Does your company offer employees lactation support? If this is something you’ve never considered, or you don’t really know what it involves, this article will help you understand why it’s truly a necessity.
Employer-sponsored lactation support for employees fills the gap between the lactation care they get in the hospital and when they go home. It’s challenging becoming a new parent, and for 43% of parents, leaving the workforce within three months of childbirth is the only solution.
A lactation program supports breastfeeding parents and allows them to remain in the workforce. When your company offers lactation support, you’ll make it easy for parents to care for their baby and keep their job. It’s truly a win-win for everyone.
Here are all the best reasons to consider providing lactation support programs to your employees.
1. Healthcare benefits alone aren’t enough
Offering benefits is an excellent way to get new recruits, but not all are equal. In fact, some “benefits” aren’t really benefits, but legally-mandated requirements. Healthcare falls into that category. If you want to stand out to potential employees, you must offer something great to capture their interest. Lactation support will inspire most future parents to prioritize applying for a position with your company.
When job seekers find positions that offer more than the standard set of benefits, it can be the sole reason they apply for a position. Jobs are jobs, and extended benefits can make the difference between getting a steady supply of applications or having to resort to marketing tactics to get people interested.
When you think about the benefits your company offers, you might think about healthcare first and foremost. However, offering healthcare plans isn’t enough to make a candidate choose to apply with your company over others. Not only are healthcare benefits required by law for most employers, making them not much of an incentive, but healthcare plans aren’t usually enough to cover important things. People have come to expect mediocre coverage from their employers. If you want more applicants, offering lactation support will go a long way.
Having a baby makes people feel vulnerable and uncertain about their jobs. There’s a lot of anxiety that comes with that. It’s no secret that many companies don’t support pregnant or nursing parents. Job seekers who know they want to have kids in the near future will feel at ease when they read that you offer lactation support.
2. Employees want to feel valued
While it’s true that your employees are being hired and paid to do a specific job, they want to feel valued for their contributions. Unfortunately, many workers go unappreciated and don’t feel like their employers care.
There are many ways you can make your workers feel valued, including raises, bonuses, praise, and more. However, these things have all become routine to the point of being mundane. For example, it might sound nice to give your staff expensive custom plaques engraved with their name alongside how many years they’ve worked for the company, but that’s not meaningful enough. People want to be appreciated on a deeper, more personal level.
When you provide lactation support, you’re giving people something they really need and will benefit from in the long term. It’s not just some random item they’ll stick on a shelf and forget about in a few weeks. Providing meaningful support to your employees will make them feel truly valued.
3. Offering lactation support can develop loyalty
Employees are a tough crowd when it comes to loyalty. Some will start looking for another job at the first sign of conflict or disorganization and many will take another job with your competitor if they offer even a few more dollars per hour or better benefits. For instance, 47% of pregnant women say they’d quit for a more breastfeeding-friendly job.
Loyalty comes from trust, and trust has to be earned. By far, the easiest way to show your workforce you can be trusted is to offer them benefits that matter. Lactation support will demonstrate that you genuinely care and will help you build a loyal team.
Reduce turnover by offering lactation support
Ultimately, providing lactation support for employees will help you reduce turnover. Since nearly half of new parents quit their jobs within 3 months of childbirth, make it a goal to reduce these statistics in your company. When you do, you’ll have a better chance of retaining your employees even after they’ve had a child, which reduces turnover and associated expenses.
Throughout the year, our writers feature fresh, in-depth, and relevant information for our audience of 40,000+ healthcare leaders and professionals. As a healthcare business publication, we cover and cherish our relationship with the entire health care industry including administrators, nurses, physicians, physical therapists, pharmacists, and more. We cover a broad spectrum from hospitals to medical offices to outpatient services to eye surgery centers to university settings. We focus on rehabilitation, nursing homes, home care, hospice as well as men’s health, women’s heath, and pediatrics.
