If an employee at Dominion Bankshares Corp. in Roanoke, Va., wants infant day care at the corporation's in-house center, that individual has to go on a waiting list. Twenty-five other employees with infants are waiting for that service, too; 17 of them have yet to give birth.

Located at the company's operations center, Dominion Child Development Center, as it is more appropriately called, has obviously received overwhelming support from the 1,500 employees who work for the Roanoke Valley Bank. That support and enthusiasm for the center was uncovered about five years ago when an employee survey revealed onsite child care facilities were needed and wanted.

The survey, developed by one of the bank's employees, was a kind of springboard for a second, more comprehensive survey initiated by the bank itself and which resulted in a 5,000 square-foot corporate-sponsored day care center.

Preliminary research

In 1981 Sandra English prepared a management training school paper entitled "Corporate Day Care Centers - A Feasibility Study" for Dominion Bank Corp. The study investigated the problems employees faced getting infant care and quality care.

Of the 550 men and women to whom English gave the questionnaire, 379 responded. Of those, 75 had children five years old and under and 63 said they would enroll their child in a corporate day care center at the center.

Other survey results showed that 63 indicated having plans to have children in the next three years. Of the 63, 55 said they would enroll their children in a corporate day care center. Of the 379 responses, 122 made favorable comments concerning the possibility of a day care center.

English's research further revealed that currently there was no private day care facility in the Roanoke area providing care for infants. The main reason for this is because the cost of caring for infants is much higher than the cost of caring for older children. According to her report, state law requires a ratio of one staff member for every four infants in contrast to the one to 10 ratio required for children 25 months to six years. This means a day care center for infants would require a staff 2 1/2 times larger than a center for older children.

The most logical location for a day care facility would be at the operations center since 52% of the Roanoke Valley employees were located at the center as compared to 36% downtown and 12% at local branches.

Lastly, the report said if a corporate day care center is established, it will be more than a baby-sitting service. "The goal should be to provide a program which gives each child the opportunity to develop at his or her own pace in a challenging environment staffed by individuals with a sincere interest in children."

The results from the survey caught the attention of the bank's president and CEO, Warner Dalhouse, and ultimately, the study resulted in a recommendation in early 1982 for an on-site day care center at the operations center. Because of other priorities at the time, the proposal was delayed until a later date.

Corporate effort

In 1985, the infant day care subject was ignited as a corporate effort. Dalhouse took the lead and called on Lacy Edwards, senior vice president and human resources director, to head the research effort and develop another survey. The second survey again looked at the infant child care issue and the frustrations of consistency and quality of infant care.

Edwards said 1,451 employees in the Roanoke Valley were surveyed. Approximately 1,030 of that number are women, says Edwards, and 809 are between the childbearing ages of 18-40. At the operations center alone, 70 % of the employees are women, most of whom are of childbearing age as well.

Out of the 1,451, 762 responded. Of that number, 524 were female and 238 were male.

The findings of the study showed that 172 of the respondents had children under six years of age and by 1990, 213 of the bank's employees are expected to have children under six years of age.

Other findings of the study showed:


  • 56% of employees had problems arranging quality child care.
  • 54% said their expenses for infant care were excessive.
  • 51% said their child care locations and hours were inconvenient.
  • 59% cited increased stress on working mothers from worrying about child care problems.
  • 52% of the parents with children under 18 months had problems returning to work after the children were born.
  • 25% of working mothers said they had considered quitting due to child care problems.
  • 30% of people with children under six said they would definitely use an on-site center and 26% would probably use it.

Edwards says another part of the research involved visiting the First National Bank of Atlanta, the first bank to have an on-site center for pre-schoolers. The visit helped Edwards learn what their goals and aspirations were for their center.

Ann Francis, the center's executive director, was also instrumental in the development of the center. Francis was first hired as a consultant, assisting with the preliminary research and then later was offered her current position at the bank when it was decided that the center would be built. Francis, who holds a master's degree in child development, helped plan Dominion's center - even insisting the architects sit on the floor so they could see the room from a child's perspective.

