And so for folks that just joined, we're gonna actually do our next poll. I'll read it, "According to a household poll survey from the Census Bureau released in February of this year, what are the top three states where the most parents said they couldn't find care outside the home for their children ages 0 to 5 in the previous four weeks?" So, these are folks looking for full-time childcare, part-time childcare at a center.

I don't see California on there, but based on everything that you've shared, Jason, I'm sure we couldn't get it all on this survey.

Jason:
I think these challenges exist all over.

Stephanie:
Yes. Yes. Thanks, everyone. You know, well, the three states that are top of mind are New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. So I see, you know, people definitely from New Jersey are on the call. In all of these states, more than one-third of parents said that they could not find childcare for their children within the four weeks that they were asked. Erica, I know this is something that you are very much aware of as well. Can you share some of what you are seeing?

Erica:
Yeah. So, one of our biggest areas is in the state of Texas. So, if you were to look at one of our largest concentrations where we have very large health systems, they're in the 635 zip codes, so that's Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and they're basically childcare deserts. So, the demand there is three times greater than the supply. For every 55 spaces, there's 100 children that need care between the ages of 0 and 5. So, you know, this is something that we're having to take a really close look at. And it's even more of a challenge for us being a healthcare company and that we have generally non-traditional work hours. We are on 24/7 operating facility.

So, compounded with the issue of we need at least something that can cover 12-hour shifts, it's even more of a challenge for us. And it goes even further than that because we're really in a labor crisis right now. So, I know everyone has heard about the nursing shortage. So, we kind of have two things that we're working against us, the working labor shortage along with childcare. So, really trying to tackle these two obstacles is something that's been a big challenge for us. But the lack of childcare is, you know, a real issue.

You know, Stephanie, you showed us a lot of statistics. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has shown us that 74% of parents have reported that they miss work due to childcare issues, right? When that family system breaks down or something happens where their child needs care or their child is sick, so they can't make it to work, that's about a $9.4 billion economic impact in the state of Texas.

So, the economic influence, you know, is also an impact, but it's not only the financial impact, but you have to think about the workers who are there, who did show up, who are doing that job every day and the added stress that it has on them that their co-worker wasn't able to make it in. And that just compounds and adds to the burnout and the stress of those who did come into work. So, you know, just the healthcare industry in whole has got a labor shortage. So, we're trying to do everything that we can to help with this childcare issue to take the burden off of our workers.

Stephanie:
Amazing. And, you know, you had mentioned it, but something I do know about all of your centers is the nontraditional hours that they operate, right? And what we found through the pandemic and before is that a lot of people need those extended hours. And so many, you know, community childcare centers cannot meet the demands of a diverse workforce. So, Jason, you mentioned...

Erica:
Yeah, Stephanie. To your point, you know, a lot of the traditional childcare models don't have those extended hours that we need to meet a 24-hour operation. So, you need a good partner to help you with those types of challenges to cover your operating needs.

Stephanie:
Absolutely. Especially, I feel like in healthcare or when you're, you know, producing a drug that is gonna save lives. So, Jason, you mentioned you have locations all across the country. Add this to the fact that you now have a hybrid workforce, not everybody's coming back to the office, how do you support working parents outside of your California office?

Jason:
Yeah. So certainly, the majority of our workforce is in California, but we do have facilities at other locations. And a lot of the needs are very similar of if we have manufacturing facilities at other locations, similar to what Erica was talking about, those can be non-traditional hours. So, we have kind of a range of benefits that can help assist. And, you know, I'm sure we'll get a chance to talk about more later, but things like backup care and drop-in care. But we're also seeing kind of across the country, different efforts to help meet those needs, like from a government standpoint, different focuses that are being brought to bear.

The White House has announced grants of, I think, $2 billion to states to help develop the talent pool for childcare workers and help increase compensation for childcare workers. Cities and counties are getting involved. Here in the county where our headquarters is at in South San Francisco, the city is taking very serious efforts to step in and see what they can do to help meet the needs of working parents. And then also like Kentucky, for instance, they've recently formed a task force, like early education task force to meet those needs.

