Senator DODD. Martha Eshoo. Ms. ESHOO. I am here today, taking over for Margaret Fitzgerald, as she is busy beginning to deliver her second child. She is also enrolled in the day care center at Hill, Holliday. I am the director at that day care center and have been there for the past year. Hill, Holliday started a day care center to meet its employees' demands. It is the largest advertising agency in New England, with a population of 355 employees in Boston, and with employees in New York, across the Nation, and international as well. The majority of the employees at the agency are female, and the majority of the senior vice presidents at the agency are female, too. So, when Jack Connors, the president, was faced with the day care issue, he immediately chose to open a day care center, not only to serve the employees' needs and to retain the employees he had, but also to make a statement. As an advertising agency president, he realized that it was important to be aggressive, look toward the future, and be a model, and that is what he is, at least in Boston. The center is located three blocks from the agency, in a church. It renovated the basement of the church and the first floor and opened in October 1985, with 36 slots. Six children were enrolled in the beginning, and there are now 26 children, ages 2 months to 5 years, enrolled, with a waiting list for seven infant spots. The focus for Hill, Holliday has always been to provide quality, to be a model center, and not to make too many demands on the budget at the agency for support. However, the agency supports the budget 60 percent, after having paid for the start-up costs, and looks to the employees to pay tuition which reflects fair market rate that is decided by a survey taken of 24 centers in the area, both corporate and private, urban and suburban, and then we take an average and determine the value. The parents at the agency who use the center are most upperand middle-management parents. One of the reasons for that is that the average age at the agency is 29 years old, and the younger half of the agency works in the support staff. Most of them are secretaries. Of the parents who are secretaries—and many businesses use that as a recruitment technique to get secretaries to stay-the cost of day care, especially for infant care, in the city is very high, and at this time it is probably impossible for somebody on a support staff salary to pay that type of tuition. The company benefits in the way that they anticipated to. Retention is the number one benefit for the agency. They have found that the mothers have stayed, as well as the fathers, who have their children enrolled there. Ten percent of the children enrolled are enrolled by fathers at the agency. The company also enjoys seeing that parents have more flexible work schedules and are also under a lot less stress, because they know the quality of the day care center that their children are in; they are able to visit their children any time of day they want, including lunchtime, and that cuts down on stress for mothers of infants, because they know that they can see their child for as long as they want, and if they can fit it in, they can leave early, and it is not an hour commute to their home to get their child. Hill, Holliday is an example in its role as a corporation who has provided this type of employee benefit, and it supports any effort to bring quality in day care to other families, as outlined in this bill. Thank you. Senator DODD. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Ms. Fitzgerald requested by Ms. Eshoo follows:] HILL.HOLLIDAY Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc., Advertising Senate Subcommittee on Children, Families, Drugs and Alcoholism Testimony by Margaret Boles Fitzgerald V.P., Dir. of Community Relations, Hill, Holliday, Inc. 3/9/88 Senator Dodd and distinguished colleagues: - I am here today representing an employer-supported child care center, HHCC Day Care, Inc. a wholly owned, non-profit subsidiary of Hill, Holliday Advertising, Boston, Massachusetts. I am also pleased to be testifying on behalf of a larger issue that affects emoloyers and employees alike child care. - The provision of affordable, quality child care is not an employee benefit luxury; it's a necessity, as evidenced by the copious statistics, which you and countless others have pulled together concerning the number of mothers of young children out in or needed in the workforce, the number (and economic necessity) of dual income families, and the dramatic increase in single mothers. Hill, Holliday's day care center was started as a complement to its young (average age: 29) employee workforce that, not surprisingly, was also becoming active in the area of child bearing and rearing. Since opening the near site center in October 1985, HHCC Day Care has seen enrollment increase from six to 26 children. As is true nationally, the greatest need at our company is for infant and toddler care. And there appears to be no indication that this baby boom will John Hancock Tower 200 Clarendon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02116/617-437-1600 90-587-88 4 Page 2 let up in the near future. If anything, the company has committed to expanding its facilities to accommodate the evident trend among employees having a first, second, or even third child. Our reason for opening a day care center (an idea generated from the office of the president, Jack Connors) was two-fold: First, the general company philosophy is pro-employee (our people are our product), buttressed by a creative, fast-paced, supportive, even family-like environment. This sense of family extends to the employee's real family. Providing the support mechanisms to enhance both work and home life is a natural extension of the company philosophy, and child care is one such support system. Second, the president recognized early on that the provision of child care would enable the company to offer an attractive and much-needed employee benefit that has inevitably come to the forefront (as a topic, at least) in Human Resource Departments at medium and large corporations nationwide. Not only would such a benefit serve the individual, it would also serve the best interests of the company for purposes of employee recruitment, retention, oroductivity and morale. A survey of parents using the center did reveal that the day care center is, indeed, fulfilling a service to the company as well as the employee by providing an incentive for employees with young children to start and to stay. Additionally, because of the quality of the program and the proximity of the center to the workplace, the center provides an additional, immeasurable value of less stress on the job. HHCC Day Care does charge tuition that is competitive with fair market value. Even so, quality day care as an affordable employee benefit is heavily subsidized by the company, with close to 60% of the operating costs (and 100% of the start-up costs) being funded by Hill, Holliday. Page 3 - A company's involvement in child care is an expensive oroposition as is the offering of most any employee benefit. However, this Darticular benefit is costly (especially in an urban setting) because of strict but important state regulations for the square footage and the number of staff required per child. At the same time, the benefit must be offered at such a cost so tuition does not override the expense of coming back to work. In other words, there must be enough financial value for a parent to return to work; day care costs and salaries cannot meet at a break-even point. Hill, Holliday seems to be an exception rather than rule. Most companies cannot or will not, at this time, take on the financial burden that child care as another employee benefit brings with it. At the same time, these same companies resisting inclusion of child care assistance are also dependent on a strong pool from which to draw employees of which working mothers and fathers are a critical segment. Bill S. 1885 represents an important step toward making child care a plausible, possible benefit for the companies or organizations tackling this cost/benefit dilemna. Federal (and state) funding is a necessity if this country is to see an increase in the number of child care programs, first of all, and affordable programs, second of all. To offer one without the other will result in either a) programs that serve only upper middle and upper classes or b) programs that have substandard levels of quality. Neither end result serves the U.S. economy. Hill, Holliday would support Bill S. 1885, recognizing its ultimate goals of strengthening the workforce, improving the individual's standard of living, lowering unemployment, decreasing the population's dependence on a welfare system, and more intrinsically upon who and how our children are cared for. improving # # # |
