One of the perks associate attorney Olivia Miner really likes at her law firm is its nursing room.
The room at San Diego-based Wilson Turner Kosmo LLP has a chair, side table, small refrigerator, sink and counter so Miner, 34, who’s pumping for her 9-month-old daughter Violet, doesn’t have to deal with privacy and sanitary issues like she would if she washed her pump parts in the company bathroom or kitchen sinks. And there’s a sliding sign that lets people on the outside know the nursing room is in use.
At the previous law firm she worked at, people knocked on the door, even though she had her office door locked while she pumped. “It was jarring. I didn’t want to yell through the door that I was pumping or topless.”
The Wilson nursing room is part of a brand-new office that the company moved into this past January. Wilson isn’t the only one catering to workers with children. To recruit, retain or simply be nice to employees, several other local companies are also offering other family benefits from fertility reimbursements to letting parents bring infants to work to childcare subsidies.
According to a Care.com survey released in July, more than 40 percent of families spend more than 15 percent of their household income on childcare, while the U.S. government defines affordable care as no more than 7 percent of family income.
American families, according to Care.com, say they are not only saving less, working less and spending less, but they are also having fewer children. Moms especially felt the impact of care challenges on their careers. More than half of the moms worked less to save on childcare and one out of four moms left the workforce altogether.
TargetCW CEO Samer Khouli, who doesn’t have kids, discovered that childcare cost was a concern when he asked employees about the challenges they face as new moms.
So since July, TargetCW, a San Diego-based payroll and staffing firm, has been offering up to $4,000 a year to help with dependent daycare.
The Ken Blanchard Companies, an Escondido management training and consulting firm, also aids with childcare. It helps employees secure a private office so they can bring their babies up to 6 months old to work. Employees must submit a plan to their boss and human resources on how they intend to care for the child while doing their job.
Ken Blanchard wants “to help moms and dads transition back to work after having a baby and have baby bonding time rather than have to immediately turn over care to someone else,” said Lisa Como, the company’s wellness and benefits coordinator.
Since the program’s inception in 1986, more than 50 parents — mostly moms but some dads as well — have brought their babies to work.
ShopCore Properties is also family friendly. In June, the San Diego owner of shopping centers, rolled out a fertility reimbursement program that offers up to $5,000 for fertility treatments, testing for infertility or egg quality, egg freezing and surrogates.
“We have a lot of employees who work really hard and wait until later to have kids,” said Sheena Kemp, human resource business partner for ShopCore, “and we want to them when decide to have kids.”