There was a report that 40% of working age people in Kentucky had childcare challenges as a reason that they could not work. So, I think that this is a real systemic issue that everyone is paying more and more attention to as we go through the pandemic and as we try to adjust to the current economy and the current challenges.

Stephanie:
And Jason, you had mentioned, you know, your backup program. Care to share a little bit more about how that's [inaudible 00:17:37] workforce?

Jason:
Well, and so the backup care benefit is something that we can offer kind of at a lot of different locations. It's not facility-dependent, which is what's great about it. And it can be used for a number of different reasons. I think first and foremost, it's easiest to use it for things like when your child is out of school because their school's not in session. I think the average school year has as many as like 29 days where school is out of session during the school year. And that can be really disruptive for people's work as I'm sure any working parent can identify with.

But also things like if your child is ill or if your normal...like say you have a nanny situation and your nanny can't work, like if there's any sort of gap in your coverage, that backup care is available for you in order to enable you to still be able to work and meet your obligations at work. Another great thing about backup care is it's not necessarily for minors. It can also be used to support elder dependents. And you can see the numbers here on the slide, I think that's been a real benefit for people at Genentech because it's a really flexible option and that's really where the winds are blowing. The more flexible we can be in terms of meeting the needs of parents and our employees, the better.

Stephanie:
Thanks, Jason. And wow, 1,250 days saved in the first 7 to 8 months of the year, that's pretty incredible. And those saved days add up over time. So, childcare breakdowns are costing businesses an estimated $4.4 billion in absences and lost productivity to what Jason was just mentioning. And reliable childcare really impacts presenteeism. So, when you think about your employees coming to work and they're juggling who's watching their kids on Wednesdays and Fridays, it impacts their presenteeism.

In fact, the Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission finds investing in early childhood learning has an estimated return of 13% a year for the economy. Erica, one thing you are seeing is that there is a clear indication that having on-site childcare can actually boost your retention efforts. Can you share what you are seeing?

Erica:
Yeah. So, Stephanie, I'm really excited to share this with everyone. So, we recently did a return on investment study. And we found that on average, we have about a 24% employee turnover. This is very devastating for us, but I think everyone recognized some of the challenges that happened with healthcare workers during the pandemic. But we really saw, you know, a huge turnover.

So, in looking at our return on investment when it comes to support offering childcare, one of the things that we did in this study is really to look at what the financial costs would be of offering a childcare center and how that could offset our retention cost or turnover cost. So, that has been a really critical piece in our business case as we've thought about how we get support from a leader perspective.

And if you think about the cost of turnover, I mean, with the 24% turnover that we experienced, we had over 50,000 nursing positions open and then thousands of other roles as well. So, you think about the cost of having to replace that turnover and not only the impact to your employer, but the impact to the employees that are remaining there who are doing the work coming in every day.

And then, you know, looking at the retention goals of these programs, we see that when we have those centers in place and the colleagues that use those centers, it is significantly reduced. We only see about a 6% turnover. So, we were able through this study to really show that there is a retention factor in the childcare space.

Stephanie:
Well, Erica, you've definitely made the case for childcare. That's a pretty hard ROI. And what we found in our Modern Family Index is that 90% of parents say they need help managing their work and personal lives. And they're looking for their employers to help. Those 90% also stated that they will be loyal to their employers due to this type of help.

And I've been talking about the Modern Family Index. Let's just dig in a little deeper into what else we found. So, when we ask about benefits, obviously, medical, dental, vision, you know, 81% are critical. COVID benefits, we heard 74% people found that these are critical benefits and hold a lot of water. What we also found is that 66% of working families would be more likely to stay if their organization had mental health coverage. And I know that's been top of mind to so many organizations.

In addition, 60% stated that they would stay for emergency childcare or backup care for when they have a breakdown in their traditional care arrangement. And then that same poll, we found 58% need everyday childcare, especially those folks that are returning to the office that really need something that's a long-standing day that is also going to be there for them. And then 59% would stay for educational financial support. Erica, share a little bit about some of the benefits that you are offering that relay into our Modern Family Index.

