Kiid founder explains why childcare benefits are becoming a business case for employers
While childcare has long been seen as something parents figure out on their own, the founder of Kiid, a childcare service, hopes plan sponsors will consider implementing the service in group benefits, citing the ROI benefits that come with it.
Marie-Pier Hébert argues that employers have historically stayed out of childcare because it was treated as a private family rather than a workplace issue, particularly as parents were expected to absorb the strain but that arrangement only holds for so long. Eventually, the pressure shows up at work through burnout, weaker performance and higher turnover.
“Providing childcare to your employees has a direct impact on the employer,” she said. "When the employee has access to it through their employer, it's a no-brainer. They will book childcare, do their work and bill those hours directly," she said, acknowledging the math holds further down the pay scale too.
For example, Hébert points to a manufacturer replacing a $20-an-hour employee for the day often pays triple that rate for a temp, with production efficiency taking an additional hit. Or when a lawyer or accountant misses a day because a child is sick, the employer doesn’t just lose a worker but also loses billable hours. A professional billing 50 to 60 per cent of an eight-hour day at two to three hundred dollars an hour represents significant revenue that vanishes with a single absence.
"If they just pay the childcare that's often higher than the employee's salary, they're still winning," she noted.
Hébert argues that childcare support can be a meaningful retention tool because the cost of replacing an employee is often far higher than the cost of helping them stay, pointing to recent research that shows turnover can cost employers anywhere from half to twice an employee’s salary, which makes retention gains financially significant.
But the true value of the benefit shows up in real behaviour as employees who had access to Kiid at one company often try to keep using it after they leave, while some push new employers to adopt it. Hébert believes that kind of demand reinforces the broader research from Canada and the US showing that childcare benefits can strengthen retention.
Still, she cautions that employers shouldn’t expect instant proof that a childcare benefit is paying off. After all, in most cases, the credible ROI window is six to 12 months, because uptake is gradual and employees only use the service when something goes wrong, not on a fixed schedule.
"In the beginning, it's slow. A benefit needs to be socialized, and not everyone has a child care emergency," she noted.
Furthermore, internal communication matters just as much as the benefit itself as employees need to know it exists, understand when to use it, and trust the provider. That’s why Hébert still likes to introduce the service directly to employees at launch.
"We're not selling gym memberships, we're selling childcare," she said. “When I can be in front of parents, they get closer to Kiid, they understand Kiid. They see it's a human business, so they feel more trusting towards us, I think, and that helps for them to start using it, and then the employer [can start] to see the ROI, but they have to be in it for at least six to 12 months.”
In the event of education or daycare strikes, however, employers can see the value as early as the first week because staff are able to keep working while support is in place at home, Hébert added.
Kiid is built for the kind of childcare disruption that usually hits at the last minute, with most bookings coming in the night before or the morning of, Hébert explained. Working parents will submit the basics, like timing, location, and details about their children, and the company responds quickly, either by confirming a caregiver or by working through the timing and availability with the family. The emphasis, she suggests, is on speed without making the process feel impersonal.
But that only works if parents trust the person arriving at their door. Hébert underscored that the service depends on rigorous vetting, because on-demand childcare leaves no room for a shaky first impression.
“It's one of the first questions employers will ask,” she noted. “Who are your providers? How do you guarantee security? What's your process? No employer wants to give access to a service that's not completely vetted to their employees. They care about their people. If you open the door and you don't have a good feeling, Kiid’s reputation is finished that very second.”
According to Hébert, providers screened for experience (a minimum of three years), background, references, first aid training, and role-specific preparation, while Kiid also keeps a large enough bench available to handle short-notice requests.
For employers, the company tries to translate that activity into something measurable. Hébert says Kiid gives clients a dashboard showing booked hours and fulfilled requests so they can compare usage against the cost of the membership and against the cost of lost work or replacement labour. Her point is that this is not a benefit employees use every day; it is one they use when the stakes are high. Because of that, the value lies less in frequency than in the impact it has when an employee is under pressure and would otherwise miss work.
The strongest value in Kiid’s model, Hébert suggests, comes from emergency and short-notice care, when parents have no time to put together a backup plan themselves. That can mean a daycare closure, a sick child who can't go to school, or any other disruption that suddenly leaves a parent without coverage.
She also points to more complex short-term needs, like family transitions that require temporary full-time help on difficult hours. In those cases, the value isn’t just speed, but the ability to take a chaotic situation, build a plan quickly, and give parents workable options.
Still, Hébert cautions about defaulting to a one-size-fits-all childcare benefit as some workforces will need full-time daycare options while others will get more value from a flexible backup service that catches what regular arrangements miss.
Childcare support, Hébert underscored, has to reflect the reality of the workforce and employers need to understand the types of families they employ along with the schedules those families manage, and the limits of conventional care options, she said.
“It’s a matter of understanding your employees' needs and then finding what's on the market and often it will be different solutions that they have to put together to help everyone,” said Hébert.
