CASE STUDY - University of Denver
University of Denver Offers Backup Care to Address Caregiving Concerns on Campus
The University of Denver
The University of Denver (www.du.edu), the oldest private university in the Rocky Mountain region, enrolls approximately 11,117 students in its undergraduate and graduate programs. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Denver as a Research University with high research activity.
Challenge
The University of Denver (DU) was aware that employees at the school struggled to balance scholarship, work and family life. The lack of affordable and accessible childcare emerged as an issue on campus. The chancellor repeatedly heard stories about employees struggling with childcare issues. The issue also emerged as managers on campus identified absenteeism caused by breakdowns in employees’ childcare arrangements.
Solution
DU formed a childcare task force in February 2006 to study needs of the university community and to recommend both additional resources and affordable solutions for childcare. In addition to childcare issues, the task force examined other concerns for caregivers at DU, such as eldercare for aging parents and relatives. The task force was charged with addressing the evolving needs of caregivers in order to make DU a more family-friendly campus and one of its recommendations was the provision of backup care for all 2,300+ employees. “There was agreement from everyone on the committee that this program would satisfy a need on our campus,” says Dick Gartrell, Director of Human Resources at DU. The task force determined that backup care would have three results: reduce stress and absenteeism, attract an excellent and diverse population of faculty and staff and increase retention. In July 2007, DU became the first university in Colorado to offer backup care through Work Options Group, The Backup Care Company.
Results
Offering the Backup Care Options program helped DU achieve several key objectives:
- Provide a valued and used employee benefit
- “This has been the most positive reaction to any new benefit we’ve added here in the last 10 years,” says Gartrell. “There was tremendous interest, which was illustrated by the crowds of people lining up to learn more about the backup care program at our benefit fairs and the number of people who signed up before the benefit was even available to them.”
- “We have looked closely at evaluation scores, employee comments, and the number of repeat or heavy users, to ensure that the benefit is valued and used,” says Jane Bucher-McCoy, Benefits Manager at DU. “It’s important to us that employees to not only use the service, but that they are happy with it and pleased with the care they are receiving.”
- Address eldercare concerns
- By offering a solution for the full age spectrum, the university is addressing an emerging eldercare need among its employees; during the first six months that backup care was offered, 24% of the care was for adults/elders.
- “I am very pleased to see such heavy utilization for eldercare,” says Gartrell. “I’m impressed that the backup care program is a more widely applicable benefit than we had imagined.”
- “Since childcare concerns initially prompted us to offer backup care, we didn’t anticipate the demand for eldercare would be so high,” adds Bucher-McCoy. “This shows us that eldercare is a very important component of the program and that there is more of a need for eldercare support on our campus than we had expected.”
- Reduce stress & absenteeism
- Nearly 200 employees registered for the backup care program prior to needing care, which indicated a strong interest and need. Employees used 1,080 hours of backup care during the first eight months the program was offered. “The overall reaction has been very positive and people are telling us they feel better just knowing that they have backup care as an option,” says Bucher-McCoy. “This program is really important for morale because it shows the university employees that we understand their caregiving concerns and want to support them.”