The Economic Imperative of Affordable Childcare
Episode 434 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Nicole Riehl
Could equitable caregiving systems transform our economy?
The business case for affordable, quality care.
Let’s just say it like it is: childcare in our country is out of reach for far too many.
Systemic and economic barriers exist whether mothers (or fathers) want to stay home with their kids or want to return to work. The former can’t afford it, and the latter often don’t make enough at their jobs to break even on the cost of daycare. Something must change.
Nicole Riehl is one of the brilliant minds leading this charge. She’s a national expert and thought leader on childhood solutions and investment into early childcare and the president and CEO of EPIC—Executives Partnering to Invest in Children. She leads a team that is empowering employers to put their influence behind community childcare initiatives and infrastructure.
I sat down with Nicole to learn how this became such a glaring problem in the U.S. and what these fresh approaches and initiatives could mean for our economy as a whole.
So many workforce changes, so few system changes
Women entering the workforce en masse is just one example of the countless ways our economic realities have changed in the past century. In fact, following the she-cession of 2020, when women's workforce participation rates dropped to lows last seen in the 1980s, women's workforce participation in 2023 has reached a new all-time record of 77%.
Despite this shift, which has been happening for decades, initiatives and infrastructure in childcare in the U.S. have not caught up with the times, and systems that match our contemporary interests remain fragmented, broken, or altogether nonexistent.
Parents who want to work often discover it isn’t worth it—their paychecks barely break even once they factor in childcare costs. On the flip side, as it becomes harder and harder to raise a family on a single income, those who do want to remain home with their children find it increasingly difficult to do so.
Available and affordable childcare is a win-win
The research shows that this deficient care economy is losing the U.S. economy more than 120 billion dollars a year. Parents want to work and businesses are desperate for talent, so why are systems proven to work so well in other countries still lacking here at home?
The problem may once have been the refusal of business owners to recognize the vital need for childcare for their employees, but Nicole points out that these days, most of them get it. The connection is obvious: industry growth and innovation are vital to economic growth, and developing the workforce is vital to industry growth. Especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, it’s become glaringly obvious that the value proposition for retaining a quality team has changed, and access to childcare is right at the top of that list, for entry- and executive-level job seekers alike.
The new barrier to change is the knowledge of how to go about building these systems - and the political will to do so
Businesses don’t have to go it alone
Nicole and EPIC bring together early childhood advocates with business owners and executives who recognize all these issues and just need support bringing this future to life. EPIC educates organizations on how to broach equitable conversations around childcare needs and engage with communities to be advocates for these systems beyond their companies’ double doors.
They also help businesses access some pretty neat government incentives. For example, businesses that build on-campus childcare centers can receive nearly a million dollars toward developing these facilities.
Community projects can take a long time to come to fruition, with all their committees and moving parts. These executives, though, know the right people and have the resources and funds to speed up the process, creating daycare centers that not only provide their employees with a safe, affordable space for their little loved ones but also employment opportunities for small business owners in the childcare sector.
Better childcare policy and infrastructure is one of so many essential adjustments we need to truly create an equitable and sustainable workforce. Our new Systemic Solutions page connects you with the policy advocates and organizations who need your support to push these priorities over the finish line. Head to bossedup.org/takeaction to find more information on the systemic solutions that we're advocating for, and I hope you’ll join me in taking action.
I hope that together, Bossed Up can be a part of broader solution-building, coalition-building, and making the systemic progress we need alongside our individual actions and advocacy.
Related Links from today’s episode:
Nicole’s podcast, “The Dropoff”
GenXYZ 2023 - Top 25 Young Professionals
Denver Business Journal - Outstanding Women in Business Award
US Chamber of Commerce Foundation
Roadmap with The ECE Employer Roadmap - US Chamber of Commerce Foundation
Employer-Based Childcare Design Lab
LET’S ADVOCATE FOR THE POLICIES THAT DRIVE GENDER EQUALITY
AT WORK:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 434. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the founder and CEO of Bossed Up, and I'm so delighted to dive into today's discussion around how access to affordable, quality childcare is an economic imperative.
