Frequently Asked Questions for employers

There are lots of reasons...

Absence: Parents in employment have childcare problems, on average, nine times a year, with 89% having to take time off as a result. (Employee wellbeing survey, 2006)

Career: 78% of employees said 'admitting' childcare breakdown would hinder career prospects. (Linklaters study, 1999)

Retention: 42% of working parents say a Backup Care plan is an 'important' factor when considering an employer. (Simmons College Study, 2003)

Engagement: Backup Care plan - simple and easy to increase staff engagement. (Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study, 2004)

No-one. Well almost no-one.

There are really only two options for companies that decide to implement a backup childcare service.

Either you put in place the package we offer - yes, we do believe it is far and away the most cost effective, flexible and comprehensive solution - or you buy a number of permanent nursery places.

Permanent nursery places are expensive and will not suit all your employees. By definition the location will be difficult for some and the hours are rigid.

We build a dedicated Work+Family Space website for your employees to access. This portal for working parents and carers contains a wealth of information, and provides employees with access to the My Family Care services that you offer.

Emergency Childcare, School Holiday Cover and Backup Adult & Eldercare are all available online or via a 24/7 telephone booking team.

Information on all our other services is also displayed on your dedicated website and we will work hard on your behalf to produce relevant eye catching marketing material.

The more the services are used the better for all parties.

As much or as little time as you want. There are various elements of the service that need discussing and agreeing: home page and customised sections; verification of users; marketing and communication plan.

We've done this now for lots of clients and we really can take care of everything, or nearly everything.

For our best clients the only involvement is reading a simple report on a monthly basis. From our end the service is completely seamless.

Compared to putting a childcare voucher scheme in place what we offer is a "walk in the park". From the moment you decide to go ahead you should allow a minimum of a 3 week timeframe; 4 weeks if you also want to produce promotional material.

You can decide to contribute how much and in whatever format suits you and your employees. We charge for set up and management.

The cost is dependent on the services you take up, the size of your company and the additional Work+Family Space options you decide upon.

Yes, of course. We prefer offering Backup Care as a voluntary benefit (it's easier), but you are the client. You decide.

We have already done lots of work to integrate the system with the major vouchers companies and have on-going relationships with Thomson Online Benefits, Towers Perrin, Hewitt, and PMM.

The complicated bit is deciding how much you would like to contribute. We can do some detailed work with you to decide how much we think you should contribute to maximise the benefit to you and your staff. But thereafter implementing it could not be easier. We do all the work and have plenty of easy templates for you to use.

We have a team of developers constantly working on the site so in the extreme case one week's lead time would allow us to take a service live - not ideal but we have done it before.

Your employees can use childcare vouchers from any of the big four voucher providers (Accor Vouchers, Sodexho Pass, care-4 and Busy Bees) to pay for backup childcare places at nurseries through our site. You cannot use them for nannies or childminders.

Remember running a backup childcare service can greatly increase the take up of vouchers by getting to all those parents who should have vouchers but somehow have not got round to filling in the forms.

On the legal side some people worry that there are potential liabilities offering childcare through a service such as this. There aren't - but we can provide a detailed legal opinion setting out why no liability could or does exist. Please feel free to ask.

On the tax side anything you contribute to the cost of back up childcare will be treated as a P11D expense and will be taxed accordingly. We often work directly with payroll departments and you will need to decide who picks up this cost - you or the employee.

Please get in touch - we prefer meeting you face to face to run through how the service works, and how we can tailor it to meet your company needs. But a chat by phone can also work. Please allow at least 15 minutes. We are very proud of the service so we do sometimes run over.