A Crisis of Care: Employers, workers struggle from lack of childcare

Step inside the Sara Lee Frozen Bakery in Traverse City and you'll notice what is, basically, an industrial highway.

Forklifts cruise through labeled corridors with crosswalks painted on the floor to keep workers safe.

Everyone wears a hairnet, goggles and, if needed, a net for the beard.

The smell of pastries comes from one section of the building.

Workers feed these doughy treats through ovens and inspection lines.

Large vats whip up pie fillings and icing.

This factory can pump out 125 pies per minute.

“We employ 500 individuals," said Tony Chipkewich, the human resource manager at Sara Lee. “We operate across all three shifts so basically 24/7 someone is going to be here there's always physically someone here even if it's a security presence.”

Before COVID, a majority of Sara Lee’s workforce had a minimum of 10 years' experience or were close to retirement. But Chipkewich said that demographic has flipped.

“Up to 80% would be brand new meaning two years or less," he said. "Naturally, many of these new employees are at a younger part of life and the things that go with that: childcare; trying to buy a home.”

And that has brought childcare issues into sharp focus for Sara Lee.

“If we can find a way to bring childcare options to our employee base it will help it will help our existing employees it will help us keep our current employees, it will help us attract new employees,” he said.

A Michigan childcare study found that a third of workers experienced a disruption to employment, which includes quitting, switching to part-time work or turning down promotions.

This is mostly felt by women and those with lower incomes.

At Sara Lee, most of the younger workforce is on afternoon and midnight shifts which comes with its own challenges.

“You think of daycare providers they do not typically operate afternoons and midnights. That is not their business model," Chipkewich said. "If you're an employer and you're trying to find this care for your employees and your three shift operators, if you don't create something like we're trying to create, your options are very, very few.”

A local study from the Childcare Initiative at North Central Michigan College in Petoskey found that most companies are experiencing a workforce shortage due to a lack of childcare. Most of the employers surveyed also want to do something to help their workers.

Chipkewich said Sara Lee is trying to open its own childcare center in partnership with Teddy Bear Daycare, a preschool and childcare program with three locations in Traverse City.

The company wants to use a former quality lab in a cinderblock building just steps away from the security office.

“We would build it back out into a daycare center that provides infant care up through and including kids as old as 7, 8, 9, 10 — whatever that age demographic is to support our employee base," he said. "So it would hold up to 30 children at any given time and those spots would all be reserved for our employees.”

But it’s too expensive for Sara Lee to pull off even with help from a state grant. It could cost up to $600,000 to transform the building into a care center.

And partnering with Teddy Bear Daycare doesn’t help the cost issue. Anna Fryer is multi site director for Teddy Bear.

“As much as we would love to be able to do that, they're asking us to put a lot of money into it as well or take out a loan to put a lot of money into it,” Fryer said.

It's also complicated. Because Sara Lee is in a commercial and industrial zone, there are a lot of strict regulations to follow just to pull it off.

“Thousands and thousands of dollars of architectural work, tens of thousands of encapsulation of whatever ground toxins they have and that has to happen ahead of time," Fryer said.

For now, things are on hold. Chipkewich wants to give it another shot in 2024. And multisite coordinator Molly Porter said Teddy Bear will not rule out pulling this off.

“You know we have hope. And we know they do. As of now it doesn’t make sense," Porter said. "We would be upside down if we were able to do that."

If there’s money available in the future, Teddy Bear and Sara Lee say that door could open again.

But the serious investment needed coupled with what the actual solution can be tricky.

IN THE OFFICE

Take a smaller company like TBA Credit Union in Traverse City. It’s also looking for solutions.

They employ about 70 people. Human resources director Abby Smith says they’ve only had a few people leave in the last few years due to childcare needs, but there are some folks on staff juggling their schedules because they can’t find childcare.

“Maybe mom and dad are working separate shifts so it means they’re having decreased time as a family unit," she said. "So that family dynamic is shifting. That causes other stressors. That causes the employees wellbeing to be at threat. That's not a great situation.”

It’s also a familiar experience for Smith. She remembers the day when her provider shut down for good in 2016.

“I remember driving on the way home that night calling other centers," she said. "We had about a month’s notice of no care. So I was able to get into (a different) center ... and then that center closed.”

John Robert Williams

That closure was also on short notice.

Smith was able to tour a third location and find care.

“I literally cried and hugged her," Smith said. "When that [childcare] is integral to you getting to work, provide for your family and gives you the opportunity to do the work you love."

Smith’s kids have aged out of childcare, so now the family is struggling to find summer camps for when the kids aren’t in school.

The childcare issues Smith faced in her personal life help inform her perspective professionally. She said TBA Credit Union is exploring options to help out its employees.

It could be a discount for the cost of care or getting involved with the state program TRI-SHARE, where an employer, the state and worker split the costs.

“So we will be looking more aggressively at what we can do," Smith said. "You gotta just decide to pay to help figure it out. I mean it’s not an income generator necessarily but it is with retention it’ll save you with retention and recruitment.”

Different employers will want to approach the issue differently. But Smith said all of them feel the squeeze that childcare issues put on one of their main assets — the people who make their businesses work.

This is the last part of our series, "A Crisis of Care." Listen to a follow-up conversation with Jennifer Wixson, the childcare expert we heard from in the first part of the series.