Erica:
Yeah. So, you know, with the childcare model, you know, really what we hear a lot, not just from our employee base but experts across the country, having an early childcare model really helps prepare those children socially. It does a lot for their development. And children who go through these types of early learning programs have a higher likelihood of finishing high school, securing higher-paying jobs, things like avoiding incarceration, and just living generally happy, healthier lives. So, there's a lot of value in having these types of early childcare intervention programs from a social and community perspective. And part of our culture is that we care for our communities.

So, you know, we very highly value the fact that these types of programs can really help to make sure we're developing those critical thinking skills and other soft skills that members of our community need and getting them at an early age really shows that they can benefit your communities.

Stephanie:
Thank you. And, you know, I imagine a lot of you on the call are thinking, well, not all of us can build a new center. We realize that childcare is needed, but not all of us can build centers. And so, Erica, can you share some of the creative ways that you are looking at for building childcare centers, and then we'll turn it over to Jason to also share?

Erica:
Yeah, absolutely. So, we understand that not everybody's in the position, but Jason had a really good point that he made earlier, those grants. Those financial grants have been really impactful in helping us increase salaries for caregivers in the centers that we currently have. So, anyone who's interested should be pursuing those grants and looking for those types of financial supports. In the healthcare industry, I keep hitting on this, but we have three really big crises that we're dealing with. Not only the pandemic, the surge from that, the shortage of healthcare workers, along with this lack of childcare.

So, you know, we try to take a different look at, it may not be building the brick and mortar from the ground up. We're looking in office space that's vacant. So, we have found some empty medical office space that we are able to convert to a childcare center. So, putting those in the buildings where we're trying to offer the support to our colleagues has been one way that we've been able to kind of shift our focus and look at a different option.

It's very important that you have a good partner that helps you. Some of the other things that we're looking at is centers that are for sale, so if we can acquire. So, we're looking at all different types of models and really making sure that the data print matches up to where our employees live and where they work.

Jason:
Yeah. Those are all great ideas. And I can certainly identify with the challenges for creating a new from the ground-up facility. That's not something that every organization's in a position to do. Right now based on hybrid work, we actually have some capacity at our space. So, we've been talking with some of the other firms in the area about potentially sharing our space because it is such a great resource so that...

You know, sharing some of these vacant enrollment slots we have right now is a great way for us to partner with other firms in our immediate region that helps, you know, really promote our place in the community. And it really helps actually build out our resources for the parents because the more we fill that pool of spaces, the more we can offer robust benefits to everyone that's involved. It's a position we've taken with some of our other benefits that we've built out here at Genentech.

Typically, our childcare centers have been completely full. But obviously, during pandemic, that's changed a lot. You know, we have a certain percentage of folks at Genentech that have to work on campus regardless of anything else because they work in manufacturing or they work in research. It's certainly not work you can do from home. So, even when our campus was at its most restrictive state in terms of campus presence, we still had, you know, operations at our childcare, just at a lower capacity.

But, you know, kind of going back to what we were saying before, that's really where, you know, our hybrid model and being flexible is so important because as we're welcoming more and more people back to campus, we're finding that those needs are changing. We traditionally offered full-time and part-time slots, but now we're having more demand for things like drop-in care or the backup care that I mentioned. And having a facility on campus is great because we can offer drop-in care at a physical space that everyone's comfortable with. But as I mentioned, it's also a resource that we can share with other companies and find creative ways to help solve this problem.

So yeah, there's a lot of different ways to go about it, but sometimes it's just really hard to look at the challenge of building a new space. That's for sure.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, you know, the fact that you're being creative with what your current centers have and being flexible because that's what we all hear is that employers want choice and flexibility, right? So, they will use your childcare center maybe when they're in the office, maybe use a grandparent. So, it's really interesting what you're both been looking at doing. And so you both also, you know, you've talked about providing childcare as a way to support your workforce. What are you seeing other ways to personalize your benefits? I'll turn to Erica first because I know you're doing some really unique things with total rewards.

