Family-Friendly Workplaces

Business leaders can play a significant role in solving a community’s child care challenges. Child care solutions include employer support of employee dependent care, flexible spending accounts, backup and emergency care, child care referrals, on-site child care, subsidized or reimbursed care, and child care consortiums.

• Learn about these different child care solutions in the Family Forward Workplaces Guide and the Business Support Center from Child Care Aware of Kansas.
• Learn about the Kansas Employer Child Care Tax Credit in this toolkit.
• Use the Kansas Employer Child Care Tax Credit Calculator.
• Explore the Impact of Child Care Benefits on Kansas Businesses in this blog post from Child Care Aware of Kansas.

Offering flexible work and scheduling helps support employees with families. Flexible work includes flextime, working from home or telecommuting, job sharing, part-time work, and predictable scheduling.

Paid leave, such as parental leave (for birth, adoption, or foster placement), sick leave, and family/medical leave also has positive effects on families.

Recent bills have been signed into federal law in support of those who are pregnant and breastfeeding. These include the:

• PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act expands the legal right to receive pumping breaks and private space to nearly 9 million more workers, including teachers, registered nurses, farmworkers, and many others.
• Pregnant Workers Fairness Act gives pregnant and postpartum workers, including breastfeeding employees, a national right to reasonable supports in the workplace.