How many of your employees are moms with kids to take care of when they aren’t at work? And how closely do you pay attention to making it easy for them to come to work by ensuring that the needs of their families are met?
Hospitals that do got a big-time pat on the back in September when Working Mother magazine put out its 18th annual list of the Top 100 Companies for Working Mothers. On that list were eight hospitals. In future issues of Hospital Recruiting Update, we’ll look at what makes some of them such great places to work for moms — and probably by extension, to dads.
Meanwhile, the magazine notes that every single company on the list offers flextime, compared to 55% of companies nationwide; 99% of the top 100 offer employee assistance programs, vs. 67% nationwide; 98% offer elder-care resources and referral services, vs. 20% nationwide; 96% of the top 100 Best Companies offer child-care resource and referral, vs. 18% nationwide. Ninety-four percent offer compressed work weeks vs. 31% nationwide; 93% of the top companies offer job-sharing compared to 22% nationwide; 47% of them sponsor sick child care compared to 7% of companies in general; and 44% offer before- and after-school care compared to only 4% of other companies in the country. The comparison figures come from the 2003 survey of companies by the Society for Human Resource Management.
The hospital winners are:
Bon Secours Richmond (VA) Health System. The company offers a 70% subsidy for up to 10 days per year of in-home health care for children when they are too sick to go to school or day care; access to child care, including three on-site facilities; flexible leave to care for parents, children, or others; six to eight weeks of partially paid maternity leave; and three days of paternity leave for new dads.
Bronson Healthcare Group, Kalamazoo, MI. Working Mother cited Bronson for its flexible scheduling. Some employees have a full-time job while working only three days a week, and telecommuting is an option for some workers some of the time.
Inova Health System, Falls Church, VA. The company offers flexible scheduling, including working-parent shifts that run from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Three of the Inova hospitals have on-site child care centers, and there is an elder care resource and referral program.
JFK Medical Center, Atlantis, FL. Another multi-year winner, the 387-bed hospital also was named among the Top 100 hospitals in the country this year.
King’s Daughters Medical Center, Ashland, KY. Among the reasons the magazine cited for this facility’s win: on-site childcare and the large number of women both among employees in general (79%), among management (70%), and among the top earners at the hospital (80%).
Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago. This is the fourth year in a row this facility has been named. The hospital has on-site child care, as well as before- and after-school programs, holiday care, summer camp, and even parents’ night out programs.
Pitt County Memorial Hospital, Greenville, NC. This facility has a summer camp for employees’ children. It also has a large number of women in top management and some 16 different scheduling options for employees.
St. Mary’s Medical Center, Huntington, WV. On-site child care, as well as partnerships with a local church for after-school and summer child care are among the reasons this facility was chosen. It also offers free medical and dental coverage for full-time employees, free well-baby and well-child immunizations, an on-site lactation program for nursing moms, and flexible and compressed workweeks. There are also unlimited, free on-site employee assistance program visits for workers and their families.
How many of your employees are moms with kids to take care of when they arent at work? And how closely do you pay attention to making it easy for them to come to work by ensuring that the needs of their families are met?
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