“One of the main questions we get during the recruitment process is about benefits- tell me about your child care and how does it work?” Lilia Vergara, Vice President of Human Resources, Dr. Bronner’s

The Dr. Bronner Family

Family run and operated, Dr. Bronner’s is a soap company founded in 1948 with the message: “We are All-One or None.” Today its mission remains based on six cosmic principles that define their most important relationships, with #3 focusing on treating employees like they are family. “If your family needs help, and you’re able to help them with small things… big things…. you do it. You bring them lunch, you offer child care, you treat them like someone you care about,” said Lilia Vergara, vice president of Human Resources. “That’s how we treat our employees. We want to invest in them to have them be a part of our family.” Part of that principle is achieved by surveying staff regularly and when Dr. Bronner’s leadership learned from these surveys that child care was one of the top stressors for parents, especially in the expensive Southern California city where the company is located, they quickly moved to offer child care stipends.

Don’t Get Stuck in the Mud

Adaptability has been a key driver to success for the company in offering meaningful child care benefits. In 2016, Dr. Bronner’s started their child care assistance program offering up to $5,000 per employee, per year to subsidize 50% of child care costs. The program was popular but during COVID it became glaringly obvious the program needed to grow to offer more financial assistance, extend the network of providers and partner with a third party vendor to provide quality administration and support.

Non-Traditional Hours means Non-Traditional Solutions

Therefore, Dr. Bronner’s increased the maximum assistance available to $7,500 and adapted the program to extend beyond traditional, licensed child care providers to “any program where children can be while their parents are working,” said Vergara. Dr. Bronner’s operates in three main shifts over the course of 24 hours with the largest employee shift running from 5am to 1pm. Vergara shared a story of one employee who left home at 4:45 to arrive at her shift on time. Her child woke up, ate breakfast, and got ready for school on their own, but the staff member would call and text to ensure that all was ok. One morning, the calls and texts went unanswered. In a panic, the employee left her shift to go home and make sure the child was ok.  Vergara said that it was stories like this that moved them to expand the child care assistance to independent child care providers, including family, friends, neighbors and nannies, so that staff could use the financial support from Dr. Bronner’s during non-traditional hours that weren’t covered by a 9:00-5:00 child care center.

As the program grew, the team at Dr. Bronner’s found that they could no longer administer the program on their own. They entered into a partnership with Tootris, whose platform connects parents with quality child care and manages the distribution of payments to care providers. In fact, this adds another element of ease to the process for families: the financial support from Dr. Bronner’s is paid into the platform as well so the money is immediately available for families. There is no need to pay out of pocket and request reimbursements. A dedicated Tootris administrator also facilitates access for parents, tracks stipend eligibility, and more.

Challenges

Vergara mentions two challenges around this initiative:

Getting the Word Out: Ensuring working parents know about the program and understand their commitment and the company’s commitment. Dr. Bronner’s covers 50% of eligible child care costs, up to $7,500 per year per employee.  

Automation: Some families use the child care assistance on programs that do not charge them while they are out of town, sick, etc. But automation of the direct payments from the families and/or Dr. Bronner’s to the provider sometimes don’t get flagged and parents can be charged for child care not used.

Advice

Get the data and keep it simple: “Ask your workforce what they need.” Vergara advises. “It’s easy to get into problem solving mode, but your solution may not be what your people want, or need. Whether you’re having focus groups, surveys, etc. – just find out what they want to make sure you’re able to craft a program they will use.” She added, “when you land on a benefit, ensure it’s not so burdensome that parents won’t use it. We said – let’s pay for it and make it easy to use.”