Candidates ask about it during interviews, and parents who join the company and sign up gain "peace of mind" that leads to better performance.

1. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2016 © 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By RACHEL FEINTZEIG
One of the largest day-care centers in
Atlanta has more than 66,000 square feet of
outdoor and indoor space, including three
playgrounds, basketball courts and a water
play area.
To enroll their children, parents must meet
one big requirement: work for Home Depot Inc.
The retail giant reasoned that putting a
child-care facility on its corporate campus—
where working parents can be steps away
from their children—would ease the strain of
juggling work and family. And Home Depot
isn’t alone: Companies like outdoor outfitter
Patagonia Inc. and energy-bar maker Clif Bar &
Co. have also invested in on-site child care.
The programs can be complicated and costly
to run, part of the reason only 4% of employers
offer a child-care center near or on-site,
according to the Society for Human Resource
Management. But bosses say the investment
pays off and keeps women in the workforce.
At Patagonia, of Ventura, Calif., parents
eat lunch with their preschoolers and breast-
feed infants during meetings. Eighty-one chil-
dren, from 8 weeks to 8 years of age, attend
programs at the company’s headquarters,
and 10 spend their days in classrooms that
opened in the company’s Reno, Nev., facilities
in January. Patagonia runs the program itself, a
task that required hiring a 28-person staff and
spending about $1 million a year.
“It’s a line item that would be really easy to
cut if you just saw it on a single Excel spread-
sheet,” says Dean Carter, the company’s head
of human resources. But Patagonia estimates
it recovers 91% of costs annually, because of
tax credits, increased employee engagement
and low staff turnover. Parents with children
in the program have been 25% less likely than
the average Patagonia employee to leave over
the past five years. And 100% of mothers have
returned to work after maternity leave over the
same period.
Help in the workplace
Child care has long been a critical issue for
working mothers. Women shoulder more of
the burden at home, according to data from
LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. More than a
third of women surveyed said they do more
when it comes to housework and child care
than their spouses, while only 7% of men said
their share was greater.
Ken Matos, the vice president of research
for consulting, coaching and research firm Life
Meets Work, says women face pressure to be
both ideal workers and ideal mothers. On-site
child care is one way to “bridge those identities
without stigma,” he says.
To be sure, child care isn’t a single-gender
issue. On-site centers can be a powerful benefit
for fathers, too, say executives and researchers.
“More and more dads are intimately
involved in these decisions [around child care]
and struggling with them as well,” says Erin
Kelly, a professor at the Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology’s Sloan School of Manage-
ment who has studied employers’ family poli-
cies and benefits.
Yet the struggle to balance work and home
remains more pronounced for many women,
and sometimes leads mothers to leave the
workforce. At Burns & McDonnell, an engi-
neering, construction, architecture and
consulting firm based in Kansas City, Mo.,
women make up about 25% of the 5,400-person
workforce. Chief Executive Greg Graves says
that the company found itself losing mothers
who wanted to stay home with their children.
“We need to work harder to convince these
moms that they can have both,” Mr. Graves
says. “They can have great careers and still be
terrific parents.”
The company in May opened a
20,000-square-foot child-care center featuring
a nearly 8-foot-long Lite-Brite-like picture-
Photo supplied by Bright Horizons for this reprint
The Publisher’s Sale Of This Reprint Does Not Constitute Or Imply Any Endorsement Or Sponsorship Of Any Product, Service, Company Or Organization.
Custom Reprints 800.843.0008 www.djreprints.com DO NOT EDIT OR ALTER REPRINT/REPRODUCTIONS NOT PERMITTED 52733
(over please)
Candidates ask about it during
interviews, and parents who join
the company and sign up gain
“peace of mind” that leads to bet-
ter performance.
JOURNAL REPORTS: LEADERSHIP
The Case for Day Care at the Office
Child-care centers can be expensive and complex to run. But companies say they pay off in employee
morale and retention.

2. building toy, lab coats for children
to don during science-themed
activities and a nearby peanut-
free kitchen. Prices aren’t subsi-
dized—full-time care for an infant
costs parents nearly $1,400 a
month. But Mr. Graves hopes the
center—which cost the company
more than $2 million to build—
will help the company reach its
goal of a workforce that’s one-
third female. Currently, just under
half of the 144 spots in the center
are filled.
The corporate hurdles
Lots of hurdles have kept
on-site care from becoming wide-
spread. Executives say it can be
challenging to predict enrollment
in corporate child-care centers.
Many worry about children’s
safety and compliance issues.
Upfront costs and real-estate
constraints also deter many
companies. Plus, researchers note
that employer-sponsored child
care isn’t always the answer to
talent issues facing a company—
often simpler, cheaper fixes like
flexible work options can do
just as well to attract and retain
parents.
Bright Horizons Family Solu-
tions, a provider of child-care
services based in Watertown,
Mass., operates 464 company-
sponsored centers, including
Burns’s, up from 389 in 2011. But
the company’s less-expensive
offerings, like backup care, are
growing more rapidly, according
to CEO Dave Lissy.
“There are costs associated
with it,” Mr. Lissy says of on-site
care. Companies “have to become
believers that there’s a good
return on investment, and that’s a
process for many companies.”
The benefit can be “really
sticky” for companies looking
to increase retention, Mr. Lissy
says. At Clif Bar, 98% of employee
parents whose children attend
the company day care said they
were more likely to stay working
for the firm because of the center,
according to a survey conducted
by the company that runs the
child-care center.
“It was a huge relief,” Kate
Torgersen, a Clif Bar senior
communications manager, says of
the chance to enroll her children
in the 6,700-square-foot center.
Ms. Torgersen estimates that she
has trimmed two hours from her
day by not having to do a separate
child-care drop-off for two of her
children—a third recently moved
on to kindergarten—leaving more
time for work.
Home Depot, which currently
has 264 children enrolled in its
program, believes on-site child
care is a “competitive advantage,”
says Arlette Guthrie, a vice presi-
dent for human resources at the
company. Candidates ask about
it during interviews, and parents
who join the company and sign up
gain “peace of mind” that leads to
better performance.
“Our associates can only do
their best work when their home
life is taken care of,” she says.
Ms. Feintzeig is a Wall Street
Journal reporter in New York.
“Our associates can
only do their best work
when their home life is
taken care of,” she says.