Child Care and Parent Productivity - Research Paper Example

In the article Child Care and Parent productivity: Making the Business Case, the author seeks to determine if quality child care results in an increase of employee levels of satisfaction over time and whether the turnover level decreases over time as a result of employee commitment (Shellenback, 2004: p2). The research questions on whether there is a link between childcare and parent productivity and whether the provision of this service by employees has a business case. The author justifies this research question by using previous research that aimed to provide a link between childcare and parent productivity. One research study by American Business Collaboration showed that 63% of employees reported that their productivity improved after using quality dependent care. On the other hand, 29% of employed parents underwent a sort of breakdown in the preceding three months; these were associated with reduced work concentration, tardiness, and absenteeism. Finally, the study found that working American parents missed nine days of work annually, which increase to 13 as children move from day care to elementary school. This is costly for employers and, coupled to turnover; it is estimated at three-quarters annual wages for employees paid hourly and one and a half annual salary for exempt employees (Shellenback, 2004: p3). The author, with this research study, aims to provide a way to measure the value that childcare programs portend as an ROI since the economic impact of life/work initiatives estimations has been sporadic, relying on national demographics statistics and corporate anecdotal information. The study follows the paradigm that quality childcare offered to employees is vital to the employer since it provides for improved productivity, cuts employee turnover, and reduces absenteeism. It uses the productivity theory, which intimates that productivity is determined by the manner in which the firm organizes its resources in order to maximize on production of goods and services. The production theory involves the economic process that maximizes outputs from the available inputs. In this case, the author argues that firms that are able to provide childcare for their employees can improve overall average productivity for their firm (Shellenback, 2004: p4). The research study proposes a research model that refines or expands on an earlier research model/theory, in this case the research study by America Business Collaboration. The model will consist of concepts from the earlier research that came to the conclusion that quality child care for employees resulted in improved satisfaction, which, in turn, resulted in improved productivity through decreased absenteeism and tardiness (Shellenback, 2004: p4). The study uses Quality childcare as the independent variable with two levels; provision of quality childcare and lack of quality childcare. The research study’s dependent variable will be parent productivity to be measured via cost/investment measures or outcome measures, which will be measured for each participant under both levels of the independent variable. The study aims to use an observational research design to observe and describe the behaviour of employees without influencing their behaviour. This research design is especially useful for firms that wish to find out the morale of its staff. While there are some concerns regarding the statistical validity of this study, it is an invaluable tool if the researcher factors in the limitations. This research design has several advantages. The subject is observed in an unchanged and natural environment (Kumar, 2011: p22). This will avoid the pitfalls of true experiments, which influence the way that subjects normally behave. The design can also be used as a precursor to quantitative experiments to point out the variables worth testing. It gives an idea of the variables worth testing since quantitative experiments are time consuming if the hypothesis is not clear. However, it does carry some disadvantages in that the experimenter cannot control the control group composition; neither can he randomize subject allocation (Kumar, 2011: p23). In the second article, the research question is; what are the qualifying conditions and exemptions when employers decide to aid their employees with child care? The author justifies the question by stating that, under the childcare rules, this childcare would be charged to national insurance and income tax contributions. Although, there are three types of child care support by employees that can be exempted from partly or wholly from the stated charges if some relevant conditions are followed (HM Revenue Service, 2012: p2). The author identifies gaps in the scheme; particularly an assessment of what an employee earns should be carried out in order to calculate the amount to be exempted. The article follows the paradigm that employers who support their employees, with childcare do not have to be wary of the costs because some of the plans for employer supported child care exempt from national insurance and Income tax contributions. Therefore, provision should not be denied because of cost-cutting measures in the firm. The research study is grounded in the resource-based theory likened with a competitive advantage, which is dependent on the capabilities and resources of an organization (Kumar, 2011: p70). The starting point is in the organization’s strategic management that involves strategies and decisions. In accordance to this theory, identifying resources is vital and can act as a major handicap for various organizations that identify only fragments of resources available to them. This theory is relatable to the article in that the company should aim to identify the resources at their disposal and work to reduce the costs from giving employer support for childcare, through identifying how they can be competitive by offering this support. While offering childcare support would impact on their bottom line, they should use al the resources at their disposal, in this case exemptions from paying tax contributions, to offer competitive support rates. The research model for this study is hypothesis based, with the author hypothesizing that there are three types of employer supported childcare that can be wholly or partly exempted from the changes if relevant conditions are met (HM Revenue Service, 2012: p2). The independent-construct variable is employer supported childcare on three levels, which are work place nurseries, childcare voucher scheme, and directly contracted childcare. The dependent variable is the exemption, whole or partial, applicable to these three levels of IV. For every calculation done for each childcare scheme, the employer will be capable of telling the type of exemption that they except to get. The research design used by the author is an analytical study, whose interest is the investigation of relationship among variables in specific situations intending to solve a problem (Kumar, 2011: p30). In this case, the problem is the child cares scheme that works best for the employer. Threats to internal validity include selection and maturation. Advantages of this research study include the increasing of blinding, is ethically safe, and cheap and simple. Its disadvantages involve unequal distribution of confounders, and they do not establish causality. For workplace nurseries, exemptions are put down by using a flow chart that aims to determine if the child care provided qualifies for NIC and full tax exemptions (HM Revenue Service, 2012: p5). If the employer alone owns the nursery premises or the employer partly pays for it, the facility complies with Ofsted registration, and the scheme is open to all employees, then the nursery is due for exemption. For vouchers and directly contracted childcare, exemption observations are the provision of childcare to the maximum exempt amount for directly contracted childcare as well as for vouchers. In the article State of Child Care in Australia, the research question is; how has the