The problem with children is that they need care. First, you have to take time off to actually birth and bond with them, and then, even when you’ve secured daycare or the kids are in school, things happen and you have to scramble. (A “snow day” for schools won’t necessarily result in your job being closed, but there goes your childcare.) And if you’re in the “sandwich generation” you’re taking care of children at the same time you’re taking care of elderly parents, having reliable care can be even more difficult.
And when you have all these outside responsibilities, holding down a job becomes difficult. Target decided to step up and help out their employees–and while this might seem to be something done out of pure compassion–the reality is turnover is expensive. Even turnover among part-time cashiers is expensive. You have to recruit and train every new hire and you lose the institutional knowledge of the last employee.
Target announced they were expanding their family benefits. They said (emphasis theirs):
To keep reading, click here: Target Brings a White Collar Benefit to Retail–Even for Part-Time Employees
I can only guess that Target is moving away from being considered a similar company to Walmart to a retail company that is actually concerned about its employees. I know for a fact that one of its locations did run Walmart out of the area, despite the claims by Walmart that they were serving the community and their employees. Target does have a better security system in place to discourage shoplifters and doesn’t put their employees in danger on the front line. If they continue down this road, perhaps there’s hope for more progressive employers like this, giving benefits like this to part-time employees to lower turnover to keep good employees