Invaluable information & advice services for working parents
Childcare vouchers have a strong track record as a flexible and cost-effective solution for many working parents.
Here Laura Czapiewski runs through the latest innovations from Accor Services to help you in your efforts to engage working parents.
Family Advice Line
As soon as an employee joins our Childcare Voucher scheme they receive immediate and automatic access to a free-phone, nationwide telephone service that's accessible 24 hours every day, seven days a week. The service provides information and support for working parents on a complete range of issues, from maternity to elder care.
The service can help employers engage working parents and successfully manage many of the unique issues they face:
- Information Packs – we can provide working parents with a range of information packs, giving guidance on family related issues, from potty training and weaning to dealing with behavioural problems in teenagers.
- General health and wellbeing – enabling employees to carry out self-assessments when it comes to their health and helping them organise access to health visitors.
- Maternity care – our in-house health visitors offer guidance on the financial support available to working parents, health and behavioural advice, information on maternity and paternity rights and legislation, as well as access to pre and post birth information packs.
- Back to work planning services – advisors can perform personal assessments and recommend available state and employer benefits and childcare planning, as well as offering planning and support to help employees cope with the personal and professional change of returning to work.
- Education support – employees can use the service to search for schools and get advice on selection processes and appeals, as well as helping employees address any issues arising during the school year, such as bullying or managing learning difficulties.
- Eldercare and disability care – the advisors that employees can talk to through this service can arrange access to nurses and health visitors, perform searches for all types of care accommodation and give advice to individuals on available support services and their likely benefit entitlement.
Every employee that contacts our information service has a dedicated case manager so they can always speak with someone who understands their individual situation. Support is not restricted to individual employees; HR managers can also call the helpline for guidance and advice on how best to support working parents and help maternity leavers to effectively return to work, for example.
Childcare Advice Line
When it comes to childcare arrangements, even the best planning can sometimes fail, causing issues for employees and you as an organisation, particularly if it means taking time off work. Based on our industry experience we have developed a service to help your working parents prepare for any childcare situation.
The Accor Services' Childcare Advice Line gives employees who receive Childcare Vouchers access to a team of experts who will listen to their requirements and put forward a range of childcare solutions that individuals can investigate independently. Access to this advice means employees and their children can prepare for any eventuality.
Online tools and tax calculators
Our heritage means that we're aware childcare vouchers aren't always the 'right' solution for every household and working parent. In some circumstances they can have a negative impact on an individual’s entitlement to other benefits, such as working tax credits.
To help working parents make the right choice about childcare vouchers we have developed a range of calculators to help determine if this benefit is the right option. Our online calculators are available for use by all employees of organisations that take Accor Services' Childcare Vouchers and have enabled thousands of working parents to calculate...
- The effect of childcare voucher salary sacrifice on working and child tax credits
- Their entitlement to working and child tax credits
- Tax and National Insurance Contribution savings for childcare voucher salary sacrifice schemes
- The effect of a salary plus childcare voucher scheme, where vouchers are offered in addition to an employee's salary
Childcare vouchers have been widely accepted as one of a range of tools available to engage working parents. Over the years, many employers have taken advantage of the benefits they can bring to individuals and their dependants. In spite of their uncertain future we have continued to invest in them and the support they can offer working parents.