[INTRO MUSIC ENDS]
It has everything to do with our workforce, with our ability to show up and be productive members of society, with businesses’ success, and with America's success, not to mention with women's success, if we want to pursue careers that are meaningful and impactful over the long term. Joining me to break all this down is Nicole Reil, a recognized national expert and thought leader on childcare solutions and early childhood education investments. Nicole is the president and CEO of Executives Partnering to Invest in Children - EPIC, where she works directly with employers and business executives to advocate for early childhood investments, policies, and workforce solutions. Her experience spans across the private and nonprofit sectors. With a career beginning as an early childhood teacher at the employer based childcare program in Louisville, Colorado, Nicole was recognized by the Denver Business Journal with the, uh, Outstanding Women in Business Award in 2022 and by Colorado Biz Magazine as the Gen XYZ Top Five Young Professionals in 2023. And you're about to hear a whole other award and accolade that Nicole picked up just a few months ago. So, without further ado, Nicole, welcome to the Bossed Up podcast.
NICOLE: Thanks for having me.
EMILIE: So, you and I met because we were both on a very cool list earlier this year, receiving the same award and sitting at the same table, what luck.
NICOLE: Yes. So much fun. Such a great time to celebrate with the Women's Chamber of Commerce and all of the amazing women that we were with. So congratulations to you as well.
EMILIE: Right back at you. And congrats to our listeners, because right now, you're listening to two of the top 25 most powerful women in business in Colorado. You're welcome. Quite the, uh, quite the sample size here of Coloradans.
NICOLE: Love it.
EMILIE: Well, I want to ask a little bit more about what you do, because you had me hooked the minute you told me what EPIC, the acronym, stands for. So tell me how you got into this work and what exactly you do when it comes to the whole childcare world and getting businesses involved.
NICOLE: Yeah, absolutely. Well, EPIC stands for Executives Partnering to Invest in Children, and, you know, every early child organization loves an acronym, so we had to go, of course, with that. But we are a 15 year old nonprofit organization that was founded in Colorado by a group of CEO’s and business leaders who saw the importance and the economic imperative of them supporting childcare and early childhood investments policies and workforce solutions with really a twofold mission, because they saw, number one, it was critically important for them to think about the youngest children in our society and the experiences they were having, because, of course, they're our future workforce, want to make sure that they can succeed later in life and have the very best start possible. But they also wanted to make sure that, as employers and business leaders, they were doing their best to attract and retain top talent and make sure that Colorado, as a community, is the best place to work, live, and raise a family. And so that's why they created EPIC, and we really serve as the business community's voice in support of those early childhood efforts. So tons of fun.
EMILIE: Yeah, I mean, well, it really just strikes me as very unique, Nicole, because when you think of the world of early childhood, whether it's early childhood education or childcare reform, you know, historically, I think of large institutions and think tanks and initiatives that are really focused on women's issues, right? That's been the historical connotation. You think children, you think women, which is, of course, because of patriarchy and sexism. And so to think, 15 years ago, a bunch of CEO’s in Colorado got together and said, how can we make Colorado as a business community? How can we invest in the children and infrastructure of care in this state? I mean, that strikes me as really unique. Is it?
NICOLE: It is unique. I always say. People say, oh, where else does EPIC exist? But I always say we're a unicorn, because we really are the gold star standard in terms of an organization that is formalized and really solely dedicated to working with business leaders and industry leaders to advocate for early childhood. And, of course, these are business leaders who are in industries totally unrelated to childcare, right? They're from a variety of industries and spaces, but they're all coming together to talk about the importance of these efforts and really, of course, see the difference that that's making once they all join together and leverage that power.
EMILIE: Yeah. I feel like the state of Colorado should sponsor my podcast, because people are sick and tired of me saying, like, look, yet another example of Colorado leading the way nationally in how we're doing, what we're doing here.
