Image Border - Irish Business and employers confederation

Market Feasibility
This includes a survey of staff to establish needs for a
workplace crèche. A sample questionnaire that could be used
to establish needs is given in Appendix 4. Other data such as
the age profile of the staff will need to be considered when
reviewing the potential market for the facility. If the market
feasibility proves positive, a financial feasibility study is carried
out.
Financial Feasibility
The financial feasibility examines the full costs of setting up
and running the facility. The task of identifying a site or sites
is a critical success factor. The source of funding for the set-up
costs and the price which staff are willing to pay will be key to
the financial feasibility of the workplace crèche. Attention to
detail is imperative so that all costs such as art and craft
materials are considered, as well as the more obvious ones
such as insurance, staffing ratios etc. The cost of
establishment of a 70-place childcare facility is in excess of
€1m.
Operational Feasibility
The operational aspects of the feasibility study will examine
models of running the service such as contracting professional
childcare providers to run the service compared to engaging
staff directly. Contact with the Health Service Executive, the
fire services, etc. would be worthwhile at this stage of the
process.
If the employer provides a childcare facility on their own or
with a partner and the employer is wholly or partly
responsible for financing and managing the provision, then
this is not treated as benefit-in-kind to the employee for tax
purposes. Care needs to be taken to make sure that your
business meets the criteria and some more detail is given on
this in Section 5 of this guide.
Outsourcing
The high capital cost is likely to be prohibitively expensive for
most employers. Some companies provide the premises and
finance start-up costs and engage a professional childcare
provider to operate the service. Companies that have multisites
may have a crèche at their headquarters or in a few of
their sites and supplement these by buying/reserving places at
existing childcare centres.
3.14 Buying / Reserving places
Employers can buy or reserve a number of places at existing
childcare centres for their employees. Where a high
percentage of employees have children of school-going age,
employers may have issues with absenteeism after schools
close or during school holidays. Where this is the case, the
employer could pay for the child to attend an after-school
club and/or attend a summer camp.
A survey of 153 companies in the US showed that the familyfriendly
practice that produced the most positive impact in
terms of increasing satisfaction and morale for staff and in
increasing commitment, productivity and participation was
the introduction of subsidised emergency childcare,
particularly in the employees' own home.
3.15 Setting up a Shared Childcare Facility
One option, which is more suitable than setting up their own
childcare facility, is for small- to medium-size companies to
set up and run a childcare facility as part of a consortium.
Each member of the consortium is responsible for only some
of the places.
In the late 1990s, local development companies in Kerry and
Galway tested the feasibility of setting up and running a
childcare facility involving a consortium of employers and the
lessons from these demonstration projects are shown in the
following table:
Challenges
Time to negotiate and plan
Commitment from all parties
from the start
Key people may leave the
company
Higher priorities emerge
Companies not moving at same
pace in relation to needs
analysis, consultation, agreement
and commitment
Critical Success Factors
Local development Project
Manager to drive the project
research and development work
or childcare provider negotiates
and plans
Commitment from senior
management of participating
companies
Get organisation agreement at
the highest level
Provide the necessary
questionnaire, approach,
methods, information, notices
etc.
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