Our world is constantly evolving, and we evolve with it. As a result, what else evolves? Our needs. This sentiment couldn’t apply more to the world of employee benefits.
For instance, over the past three decades, the price of child care in America has soared by almost two-hundred and twenty percent, according to First Five Years Fund. Take that in. Two-hundred and twenty percent!
For so many working parents, this inflation yields a couple of not so great options when it comes to balancing work and family:
- Work more hours, spending less time with children in order to afford child care.
- Take on all of the child care responsibilities and compromise work performance.
Both of the above options have the potential to place major stress on the parents, which can lead to chronic fatigue, burnout, and depression. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic led to increased rates of parental burnout.
In fact, more than two-thirds of parents experienced parental burnout last year, according to a survey from Ohio State University.
But consider this. So often, our major societal problems end up being the reason for innovative solutions that drive us forward and help us—yes, I’m going to say it again—evolve.
So what is the solution? Well, in hindsight, there are probably several. But here’s one that we can put into place without having to reinvent the wheel: Revamping employee benefits packages to better cater to employees’ needs.
And more and more employers are starting to do this!
In our current tight labor market, employers are increasingly understanding that a higher salary on its own is often insufficient for improving a better work-life balance. Instead, meaningful benefits to support employees’ families can be a game changer.
In fact in a 2023 Care.com survey of leaders from five-hundred companies, forty-six percent said that they’re prioritizing child care benefits in 2023. Meanwhile, almost eighty percent said that offering these benefits has boosted their company’s productivity, recruitment, and retention.
How MPP began supporting working parents and their families
During COVID-19, our team recognized that working parents’ challenges balancing all of their responsibilities surged. And we realized that students were also facing challenges as they adjusted to online school. (Our apologies for stating the obvious!)
From this knowledge, it was clear that there was an opportunity to modify our business to meet the evolving needs of both students and parents. Meanwhile, this allowed us to continue to pursue our goal of empowering as many students as possible.
So we transitioned from a B2C (where we serviced individuals) to a B2B2C (where we service individuals and businesses) model, expanding our clientele and increasing our capacity for impact. Now, in addition to offering tutoring to individual families, we have expanded our services to schools, companies, nonprofits, and organizations.
By growing our services, we can now impact not only more students, but provide support to working parents. Significantly, everyone we work with is also contributing to our mission of supporting as many students as possible—and particularly, those in underserved communities.
Here’s how:
When ANYONE books a tutoring session with My Private Professor, a portion of proceeds from the session goes toward supporting students experiencing homelessness and/or in long-term foster care, two populations that face unique challenges in getting the academic support they need.
We have been grateful to partner with businesses such as MSI Surfaces, United Auto Credit Corporation, OneDigital Health & Benefits, and Chugh Firm, LLP.
Employees still need meaningful benefits
Although we now exist in a post-pandemic world, working parents still struggle to balance all of their responsibilities. And research continues to affirm that working parents who view benefits as customized to their needs will perform better.
When employers provide working parents with benefits that focus on their childrens’ needs, those parents experience less stress. In turn, they are more inclined to perform to their highest potential—because boosting morale boosts performance.
- 40% of employers believe that workers leave their job to find a job with better benefits. (Forbes, 2023)
- 1 in 10 workers would take a pay cut for better benefits. (Forbes, 2023)
- 36% of employees have left or considered leaving their job due to inadequate family benefits. (Maven Clinic, 2023)
- 37% of parents said that modifying company culture to improve work-life balance should be a priority for employers. (Working Families)
Meanwhile, the impact of this type of employee benefit goes even further—with students. We know that despite returning to in-person school, COVID-related learning losses have persisted. And students are still behind.
Tutoring as an employee benefit supports both employees and their families
One of the greatest resources for reversing learning losses, according to research, is high-dosage tutoring (HDT), which is tutoring that occurs more than three times a week, or for at least fifty hours over thirty-six weeks.
- One review of nearly 200 studies found that HDT is one of the few academic interventions with proven large positive effects on math and reading performance.
- Another review of 96 studies on tutoring programs found that tutoring is an effective practice which produces consistent, significant improvements in student learning outcomes.
- A meta-analysis of studies on tutoring interventions in the past few decades found that on average, tutoring increased student achievement by around an additional three to 15 months of learning across grade levels.
Some schools have found success through implementing HDT. But many of these schools likely used federal COVID relief funds to do so. And these funds will run out—likely, before many students have actually caught up.
Our partners have confirmed that offering such a meaningful benefit has significantly improved efforts with recruitment, retention, and workplace productivity!
Final thoughts
When employers provide working parents with benefits that focus on their children’s needs, they reduce the load on working parents’ shoulders. And when parents don’t feel the burden of having to rush home and help their children with schoolwork, they are more focused, productive, and efficient.
In turn, employees have more potential to perform to their highest potential.
Meanwhile, we get to help more students reach their academic potential.
We’re thrilled to be part of the movement that’s advancing this type of employee benefit, and we’re just getting started.
