Five reasons to offer childcare vouchers

Early Years Vouchers , the childcare allowance organisation, has identified the top five reasons why employers from SMEs to large corporations - should offer childcare vouchers to working parents.

Vouchers can provide parents with significant savings of up to GBP1,195.56 on childcare costs and employers with benefits, such as increased productivity levels and NI savings of up to GBP373 per employee each year.

Early Years Vouchers has published its Top Five as part of its drive to educate employers in this area, following a report in The Telegraph in March which reveals that just 2 per cent of working parents are currently claiming childcare vouchers.

Although employers play a key role in educating working parents about their entitlements, many still don't currently offer childcare vouchers.

For some, there is a misconception that childcare voucher schemes are designed for bigger companies that have a large percentage of working parents to cater for, plus a large HR department to deal with the expected extra workload.

However, in reality, multi-site corporations, such as Kellogg and Endemol, as well as SMEs with only one or two people on the scheme can benefit from EYVL's voucher scheme as it offers a fully automated process that alleviates the HR workload.

"There is an assumption that implementing a childcare voucher scheme will be very complex and employers are afraid that they will have to dedicate a section of their HR department to deal with the running of it," explained Amanda Ward, Director of Early Years Vouchers .

"I believe that if employers knew how simple it really is, including how much of the leg-work is done by us, plus the financial and social benefits to them as a business, they wouldn't think twice about signing up".

Top five employer benefits are as follows.

* Tax and NI savings - vouchers can be purchased for staff at a cost of five per cent of the voucher, however this cost is offset by the NI savings made by employers of 12.8 per cent, which equates to as much as GBP373 per parent, per year.

EYVL doesn't make any other charges or set-up fees.

* Productivity levels - parents who know that their children are safe, happy and being cared for by professionals are more likely to stay focused on their job.

* Return to work levels - childcare cost savings are a fantastic boost to get mums and dads back to their place of work after having children.

* Staff retention - according to CIPD Recruitment, Retention and Turnover research, it was found that the recruitment of a new employee can cost as much as GBP8,200.

Therefore, offering money-saving benefits can be a very cost-effective way of retaining qualified employees and produce a positive working relationship between employer and employee.

* Reduced absence levels - some working parents who find it difficult to afford professional childcare rely on informal arrangements such as family, friends and neighbours to look after their child.

However, when such arrangements become unreliable some parents will have no choice but to take a 'sick' day from work which, according to My Business, the resource for small businesses, costs the industry around GBP4 billion each year.

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