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.

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 he...