Erica:
Yeah. So, the healthcare industry is more competitive today I think than it's ever been. So, we're always making sure that we're providing a robust total rewards package. We try to concentrate in three areas, kind of the health and wellness, finance, and then life and family. So, we just have core benefits medical insurance, life insurance. We have a very robust match contribution, goes from 3% to 9% based on years of service. So, we're always trying to find things that help us retain our colleagues and help them with those family needs.

A lot of what we've been searching for lately and offering to our employees is around healthy lifestyles, and especially mental health programs. So, you can imagine what it's like to have, you know, a workforce of caregivers who have just gone through a pandemic. So, that has been one of the most important things that we've tried to focus on this year is to make sure we're providing that proper mental care that they need.

And then we have other things that help them share in the company's success. We have employee stock purchase plans where they're able to purchase stock at a discount which makes them feel part of the overall performance of the company. And just thinking about some of the other types of benefits, we wanna have something for everybody, right? Childcare just seems to be like for people who have children and education assistance for maybe a younger mid-age career who wants education assistance.

So, we're trying to think about it larger. So, if you need elder care or if you're a pet owner, we can actually find somebody to help you walk your dog. So, if you were one of those who got the COVID pet, we can help you find that dog walker. So, we're trying to really think about that robust option from a total rewards perspective.

Stephanie:
Sorry, I went on mute. In fact, my dog was barking. So, I'm glad you mentioned pets because I recently read in a Washington Post article that 23 million households have adopted a pet during the pandemic. That was me. And as Erica stated, it really does drive equity in your benefits because so many people think of their pets as their family. And so this is kind of also one of the reasons Bright Horizons is making an investment in pet care as part of our backup program because everybody wants care for their four-legged friends. Jason, you see benefits from a slightly different angle, right? You're not implementing the strategy, you're an end user. But can you share some of the benefits at Genentech that stand out to you?

Jason:
Sure. So, you know, one of the founding ideas about Genentech was that it would be a great place to work. And you know, it's a wonderful, you know, call to action and it enables people and inspires people to do their best work, but kind of to the point of this webinar, it's also a great tool in terms of recruiting and retaining talent when you really focus on making your company a great place to work. So, an obvious extension to that is the benefits.

You know, as I've mentioned, we're here just adjacent to Silicon Valley. So, we're competing with some of these big names for the top talent. So, you know, we have some of the flashy things you might hear about like nap pods and stuff like that and like on-site massage. But, you know, some of the other benefits are, you know, really kind of nuts and bolts things that allow people to do work like the food service is really excellent. We have a really robust transportation service where we have a fleet of buses and, in fact, ferries that are owned and operated by Genentech as well to help people with their bay commute.

Anyone who's from a big city can probably identify with traffic and how frustrating that can be and what an obstacle that can be for people working and also even recruiting people. So we have a really really extensive transportation network setup. And right now, because of the sharing of that transportation system we do with other companies that are adjacent to us, like I think the statistic is 50% of all workers in Oyster Point, which is the region we're in can get to work using Genentech transportation.

So, that benefits us in terms of recruiting, but it also benefits us in terms of being able to build out a more robust network, so it really creates a virtuous cycle. So, the transportation benefit is a really big deal for commuters. And then, you know, other nice-to-have things, like we have a wonderful gym, you know, there's other things like on-site dental, we're looking at adding a hairdresser, things that make it easier for you to do a full day at work and still manage to keep up with the other things that life demands.

And I think those are the kind of benefits that you have to be really mindful about when you're in a position of encouraging people to come back to work after they've been working remotely and there's a lot of friction in terms of like wanting to return, you know, an office environment. To a certain degree, you have to meet people where they're at. And I think a great benefits package not only draws them in, but it's, like I said, a great retention tool and recruiting.

