Reasons for the Low Response Rate of Employersponsored Childcare Facility: Brief Overview

The HR professionals’ task of retaining the employees is very challenging and it is even more
challenging in the current scenario where more than 50% of the workforce is taken up by women. The
greatest challenge here is to retain the women workforce after marriage and particularly after
childbirth. This is one of the reasons why women are not considered for most of the top positions in
the organisations. However, the trend is changing now and the women are ready to look out for
various alternatives to focus on career and manage the home and kids demands. This is still in the
nascent stage and the organisations also have felt the need to give a support to the women
employees in this respect. Hence, many of the organisations have come out with the in house creche
facilities for the women employees of the organisation. However, the percentage of the organisations
that have taken up this is comparatively lesser and hence the researcher has taken up this area for
her research in identifying the reasons for the poor response of employers in providing in house child
care facilities at their cost despite the government’s amendment to Maternity Benefit Act 2017.
The researcher had adopted descriptive research technique and had collected the response from 50
samples who are the Managing Directors and the HR managers of the organisation. A structured,
close ended questionnaire was used to collect the data from the sample population. The findings
revealed that the negative incidences which hamper the image of the organisation is the major reason
why the organisations are reluctant to engage in the child care facilities apart from cost
considerations. The researcher has also given some recommendations to improve the current
situation.