Fall of 1986

The center opened in September, 1986, and since January it has been operating at almost full capacity -- 24 infants and 46 pre-schoolers.

At that time, Dominion became the first bank in the nation to have an on-site child development center that provided child care for infants.

Yet Dalhouse points out that being in the child care business is not Dominion's intention.

"We are in the banking business. We are not interested in becoming baby-sitters. We are interested in profits.

"Corporate-sponsored day care centers for our children make good sense and are good business because everyone stands to benefit; the parent-employees, the company, non-parent employees and the stockholders," says Dalhouse.

Already, says Dalhouse, the bank has experienced lower turnover with related cost reductions in hiring and training; lower absenteeism; reduced tardiness; improved productivity; improved recruiting conditions ("We get the pick of the best people available in our market"); improved morale; reduced stress; flexibility in scheduling work shifts; and help in achieving equal employment opportunity goals.

Corporate obligation

Dalhouse believes companies have an obligation to their employees to provide a service like day care centers because of the changing American family and work force. Unfortunately, "corporate America and certainly corporate Virginia has not evolved rapidly in this direction," says Dalhouse.

"We have more single parent families than ever before. Twenty percent of American children - over 12 million - live in single-parent households. In all households we have many more working mothers. In 1947, only 18% of mothers worked outside the home; today almost two-thirds of mothers are in the out-of-home work force. Statistics recently released indicate that one-half of children under age one have mothers in the out-of-home work force.

Dalhouse continues, "This country, the most amazing economic and social success in the history of the world, has simply evolved to the place where corporate concerns and corporate objectives can best be met by this kind of mutually beneficial contract with our work force. I predict a vast and visible continuation of this kind of corporate decision. Perhaps it will not be a rapidly progressing trend toward more corporate child care and development centers but a continuing expansion of the concept and a gradual acceptance of it as natural, appropriate and profitable.

Company child care debate is unresolved

Company-sponsored child care is a slow development at a time when more and more women, many of whom have dependent children, are entering the work force. For many, if not most families where both parents are employed outside the home, the struggle to get consistent, quality day care is often never-ending. For many of these families, a company-sponsored child care program would solve the problems two earner families face.

But is this dilemma the responsibility of these parents' employers? The debate is severely divided. According to a recent Industry Week magazine survey of 500 reader attitudes toward company-sponsored child care, 70% agreed that day care is a "critical" work-place issue; the same number agreed that it is a matter of only marginal concern to the managements of their companies.

"You might have a hard time understanding such a low priority on child care, particularly since nearly 755 of the respondents to the survey agreed that difficulty with child care contributes to such productivity problems as absenteeism, tardiness and high turnover," a columnist from the Minneapolis Star and Tribune claims.

Still unmoved? Perhaps these critical facts will:

  • Virtually two-thirds of recent entrants to the U.S. labor force are women, 80% of them in their childbearing years, according to the Conference Board, a business-sponsored research firm. The board estimated that 70% of these women will have children during their careers.
  • More important, labor markets are expected to tighten significantly in the 1990s, making it more difficult to replace experienced female workers who leave their jobs to care for young families.

Furthermore, it is believed that helping employees with child care is just plain good business. According to a study by Sandra Burud, a child care planning and management expert in Pasadena, Cal., 95% of surveyed corporate personnel directors said the benefits of such programs outweigh the costs.

Burud spent three years studying more than 400 corporate child care assistance programs and published her findings in a 1984 book titled "Employer-Supported Child Care: Investing in Human Resources."

Among some of the responses from human resource managers involved in her study:

  • 90% said their child care programs improved employee morale.
  • 85% cited improved recruitment.
  • 65% said lower employee turnover was a result.
  • 53% said there was less absenteeism, calling child care assistance, "more effective at improving productivity than most other benefits."

These attitudes are a promising sign for those who propose company-sponsored day care centers, and a positive reinforcement for those companies which have already begun one.