Stephanie:
Wow. It really sounds like you are on the pulse of what your employees needs. And that transportation benefit, we hear it all the time. So, it's pretty amazing what you're doing. I like the massage and getting my haircut, but the transportation benefit I'm sure outweighs all of it. And so I love that you mentioned taking more, right? Jason, you just took more off people's plates. So they're not getting their haircut after work or, you know, bike repaired and they can get to work and not be stressed out sitting in traffic.

What we found is that 90% of parents do say that they need help. And a lot of it is their personal lives that they're looking for. That said, no matter what benefits you have, you cannot attract employees without a robust talent pipeline. Erica, can you tell us a little bit about how you are developing your employees?

Erica:
Yes, Stephanie. So, this is another area that I'm really passionate about that I get to partner with you guys through the EdAssist platform. So, you know, really continuing education, upskilling, and reskilling is very critical in the healthcare field, right? We have to hold certain licenses and accreditations to be able to do what we do. So, this area is very important to us, especially in the nursing area, right?

I keep talking about this, but, you know, the Department of Labor just recently reported that there will be 194,000 nurses short in the next decade. So, building this pipeline is very critical to our workforce. So, we have really looked at our education assistance program and what we can do to enhance those benefits to try to build our pipeline. It's very, very challenging to think about how you're gonna recruit for that pipeline of 194,000 over the next 10 years.

But one of the things that we did, we leveraged our buying power. We actually purchased a college of nursing. So, I know a lot of healthcare systems or employers partner with other university and schools to help rely on sourcing their talent or helping to reskill or skill their workers. We do that when it makes sense in a market, but the shortage of nursing just really drove us to pursuing purchasing our own college of nursing.

So, back in 2019, we purchased Galen College of Nursing, and we are building brick-and-mortar nursing schools in all of our divisions. So, we will have at the end of 2023, 16 campuses in the markets we serve which really helps us to be able to skill the talent that we need to drive them into the nursing field with a quality education. And they can also use our facilities to complete their clinicals. So, it's been a very rewarding partnership. We've currently got about six of those campuses open.

So, we're really looking forward to those continued opportunities. But we realize that, you know, nursing in a four-year degree is not for everyone. So, we also have certification programs. So, if we need other types of clinical positions, we'll help with voucher systems prepaid and we'll also reimburse and pay bonuses for reaching certain certifications that are above their current licensure. So, there's a lot that can be done in this space.

Midyear, we also launched a fast-track program where you can earn your prerequisites for a very low fee. We pay for that as your employer to get you into the healthcare field. So, we're setting up direct billing arrangements with a lot of colleges that can provide nursing and healthcare-related education. So, the last couple of years have been very rewarding.

One of the other things that we did for perhaps those who are already passed their licensure and they've accumulated a lot of debt, we have implemented a student loan assistance program where we pay $100 benefit for our full-time workers directly towards their student loan. So, I think that's been a very rewarding area and we did a retention study on that as well. And our colleagues that participate in those programs are twice as likely to be retained than those who don't participate in those programs. So, there's a very clear retention tied to reskilling and offering support around student loan debt.

Stephanie:
Well, having just dropped off my youngest at college the other day, I really love your student loan repayment program. And our recent EdAssist Education Index found that 74% of millennial employees would choose to work for an employer that offered student loan debt. And for Gen Z employees, that's 66%. So, when you're looking at the fight for talent, I have to say it sounds like student loan would be a win for everybody.

Well, I wanna thank everyone, but before we end, I would love to turn to the audience for questions. All right. We have our first question. And actually, this is to the both of you. We know childcare centers are expensive. How did you get executive buy-in to build your centers? Jason, I can start with you.

Jason:
You know, for us, it was really a matter of the numbers and growth we had. You know, we traditionally had a waiting list to become part of the childcare program. It was a very popular benefit. So, we had two centers previously, but one was leased and that lease was running up. So, we were in a position where we decided to build a second center in order to keep our capacity, in fact, to grow our capacity a little bit in anticipation of, you know, the trend where the numbers were going.

So, for us, it was a matter of table stakes. Like, we wanted to be able to continue to support working parents. And as that need grew, we had to keep up with it. So, you know, we were in a position to have the ability to build out another center, but it was in order to keep that commitment to our working parents.