landscape changed during the last five years in regards to Australia’s childcare market? The author justifies the research question by tying the overall health of the market to the recent collapse of ABC learning; this had a destabilizing effect on the Australian childcare market (Office of Childhood Education and Child care, 2010: p2). The author is attempting to research the ways in which childcare in Australia has increased in terms of access, quality care, stability, and affordability of child care has increased and the result of this increase on the parent and children. The study follows the paradigm that, because of increased funding from the Australian Government, the Australian child care sector has grown with an improved emphasis on policy and that there is now a greater focus on experiences and quality that the child will have within the child care settings (Office of Childhood Education and Child care, 2010: p3). The author has grounded his argument in the economic consumer intuition theory; it contends that the quality and funding of childcare should fall and rise together, and that competition found between the consumer demand and provider will place important balances and checks on every one of the levels. It is relatable to this study because the average fee has gone down from 2004 to 2009, with the proportion of family disposable income used on child care dropping from 11% to 7% (Office of Childhood Education and Child care, 2010: p4). The research model used by the author in this research study is based on a hypothesis. The hypothesis in this case is that, with child care now seen as a mechanism for the support of early learning and education, as well as labour force participation, there has been an increased focus on experiences and quality that children get within their care and educational settings (Office of Childhood Education and Child care, 2010: p1). The independent variable in this study is the provision of childcare by the Australian government with two levels, where funding was low and 2009 when policy changed to allow for increased funding. The dependent variable in this study is the improvement of childcare in Australia, which is consistent of affordability, access, quality, and stability. With the increase in funding by the government, the quality, affordability, access, and stability of the Australian childcare industry has improved steadily from 2004 to 2009, which has been necessitated by the change in childcare policies by the government. The design for this research study is a mixed method research design. It combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches, which involve collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and reporting the data. It utilizes exploratory design by collecting the qualitative data from government sources and that analyzes the data quantitatively (Kumar, 2011: p50). The advantages inherent in this design are that it incorporates both qualitative and quantitative strengths, gives a more comprehensive view of the phenomena under study and is not limiting on data collected. The disadvantages of this design are that they require expertise in qualitative and quantitative methods and require extensive resources and data collection (Kumar, 2011: p51). The study is limited in that it claims to use both methods even though the quantitative method is only used superficially during data collection. Measurement is carried out by collecting statistical data from government institutions and analyzing them to compare data from 2004 and 2009. In the article family provisions at the Workplace and their Relationship to Absenteeism, Retention, and Productivity: Timely Evidence from Prior Data, the research question is: do family-leave provisions and work-based childcare improve worker performance? (Brandon & Temple, 2007: p2) The author justifies this question by contending that while assumptions that employers and workers benefit when the employer has provisions for family leave and childcare appeals to most, there has been limited empirical verification of this fact. According to author, a gap exists in the establishment of a relationship between performance of workers and the provision of leave policies and such family provisions with few studies possessing representative samples of work places to investigate the stated question (Brandon & Temple, 2007: p3). The paper follows the paradigm of workplaces that have childcare provisions, compared to those that do not have higher rates of worker productivity and lower rates absenteeism. It uses the productivity theory, which intimates that productivity is determined by the manner in which the firm organizes its resources in order to maximize on production of goods and services. It is related to this study in that the firms that organize resources to provide on-site childcare and paid-for family leave will maximize on the productivity of their employees. The author also uses the theory of compensating differentials, which predicts that those workers who accept lower wages, in the presence of family constraints, will do so in exchange for family amenities (Brandon & Temple, 2007: p4). Therefore, family provisions in the work place will decrease employee turnover and absenteeism. The research model involves research based on a previously determined theory. The researcher uses the theory of productivity and earlier research that followed this theory to come up with a hypothesis, which he will then use to analyze the empirical values from the study. The independent, construct variable for this study is family provisions in the work place on two levels: those with family provisions and those that lack family provisions. The dependent variable is worker outcomes: unapproved absenteeism, worker turnover, and the workers productivity when related to the rest. It is expected that those firms with family provisions will have more favourable worker outcomes. The information retrieved from this study will allow for investigation into determinants of these provisions in the work place. The study uses written surveys research design, whereby the researcher selects a respondent sample from a population across various companies and gives out a set of four written questionnaires to be filled. Survey research needs the researcher to collect data from many individuals, which results in a variance of the given answers (Kumar, 2011: p60). It is ethically required to denote these variances to give accurate and complete information. The variance is included in the given answers because of how the questions are given. However, putting too much emphasis on the variance of the answers could affect the validity of the survey. Advantages of using surveys include being cost effective, easy to administer, useful for the description of large populations by making assumptions on sampling validity, and can collect a wide range of results (Kumar, 2011: p62). Its disadvantages include lack of motivation to provide the right answers, the respondents may not know the reasons for given actions and they may give answers that show them positively. Measurement in the survey consisted of analyzing the data from three questionnaires: employee profile, general management and employee relations management. References HM Revenue Service. How You can Help your Employees with Child care. Research report, london: HRMC Digital Service, 2012. Kumar, Rajendra. Research methodology. New Dehli : APH publishing, 2011. Office of Childhood Education and Child care. State of Child Care in Australia. Canberra: Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations, 2010. Shellenback, karen. Child Care and Parent productivity; Making a Business Case. Research Report, Ithaca: Cornell University, 2004. Brandon, Peter. & Temple, Jeromey. family provisions at the Workplace and their Relationship to Absenteeism, Retention, and Productivity: Timely Evidence from Prior Data. Research report, Melbourne: Australian Journal of Social Issues, 2007. Kumar, Rajendra. Research methodology. New Dehli : APH publishing, 2011. Read More