My company went viral for offering our employees free child care. It should be the norm.

When she had her first child, Taylor Capuano found herself bringing in only a couple of hundred dollars (after accounting for her child care costs) despite working as a senior-level marketer. It's little wonder; according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s statistics from 2022, families across the nation spent anywhere from $6,552 to $15,600 annually on full-time day care for just one child. Fast-forward three years and those costs have risen, with some estimates bringing it to upwards of $36,000. This reality leaves many modern-day parents struggling to pay for child care. It also means that for many, the most cost-effective option in two-parent households is for one parent to stay home while the other works — something that isn’t even an option for single-parent households.

By the time she welcomed her second child, Capuano and her sister, Casey Capuano Sarai, had founded the bra-alternatives brand Cakes Body. As moms and employers, the sisters decided to create a $36,000 annual child care benefit ($3,000 per month) for all employees with children under public school age (typically 5, by the start of the school year). A video of the sisters announcing the new benefit to their team went viral in May, igniting new conversations about what businesses can do to make their employees' lives better. In this interview with Yahoo Life's Priscilla Blossom, Capuano shares how her experience as a working mom inspired the move — and why she's heartened to see her team take time off to be with their kids.

When I first became a mom, I was working full-time. It was during the start of COVID, so we were all working from home, which made my experience a lot easier. I wasn't commuting into the office. I also had more flexibility to go to doctor's appointments and other related things.

My job at the time was supportive, though I think that had a lot to do with the pandemic. I remember the maternity leave policy involved partially paid time off for up to three or maybe four months. It was a reduced salary, so I ended up taking six months off, which felt really important to my mental health. But most of that time was unpaid, or at least only partially paid, so financially it wasn't all that supportive. And I think that's the norm, in the grand scheme of things. The company where I worked was probably on the better side of the support spectrum, but I still felt like financially it was such a big stressor to take that time off.

My sister and I started Cakes Body three years ago, and then we both had babies in the last year. It was a very different experience going through it as an employee of Cakes versus as an employee in corporate America. I have a lot more financial freedom now. I also have a lot more flexibility in terms of having the freedom to work when I need to work and to be a present mom when I need to be a present mom.

The situation that inspired us to be able to offer this child care benefit was having babies ourselves, and seeing our team juggling a lot outside of work. To go through that experience so recently, and then also have a team with many young parents, it just felt like a no-brainer to offer that.

We have 30 employees right now, and about 20% have kids under the public school age. We also have many more who I expect will have kids in the coming years. I joked we might experience a baby boom in the next nine months, so we'll see!

We haven't put pen to paper on a lot of our workplace policies and philosophies; we're kind of building it as we go. It was really important to us to make sure that the policy was in line with the actual cost of child care. A lot of the reimbursement programs Casey and I saw were offering only $300 a month. We recognized that would cover only about a day or two of child care, not a month.

It was also important to us that it was really easy to enroll in. We did not want to create hoops for these young parents to jump through, because there's already so much admin associated with being a working parent. Basically, they self-report how much they're paying a month in child care, and then they re-enroll every year. It’s a pretty simple program.

There's no amount of time someone needs to have been at Cakes in order to enroll in the program. The goal is to be able to retain amazing working parents and also attract amazing working parents to Cakes without having the financial and emotional stress of trying to juggle child care. So far we have about 20% or so of our employees who are eligible for the benefit. It's been incredibly emotional.

I think we've had a really supportive culture for working parents. For example, the Friday before Mother's Day, we had a bunch of our employees sharing photos of themselves on the company Slack in the middle of the day at their kids’ Mother's Day school parties. It was amazing to see that the team already felt comfortable taking the time off for these personal commitments. No one asked to take the time off; they just did it because they knew it was going to be celebrated. To me, that just speaks volumes about the level of support they feel.

And it makes me really proud to have set that culture for our team, because I do the same thing. When I have a commitment with my kids, or even a personal commitment where I'm going to work out or going to therapy, I always make it a priority to not just say, “I have an appointment.” I will say, “I am leaving early today because my daughter has a swimming lesson,” or “I'm going to therapy.” I think it's really important for leaders to make it known when you're taking time to prioritize yourself and your family, because it gives your employees permission to do the same.

We've had so many bigger businesses critique us, saying that once you give this benefit to employees, you're not going to be able to take it back. And I just say: You get to create the environment that you want as a business owner. We have a very profitable company. That is a result of having a really dedicated and effective team. We see this as enhancing our bottom line and enhancing our output. It's important to think about employees as an investment, not a cost. They are the ones who are building your company.

Our goal in sharing this is that we would love to live in a world where parents have access to affordable child care no matter what company they work for. I would love one day to have affordable child care be as common as parental leave — though that also has room for improvement. I just hope people can see the story and start to challenge the thought that this is an impossible benefit to give your team. Because actually you can find a way to make it work — and not only work but improve your company and your bottom line.

As my dad said when I was first starting out: “Your employees are your most valuable clients and customers. When your employees are valued and seen, they will take care of your customers, and your business will win.”