Erica:
Yes. Stephanie, I'll chime in here. Data, data, data, right? So, mimicking a lot of what Jason said, we did employee interest surveys. That really helps to support what you need to get your leadership and executive buy-in. We did a lot of financial modeling. The retention study really helped greatly in making sure that we would basically have an offset. The operating cost would be offset by the retention. So, we had such a massive turnover that showing, you know, a change from 24% to potentially 6% turnover was really a game changer for us. So, having that data around that retention study, I think was probably one of the most useful things in showing the offset of the operating cost of the center.

Stephanie:
Yeah. And you also mentioned the survey. I think that's really important for everyone is you show the anecdotal folks that are looking and struggling with childcare and the inability to find it. And Erica, you know, you mentioned kind of the data, the hard data. And with regards to the ROI study, did you use like an outside firm for the study? How did you go about that study?

Erica:
Yeah. We partnered with a third-party consultant. So, we used IBM and they helped us look at it from a perspective of clean out all the noise, right? And look at it from a cohort perspective. Think about it from your employee base that's in the childbearing years. And we also narrowed it down and took a look at very similar employees and the cohort which helped us to show that we would have a higher retention for those participating in the program than those who would not.

Stephanie:
That's great. That really is. And Jason, you mentioned that candidates reach out to Genentech because of your centers. I mean, when you have mega centers, word gets out. Has this helped support your DE&I efforts?

Jason:
Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of...well, DE&I is like a big focus for Genentech as it is for a lot of companies in the country. And I think the straight line between supporting working families in this way in DE&I, it unlocks more talent pools for you. You can recruit more people so it allows you to solve those other issues and really pursue those other goals. And we absolutely have people reach out to us.

It's not uncommon that we'll get a request for someone who's being recruited that says, before we go further in this process, I need to be guaranteed that my child would have a spot in childcare because that's a deal breaker for me. So, I know that it can be very important, you know, depending on which candidate you're talking about, it could be a really important part of that recruiting process.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Especially those hard-to-fill roles and especially parents that have multiple children, finding childcare center that has two open spots. Yeah. Erica, I think you were gonna mention something. No. Okay. So, just looking at the other questions coming in. Erica, what are some of the priorities you see as you look at HR in 2023 and beyond?

Erica:
Well, retention goals are definitely in our pipeline and building of our workforce. So, those are definitely two things we're gonna be focusing on. You know, we're also wanting to make sure we confirm that ROI on our centers. So, we're gonna be continuing to monitor and support that return on investment that we saw. And having that focus on retention, I think will help us get there.

We're also looking to enhance some of our medical benefits where we can...that inflation concern that, you know, we polled the audience earlier. We're gonna look at expanding some of our free medical plan offering. So, we hope to have an expansion of that in 2023. And employee recognition is a big one for us in 2023, making sure our employees feel appreciated and recognized for the contributions they bring to our communities.

Stephanie: Wow. That sounds like a big undertaking.

Erica:
I'm tired already.

Stephanie:
The next question is for both of you. Are the centers at your organizations only for employees, or do you open them up to the community who can also use the centers? So, Jason, go ahead and then Erica.

Jason:
Okay. Right now, our centers are only for Genentech employees, as well as the Bright Horizons staffing centers, but we're actively exploring opportunities to share some of our open enrollment slots, like I said, with partner companies. We haven't considered opening up to the broad community. But I mentioned we share transportation with partner companies in the region. So, kind of following that model, we have already some firms that we work with in that regard.

So, we have already a relationship with them and we would enter into a contract to allow them to take some of these empty spots we have. Also, as I mentioned, there's a South San Francisco initiative that would expand childcare access for anyone who works or lives in the city. That might also impact the way we handle some of this open enrollment space that we have. So, there's things that are in the works. But right now, it's Genentech employees only.

Stephanie:
And Erica, what about your centers?

