Workforce demands have prompted the California-based software-as-a-service company TOOTRiS, which had announced plans last year to expand into 10 more states, to make its platform available in all 50 states for a variety of child-care and afterschool programs, according to a news release last month. TOOTRiS indexes more than 180,000 licensed child-care providers and offers to connect parents looking for services such as Head Start programs and enrichment programs with specialized services like special education and language support, among other child-care offerings.
“Child care is a business issue and a workforce enabler. Through TOOTRiS, we can re-engineer a scalable and thriving child-care system of the future, while redesigning the workplace to be more equitable and family-friendly,” CEO and Founder Alessandra Lezama said in a public statement. “This is the future of work, and key to our nation’s ability to compete on a global scale.”
Chief Data Officer Eric Cutler said one of the main goals of TOOTRiS is to address low workforce participation by making it easier for parents to find child-care options according to their budgets, work schedules and children’s needs.
“[The platform] has over 100 unique filterable attributes so a parent can find exactly what they’re looking for — things like language support, if the program supports financial assistance, things like picking up and dropping off at school,” he said. “Those elements are critical to keeping working parents working.”
Without child-care options that cater to children’s various needs or that work with parents’ schedules, Cutler said, parents often opt to leave the workforce to take on child care themselves. He said the issue keeps many from pursuing jobs in high-demand fields where employers have struggled to find qualified applicants, such as health care, education and IT-related professions, adding that TOOTRiS’ SaaS tool can be offered by employers to improve workforce retention and fill job vacancies.
Citing a report from ReadyNation, Cutler said lack of child care is one of the main contributors to low workforce participation among women, now at its lowest point amid COVID-19. He said the company launched in 2019 to meet the needs of mothers like Lezama.
“The need certainly has increased due to the pandemic, but it’s always been there. Frankly, the pandemic has just underscored how important and critical child-care is for working moms and really all working parents,” he said. “The challenges [Lezama] saw working up the corporate ladder as a mom in business were still there when her son was going off to college. She saw how impactful this is for working parents, especially women.”
According to an email from TOOTRiS, the platform has been used to connect workers to child-care options at biotechnology company Maravai Life Sciences, transit service LuxBus America and consumer goods producer Dr. Bronner’s, among other workplaces.
“We’re seeing interest across the board. For folks in the education space and essential workers, child care is especially critical for them due to the variance of hours and need,” Cutler said.
The University of San Diego School of Business adopted the platform last year to connect faculty and staff to child-care options, which Cutler said is particularly important for educators with varying schedules teaching remote and in-person courses and leading research.
“Affordable, quality child care is a critical support service that empowers students, faculty and working families,” USD School of Business Dean Tim Keane said in a public statement about a partnership with TOOTRiS last year. “In our vision to be a model of outstanding global education and a leader in high-quality business research, we’re excited to partner with TOOTRiS and provide our people access to this innovative, real-time child-care service. Organizations offering child care as a benefit recognize that their people are the most valued asset they have, and their people’s most valued asset is their family.”
Cutler said TOOTRiS expects to see growth following its expansion as employers look for ways to connect parents to child-care services, and as parents can increasingly expect workplace child-care benefits.
“It isn’t necessarily just about salary anymore,” he noted. “It’s about benefits. It’s about [parents asking], ‘What is this organization going to bring to me, and what problems can they help me solve? How can they ensure I have peace of mind when I’m at work or while I’m working from home?’ And the answer to that, if you’re a parent, is child care.”
