The Business Case for On-Site Early Learning

Scott Nykaza is the CEO of Kalsec, a food and beverage ingredient company in Kalamazoo Michigan. Kalsec is a privately owned, business-to-business company with about 500 employees. Kalsec has a goal of remaining private and sustainable for 100 years.

Prior to the pandemic, Kalsec decided that its solution for attracting and retaining workers would be to invest in child care. As a family-owned business, Kalsec understood how important this would be to the success of the organization. In 2017, Kalsec opened an on-site early learning center to provide quality, reliable and affordable child care to its employees. The Farmhouse Early Learning Center is open to children ages six weeks to five years and provides quality child care and learning. The program is designed on a sliding income scale subsidy to ensure that it is accessible to employees at all levels.

The Farmhouse is used as a recruitment tool for workers. The child care program is discussed as a benefit during the hiring process. The program also works as a worker retention tool. “It gives me peace of mind to know that he [her son] is just one building away and is receiving stellar care from people who understand that I am a working mom. It made balancing adoption with work less of a huge deal because I know he is safe and enjoys going to the Farmhouse,” said Jill McKeague of Kalsec.

In a state with significant disparities in pay for the child care industry, the Farmhouse provides a living wage for its child care workers. 90 percent of workers in the industry are not paid a living wage, yet at Kalsec, every full-time development instructor gets full benefits, 401k and health insurance, and wages start at 15 dollars an hour. For Kalsec, the cost of running the child care center has more than offset the cost of employee turnover and absenteeism.