Erica:
Yeah. I'd have a very similar response because the need is so great. We have really just opened up the centers to our employee base and to our caregivers. We also want them to be able to have access, so we haven't had the opportunity to open it up to communities. Now, if our enrollment gets low, we certainly would support our communities and look to partner employers to participate.

Stephanie:
Great. Thank you both. Another question for the both of you. What are the biggest challenges both of your organization have faced in creating childcare centers? Chime in whoever wants to go first.

Erica:
Yeah. I'll give a couple of things, but, you know, right off the top of my head is the capital expenditure, right? Asking for capital. Going to your leadership and asking them for a new build or for space or additional assets to help with the center conversion. So, the leadership buy-in, you need that data. So, that's probably been one of the challenges that we faced, and creating those centers is just requesting and asking for it. But you can build a business case to do it.

Jason:
Yeah, absolutely. I would agree with that. And also just from a construction standpoint, there are a lot of requirements for childcare center above and beyond what you'd expect from a typical office space. So, going into it from a project perspective can be a real challenge. Maybe not quite to the level of building a hospital, but certainly above and beyond what you'd expect for a normal office space, especially when you consider the design elements that you want to build a really successful, you know, wonderful place for people to feel good about taking their children to every day.

Stephanie:
Absolutely. And we have time for one more question, I think. This one actually is for Jason. Is the backup care benefit an offering in terms of money, time off, or is it a service where you link them up with a backup care provider? So, are you reimbursing like giving out money?

Jason:
It's more similar to the last option you had. So, people will get a certain amount of days per year. And I apologize, I should know exactly how many days that is, but off hand, I don't know, I think it's like 10 days or something like that per year, where you can call and have someone from the network sent to your house, like a babysitter essentially to help with backup care either at your house, or you can also use this benefit at our centers in the physical space. And as I said, it's super flexible because you can use it not just for minors, but also for elders that are in your care as well. So, it's more a service where they match you up with a provider, but you get a certain amount of days and it's part of that service.

Stephanie:
Yeah. And, you know, just to add onto that, you know, they could use any center, any of the Bright Horizons or network centers. There's hundreds of thousands of centers that they can also use. And as someone that recently became part of the sandwich generation, the in-home care for elders, especially my parents who live out of state has been really helpful, especially throughout the pandemic.

Erica:
That's a great point. Yeah. So, there's a very robust network of physical spaces where you could use this, but also you can have someone sent to your house. And yeah, it's a great service.

Stephanie:
All right. We have like two or three minutes left. Final thoughts on the best ways each of you think for employers to think about providing a personalized approach because both of you have very personalized approaches to supporting your employees. So, what would you share with folks on the call?

Erica:
I think inclusion and culture are probably one of the approaches to supporting, making sure you have something for everybody. I think I've talked about this a little during our discussion today that we are trying to build benefit packages across the spectrum of generations. We know that 75% of workers are gonna be millennials in the next 3 years, but we really feel like we need to look across all generations and make sure we have something for everybody.

Jason:
Yeah. That's a great answer, Erica. I would agree with that, but I would also say that for me, a big focus is trying to understand people's needs from a flexibility standpoint, just understanding the new way of work and really listening to your folks. You know, we have like a big survey that just went out trying to gauge interest and understand the few people's needs and finding a way to offer the type of flexibility that is the most valuable to folks because frankly, we don't live in a Monday to Friday 9 to 5 world anymore. So, how does something like childcare, but really all of our benefits, how does that scale to making people feel like it's a great place to work and really feeling supported?

It was probably much more straightforward challenge when the expectation was Monday to Friday 9 to 5, you just build a fantastic campus and that's where everyone is and they take advantage of your services. But with hybrid work and with people all on different schedules, it's a challenge from the business perspective, like how do you really execute effectively on your business and keep everyone productive, but it's also a challenge from a benefit and support standpoint.

Stephanie:
Thank you both. Thank you both for your time. Thank you to everybody that joined today. And if you have any questions, wanna reach out to Erica or Jason, you know, please let us know at Bright Horizons. And again, thank you both for your time and for just supporting your workforce in such unique ways.