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Child Care is a Workforce Investment

Employers can play an important role in pursuing solutions that help families and will benefit their bottom-line in the long term. Family friendly policies — from flex time to providing onsite child care — help businesses find and keep the best workers.

Good For Employers
Working toward improved workplace productivity, recruitment, and retention makes sense for everyone. Joining forces in this work while supporting children’s healthy development not only makes the workforce of today stronger, but also builds the foundation needed for the workforce of tomorrow to succeed.

Businesses that adopt family friendly policies see an increase in:

– Employee engagement

– Employee retention

– Workplace productivity

Good For Employees

When your employer implements family friendly policies and practices, they communicate their support for you. This is a collaborative effort for all involved and, once a healthy system is in place, balancing the needs of work and family encourage everyone to recognize the benefits of a supportive, productive, and reliable workplace.

Good For The Economy

Business leaders understand the importance of child care to ensure a reliable and productive workforce. They also understand how family friendly investments today avoids workforce turnover tomorrow.

Family Forward Montana

 

Emboldened by the desire to create pathways to a better future, Family Forward Montana is inspiring and supporting family-friendly practices in the workplace across the state of Montana.

Family Forward Montana – one of Zero to Five Montana’s strategic initiatives — facilitates solutions to help employers, and their employees, achieve their best work.

Employers can play an important role in pursuing solutions that help families and will benefit their bottom-line in the long run. Family friendly business practices help parents balance their work and family responsibilities. Some policies include flexible schedules, remote work options, offering a stipend for child care, or even providing on-site child care. Though all of these policies take some planning, they all contribute to an employer’s ability to recruit and retain the most qualified workers while supporting healthy families.

Want to learn more about becoming a family-friendly business? Learn more at familyforwardmt.org.

Child care is one of the bigger obstacles now in retaining and attracting a workforce, 
it is becoming a struggle for a lot of employers and they’re not alone.

– Tracy D. McIntyre
Executive Director Montana Cooperative Development Center

percent ROI for comprehensive, high-quality, birth-to-five early education

percent of Montana businesses say they cannot grow because of a lack of child care

percent of workers 40 and under would leave their jobs for one with more family-friendly benefits

dollars spent by some parents for one child’s annual care

percent of Montana counties are considered child care deserts, where less than a third of demand is being met

percent of parents say they missed time from work because of a child care related problem

million dollars -- the economic burden of inadequate child care in Montana from 2019 to 2028

percent of Montana businesses have a hard time recruiting and retaining a qualified workforce due to a lack of child care

You Can Make a Difference

We believe investing in our children today is the most important pathway to a healthy, thriving Montana tomorrow. Click the button below to learn more about how you can get involved.