CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is expanding its employee benefits to include child care, aging adult care and even pet care — some of which will be subsidized by the company.
The Monroe, Louisiana-based telecommunications giant is partnering with Care.com (NYSE: CRCM) to offer extended care benefits to its full-time U.S. employees, using a customized version of Care.com’s business offering, Care@Work.
“Here at CenturyLink we are continuously looking for ways to help employees manage the things that are really important to them outside of work,” Stephanie Calhoun, vice president of talent management for CenturyLink, told Denver Business Journal. “No one wants to be at work, stressed about what’s happening at home: whether that’s parents, kids, families or four-legged friends. We were exploring what benefit out there could cover all these things for employees.”
The answer was a partnership with Care.com. CenturyLink employees can use the Care@Work benefit to find verified care providers when they need a last-minute option, such as because their child is sick or a snowstorm is preventing them from getting to their regular day care. The same goes for if an employee needs to find a care provider for an aging parent. Or even if they’re going on a business trip and need someone to walk their dog or check on their houseplants — pet-care and home-care providers are also options.
Offering care benefits is a trend that Care.com is increasingly seeing from employers, said Scott Healy, executive vice president and general manager at Care.com, who oversees the Care@Work segment across all industries including grocers, retailers, fast-food establishments and even railroads. He said more companies are offering care benefits to all employees, not just their executives. In fact, Healy said while the company is known for its direct-to-consumer business, its enterprise offering is the fastest-growing part of Care.com.
“What’s great about how CenturyLink looked at this is that they care strongly about benefit equity,” he said. “If you offer benefits to an employee base, you try to have your impact as broad as possible.”
Most companies who work with Care.com offer child care and aging-adult care, he said. That often helps just a subsection of employees: younger employees, who are parents to young children, or older employees who need senior care. But CenturyLink wanted to provide something that could help almost everyone, and customized its benefits to include pet and home care. Employees can search on Care.com's platform for all forms of care providers.
“We determined the right fit for CenturyLink and the right fit for employees,” Calhoun said. “Not everyone in the organization has children, a significant population has aging parents or pets. We customized this for every employee to have an avenue to go down.”
Beyond providing options, CenturyLink also said that the company will subsidize care up to five times per year for employees. At first, the option will be available for child care or adult care. But if there’s demand, it’s possible to expand the subsidy to other care options as well.
“Anything is open for discussion,” said Calhoun. “If people think it’s important to subsidize pet care, it’s something we would look into.”
The care benefits are in addition to the extended employee benefits CenturyLink rolled out several years ago. For five years, CenturyLink has offered 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for birth mothers. For four years, it’s had four weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth parents. It also offers adoption assistance, breast milk shipping, an Employee Assistance Program and other benefits.
CenturyLink, which has a major Colorado presence since its acquisition of Level3 Communications, is expanding its benefits at a time when Colorado is looking to do the same. The issue of offering a paid-family-leave system will be a hot-button topic in the current legislative cycle and on Wednesday, activists submitted that the initiative be on the November ballot.
But Calhoun said CenturyLink isn't doing this because of Colorado's legislative efforts, or those of any other state.
“It’s the right thing to do, not something we have to do,” she said. “It’s the right thing, based on what we’ve heard as stressors for work…. We want to help them with their daily lives, so they’re here at work and can be productive. We feel proud to be ahead of the curve, but it’s something we want to do. We’re not told to.”
No. of employees in 2018
| Rank | Prior Rank | Business name |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | DaVita Inc. |
2 | 2 | TTEC |
3 | 3 | Red Robin International Inc. |
