Employers 'more than ever before' are ensuring employees can afford child care: Bright Horizons CEO

Bright Horizons CEO Stephen Kramer addresses concerns surrounding teacher shortages around the country, advances made in education since the start of the pandemic, and the difficulty families face in maintaining child care arrangements.

Video Transcript

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- Students across the country are returning to school over the coming weeks and some may be walking into empty classrooms. From hiring teaching students to veterans, states are trying to make up for the so-called teacher shortage. Our next guest Bright Horizons CEO Steven Kramer joins us now to discuss. And, Steven, you are in daycare centers predominantly. A teacher shortage obviously something that I'm sure is affecting your business. You employ more than 15,000 teachers in the US. What are you specifically seeing?

STEPHEN KRAMER: Yeah. So we are certainly seeing shortages across the industry as it relates to early childhood education all the way up through primary and secondary education. At Bright Horizons, we're very focused on being an employer of choice. We continue to make investments in wages as well as a free teacher degree program that allows us to hire for attitude and train for skill.

And so ultimately, we're looking to overcome what is broad based shortages with that kind of investment.

- And, Stephen, so certainly you are announcing a couple or you have announced a couple of initiatives in order to tackle the teacher shortage. What do you make of some of the states that have come out and announce that they are offering veterans who haven't necessarily finished their bachelor's degree that they could then come into the classroom and teach students? Some other states are saying that if you're in school pursuing your degree in teaching and you are typically be a student teacher, you can now come into the classroom to teach. Is that the right way you think to approach this?

STEPHEN KRAMER: So, look, at Bright Horizons, we are always focused on quality. And, I think, it's really important to make sure that anyone who is going to be a primary teacher in a classroom be prepared to be able to do that in a way that is high quality. And so to the extent that they are providing really good support to these individuals as well as allowing them to be mentored by others who are experienced teachers, then perhaps it is possible that with that additional support they're able to execute in a way that is high quality.

But, again, I think that it's really important to remember that education and delivering high quality education starts with really high quality practitioners. And so, I think, they need to go in with real focus and caution around making sure that they are providing the support that is necessary to do that.

- And, Stephen, obviously a lot of people were pulled out of the workforce during COVID. A lot of people had to even obviously be away from work to take care of their kids when a lot of these daycares closed. Where are you now in the hiring process and the recovery process?

STEPHEN KRAMER: Yeah. So, look, back in march and April of 2020, we were in the unfortunate position because of the pandemic to have to close more than 80% of our child care centers globally. And the reality is over the last 18 to 20 months, we have been in a rebuilding phase, both from a bringing back our teachers as well as bringing back families and enrolling families back in our centers.

And I'm really proud of the great work of our teachers and teams in our centers who have had the ability to continue to ramp up in that way. And so we are in the final stages of our recovery, going back and heading towards pre-pandemic levels. I couldn't be more pleased with the progress that we're seeing.

- Steven, you guys have done some interesting research there. And you call it the "modern family index," not the television show. What's the biggest shift you've noticed from the parents that utilize your services now that we are fully, as you said, coming out of the pandemic?

STEPHEN KRAMER: Yeah, it's interesting. What we're seeing is an incredible amount of stress among working families. And again, I don't think that that is any surprise vis-á-vis what has been an incredibly difficult period. That said, the need for high quality child care has never been stronger, right?

So as employees, working parents emerge from the fog that has been the pandemic, they are really focused on making sure that they have really strong supports as it relates to their care arrangements. And at the same time their employers expectations of their productivity and what they bring to the workforce is as high as it's ever been before. And so really proud to be able to support tens of thousands of families as they juggle the difficulties of caring for their children as well as being a productive employee.

- And supporting what you said there, 60% of working parents say that their work benefits are insufficient to both take care of their family and get their jobs done. You're certainly trying to fill that void. What else needs to be done to help these parents?

STEPHEN KRAMER: Yeah. Look, it's been a great awakening among employers because one of the primary things that they're hearing from their employees as they are expecting them to be more focused on their work and in many cases come back to the office, childcare arrangements are really difficult. There is a shortage in this country around high quality child care. And certainly employers more than ever before are investing in making sure that their employees have both access and are able to afford child care arrangements.

And so we're seeing companies like Kwik Fit-- we're opening a new center for Kwik Fit just next week. And we're seeing organizations like them who are really taking matters into their own hands looking to support their employees very directly through onsite child care.

And then we have over a thousand employers now who are supporting backup care, which is when traditional care arrangements break down. The employer really supports both financially and through access to Bright Horizon services the ability for that employee to not [INAUDIBLE] and be able to either get to the office or minimally be able to be productive for that day.

- Yeah, affordable child care one of the great challenges facing our economy. Bright Horizon CEO Stephen Kramer, great to have you sir. Thank you.