How large companies help employees with childcare and distance learning

One of the adverse effects of the novel Covid-19 is the lockdown rule that was put in place by the government, which restricts children within a certain age from going to public places like school, church etc.

This is a great challenge for millions of parents, especially mothers worldwide, as they have to deal with childcare. Reasonably, many mothers are leaving their jobs to cater to the wellbeing of their little children. This and many more reasons are what birth companies that do remote learning and childcare schemes for working parents. With this, parents can concentrate at work and leave the wellbeing of their little ones to the hands-on childcare systems.

One of the notable companies that are into childcare is Cleo, a family benefits platform. In a statement by the CEO, Serahjane Sacchetti, COVID-19 has hastened the call for programs that help parents go to work without them worrying about their children. More companies are recognizing the work conflicts of their employees, so much attention is given to family benefits. Companies want their employees to be engaged and productive in the workplace and have peace of mind knowing that everything is alright at home.  

Meanwhile, one of the downsides of these programs is that it doesn't have solutions to the needs of different categories of kids. What a grade school child needs differs from what a toddler needs. Regardless, numerous effective programs are effective which working parents can benefit from.

Financial Aid

The family has to provide for the expenses for taking care of their children. Schools have reviewed their method, and many schools are going into distance learning. This will also increase the expenses of the family on each child. Also, it will demand that new sophisticated gadgets are gotten for each child to facilitate their learning and care while their parents are away at work.

Due to all these increased expenses, different companies are extending financial aids to parents to help them meet the educational and care demand of their children. For instance, 75 to 100 dollars is being decompensated by Bank of America for child care support. This depends on the annual payment of the parents. Also, workers whose children are less than 12-year-old are given a choice to select the preferred childcare they want for their children. Online loans can be sent to you anywhere as long as you are a Philippines citizen above 21 years. Also, you will have to submit all information that is required for the utang online application.

Extra Parental Paid Leave

What some companies do is to grant working parents more paid leave for them to have enough time to take care of their kids. Microsoft, for instance, gave about 12 weeks of paid parental leave to working parents earlier this year.

Google company also extended the longevity of family leaves to 14 weeks in April. This was during the heat of the pandemic. It gave parents time to look after their family.

Occupy Kids with Educative Activities

Taking care of kids, especially toddlers, demands more effort and attention. This makes it quite difficult for working parents to take care of their kids and work simultaneously. That is why some companies came up with software filled with activities to get kids occupied. A software developer named Globant developed software that gets children busy by providing virtual activities. Outside professionals supervise this program through their Future of Organizations department.

Some of the educative activities include magic shows, art classes, and so on. It also allows parents to plan activities for their children even while they are away.

Favorable Working Condition

It is challenging for working parents to keep up with their jobs, taking care of their children, and doing house chores. That is why some companies strategize in designing a more flexible work schedule for working parents. Paylocity, for instance, each working parent gets a schedule that fits their work-life demand. They get work done conveniently while still adhering to the company rules and regulations.     

With this, parents can take split schedules, which enable them to take long breaks in the day and return to work in the evening. This time, all their jobs will be done online. Some get to work for 10hours every day, just for 4days a week. Although this attracts a lesser pay, it still gives them time to look after their family. Meanwhile, Paylocity gives its workers more Paid Time Off leaves (PTO) and sick leaves for more work flexibility.

Expanding childcare

Toyota has also been alleviating its workers' stress by surveying to ascertain the problem of working parents and the best way to help them. Its workers in the manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Kentucky, expressed complaints about their children’s virtual learning and how they will help their children if they were at work.

In response to this, the company launched an on-site program for children in kindergarten to fifth grade to help with their virtual classes. Each center is provided with supervisors to assist the children in distance learning, doing homework, and other educative activities.

However, this doesn't come for free as parents would have to pay 150 to 170 dollars per week for the program.

Discuss Childcare 

Discussing childcare in the workplace used to be unprofessional. However, with the recent happenings worldwide, it has become an important topic for discourse even in workplaces. Virtually all parents are facing one problem or another about online learning.

During Cleo's online meeting, no fewer than five babies show on the screens.

To assist working parents, they gave room for their employees to discuss their parental challenges. There is a slack communication channel created to that effect. This allows parents to share ideas and voice their frustrations about online learning.

Parents must give maximum support to their children's schooling; it is also important that they keep their jobs, and their source of income won't be abated. They must do everything to stay in service, not even now that the pandemic has rendered many people jobless. This happened everywhere, even in the Philippines. There are times that funds will be needed to sort urgent bills or purchase some gadgets for their children's online learning. Emergency loan online in the Philippines could save the day.