Supporting Women with Caregiving Benefits
Why more churches should join this workplace trend
Well, I thought my maternity leave post would stand on its own as a post for how we can better support mothers in youth ministry through workplace benefits. But in my research, I’ve also just come across a lot more data on another area of benefits worth diving into: caregiving and childcare benefits.
I can’t think of a sole mother in youth ministry I know who, when asked, hasn’t mentioned how difficult it can be to balance motherhood with work in youth ministry. For this reason, many women leave youth ministry or scale back their hours after having kids. At home, women handle most of the household labor and childcare. This means that women have a harder time with work-life balance than men, since they hold more responsibility at homes. For mothers working full-time, it’s as if they are holding a second full-time unpaid job at home.
Where this is the case, one obvious way to support working mothers would be to offer support in the area of caregiving and childcare as part of a benefits package. This could include parental and family leave, flexible work policies, and on-site childcare or childcare subsidies.
These kind of benefits sound like they could be costly. The workplaces are giving up what could be peak work hours and spending more money to offer these benefits. So why would they want to do this? Vivvi and The Fifth Trimester teamed up to produce a report about why employers should care about offering these kinds of benefits. The report, titled “The R.O.I. of Caregiving Benefits,” outlines the findings of their surveys and research:
It increases worker retention. In a survey of over 300 workers, they found that “while 67% of survey respondents have considered leaving their job in the last year, 42% of those say that they stayed specifically because of their employer’s support of their caregiving. And, overall, 59% of respondents say that if they had backup or subsidized child care they would be likely to stay put for at least four years.”
It’s what job candidates are looking for. When asked if they would rather have an immediate cash bonus of $10,000, or an ongoing child care subsidy of $10,000 per year, 9 out of 10 people chose the subsidy. Furthermore, “child care support ranked in the top three most-wanted benefits, right alongside standards like vacation days—and ahead of more traditional benefits like a 401k.”
It shows that the company supports its workers. “Remarkably, our survey also found that child care is a critical benefit for companies to offer even when employees don’t want or need to use it. In fact, our respondents ranked back-up child care as a benefit that they would want for their colleagues even more than for themselves. Job candidates want to know that they’re walking into an environment where teams are already feeling supported, and where they don’t have to be adversely affected by colleagues’ care needs.”
Caregiving-friendly policies boost worker productivity. The responsibilities of caregiving drive workers to be more productive, efficient, focused, and motivated: “Parents who were able to work remotely or at odd hours reduced their absenteeism, applied commute time to work, or timed their work sprints to match the hours they had care, increasing their productivity.”
”Our survey asked respondents to rank five things that improve their work motivation. Respondents’ most common #1 ranked work motivator was simply knowing their kids were safe and cared for while they worked—above a deadline, flexibility, or a financial goal. Additionally, 69% of survey respondents say that if their employer had backup or subsidized child care they would work in person more often than required, and 57% said they would take on higher-level work.”It impacts culture. “When asked what kind of management training would have the biggest positive effect on company culture (and therefore retention—see finding 1), 48% of respondents said that caregiving sensitivity training would have the most impact—more than risk management, sexual harassment, and implicit bias training combined.”
In other words, workplaces are gaining more than they’re spending when they offer these kinds of benefits. In fact, the report concludes that the estimated return on investment is nearly 18x.
In many cases, I’ve heard of churches already offering many of these benefits. Mothers have told me how their churches have been very willing to work with their odd schedules, allowing flexibility for them to work from home when a child is sick, to leave in the middle of the day for school carpool, and so on. That’s a great place to start. (If your church doesn’t offer flexibility, The Fifth Trimester offers a free PDF designed to help you negotiate for it.)
Some have even mentioned to me that their church sometimes helps pay for childcare for their children. This is helpful both when kids are young and not yet in school, and also after they are in school, since youth ministry involves plenty of work outside of school hours. Plus, the money parents would have to invest in babysitters is often not that much less than they are making per hour, making the trade-off for working those hours not always worth it. I’ve heard of many different arrangements here, including:
A church that pays for childcare up to X afternoons or evenings per week so that the youth ministry staff can be free for relational ministry activities with students.
A church that pays for private childcare for its youth ministry staff during youth programs on Sunday and/or Wednesday, especially if the spouse is also volunteering in the ministry.
A church that finds members to provide childcare for youth ministry staff’s children on-site during youth group.
Churches that provide on-site childcare or nursery workers for staff during normal office hours.
When the church is actually part of securing the childcare workers so that parents don’t have to arrange it themselves, that can be a huge plus. The scramble to find babysitters is often a significant stressor itself.
The topic of caregiving benefits is also relevant for women in youth ministry who aren’t mothers, because women are much more likely to take on caregiving roles for family and friends, including aging parents. As someone who just went through a season of caregiving in this capacity myself, believe me when I tell you that schedule flexibility was a massive perk during this time. I cannot stress enough how much I can’t imagine having been a caregiver during my previous ministry jobs with less flexibility. Most women in youth ministry probably won’t have this on their radar yet, since most are young — and I was still younger than most people who take on caregiving for parents — but it is something worth thinking about for the future.
If your church isn’t already offering these kinds of benefits for parents (and I mean genuinely for all parents, not just for mothers), perhaps it’s time for them to start thinking about it.