Work Options Group moves backup child care to forefront

The Denver Business Journal - August 10, 2007 - by Bob Mook

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Work Options Group, which pioneered the benefit of emergency assistance to help employees deal with child-care issues and ailing parents, is benefiting as more businesses embrace a relatively new perk known as "backup care."

The number of U.S. companies offering backup care rose to 14 percent in 2006 from 6 percent in 2005, according to a survey from the Society of Human Resource Management, a human resource association based in Alexandria, Va.

Backup care provides speedy caregiving assistance for workers when they'd rather not use vacation time, sick time and personal days to attend to an unexpected change in day-care arrangements, a sick child or an ailing parent. It's offered by companies that want to promote a "family-friendly" environment.

But for corporations also concerned about the bottom line, backup care can reduce costs associated with absenteeism and lost productivity, said Cindy Carrillo, founder and president of Work Options, which counts Microsoft, Verizon Wireless, Accenture and Merrill Lynch as clients.

The concept has grown dramatically in the last five years, Carrillo said. Local clients include Janus Capital Group, Hunter Douglas, The Children's Hospital and the University of Denver.

Work Options, which is based in Superior, has added 33 new customers since the beginning of 2007, Carrillo said.

While the privately owned company doesn't divulge its financial numbers to the public, Carrillo estimated Work Options' annual revenue at "around $10 million."

"We're a 21-year-old overnight success," said Carrillo, a one-time retailer who received a master's degree in social work at the University of Denver. Carrillo founded Work Options in 1986 as a day-care consulting company, before introducing backup care in the early 1990s.

She owns 30 percent of Work Options and private investors own the rest.

Work Options has more than doubled its staff in the past year, from 30 to 65.

Employers at Work Option's Superior office build and maintain a national network of agencies that represent accredited child care providers, including day-care centers and babysitters.

Work Options also operates a call center in Superior where participants call to access day-care or caregiving arrangements.

Carrillo said Work Options deliberately keeps the call center close to home, unlike many companies that outsource their customer support to save money.

"We don't offshore anything," she said. "We're dealing with someone's loved ones, not a credit-card balance."

The call center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company also employs a handful of sales representatives based on the East Coast.

Work Options serves about 110 corporate clients, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small law firms.

Carrillo estimated more than 600,000 workers nationwide are covered by the company's Backup Care Options program.

The benefit is coveted by employers because it reduces absenteeism and maintains productivity, and by employees because it lets them simultaneously tend to matters at work and home, Carrillo said.

Pamela Estes, senior investment specialist at Janus Capital Group in Denver, described Backup Care Options as "a life-saver."

Estes said she was recently in a scheduling bind when her 5-year-old son's school announced it would begin classes two days later than expected.

A Work Options representative brokered an arrangement at a day-care center so that Estes didn't have to take time off work or buy additional time at summer camp.

While the cost of Work Options' backup care plans vary according to a company's size, an employer with about 1,000 workers can access the perk for about $25 a year per employee, Carrillo said.

Workers who use the service typically pay a small co-payment of $2 an hour for child-center care and $4 an hour for home care.

While Work Options has encountered some competition, including Bright Horizons Family Solutions of Watertown, Mass., Carrillo claims to welcome the competition.

"It keeps us from being fat and happy," she said.