NICOLE: Right. I mean, credit to, I guess, our pioneering and innovative state, right? That's who we are. [LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: Yeah. The prospector vibes are strong in Colorado. Pioneering spirit still very much alive and well here. We were just saying before we hit the record button, you just had, uh, a national conference all about these issues that you spearheaded and how many, like, tell me again about the reach and impact of who attended.
NICOLE: We worked with the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Bipartisan Policy Center, two national organizations that are, you know, really outstanding organizations, talking about care supply and affordability and how to engage employers and chambers of commerce around this topic. And, you know, we had also been getting a lot of phone calls from other states and partners across the country saying, hey, like, how are you doing this? We want to dig into the how. And so we worked with those two organizations and said, hey, let's host a national summit, you know, we can host it in Colorado for the first ever, right? And we'll help pitch in on this. And so we all threw this event together, and we had 120 executives and business leaders join us from 26 states across the country to talk about childcare solutions. And this is not bringing people together to talk about the problem and spend two days on that. A lot of business leaders and chambers and economic development organizations, they understand the problem now. They understand that childcare is critical infrastructure to our economy, our workforce, our national security, right? But they also want to talk about, how do we address this? What are the solutions that other organizations, other communities have looked at? How could we potentially replicate and or model those in our communities? And so that's what we did. We brought them together, and for two days, we talked about that. And, you know, I think we have a lot of wonderful partners across the country now who are inspired to do some great work addressing childcare.
EMILIE: That's amazing. I'm just bummed I couldn't be there, scheduling conflicts and what have you. Next year, next year. So let's somehow try to do justice to what you've spent two days talking about in the next, I don't know, 20 minutes together, because I really want to get at the problem and some of these innovative solutions. So for those who may not have been following the extent of our childcare crisis or maybe don't have kids, so don't personally feel it, uh, like those of us with children do, or those of us who employ people with children might. Like, how big of a problem is this? And what does it mean when we say the US has no care economy or care infrastructure? I wonder like, how does this compare to other nations and what impact this is actually having?
NICOLE: Well, it's roughly a $122 billion problem in our country, based on a report that came out earlier this year from the Council for Strong America. And they looked at what is the cost to our country? And this was actually really specific to just the infant and toddler childcare crisis. So what is it costing our country from an earnings and a productivity and a revenue perspective because we don't have sufficient childcare infrastructure for our workforce. So, you know, the families who are working in the workforce and frankly, the families who want to be in the workforce but can't be because they can't find or afford childcare, it's $122 billion across the board. It's $78 billion when we quantify that for families in terms of what they're losing economically, right? Wealth generation wages, et cetera, and $23 billion for businesses. So, again, companies who are desperately looking for talent right now, right? You can't walk into a room full of business leaders and not hear about talent and, you know, trying to hire and grow and expand their companies. And that being a major challenge. You know, this is at the core of that for our country right now.
EMILIE: And for so many women who might be listening to this podcast, what it often sounds like from their vantage point is, yeah, I could stay in the workforce, but the daycare bill is going to take up my entire salary or my entire take home and more. So it doesn't make economic sense. And I hear that over and over and over again, it doesn't make sense for our household. So, one of us is going to stay home full time and predominantly, that's the woman, especially as it relates to the gender wage gap, meaning that oftentimes women are taking home less, and that's even if you have the luxury of having a partner, you think of being a single parent household, and like, it just seems like an impossible juggling act. So if you want Americans who've spent a lot of time getting educated and getting skilled, for this workforce, to even be able to have the option of contributing to the workforce, like, childcare is a part of it. Or we end up with a society with no children, which is also what we're angling towards with the birth rate plummeting. So, you're right, like, it just feels like this is such a missing piece of infrastructure, like our roads and our bridges and our broadband. It's part of what makes the world go round. Why don't we have it? And do other countries exist in this environment?
NICOLE: Well, other countries have far more supports for families and young children. Other countries make significantly larger investments in their young children and their care infrastructure. You know, I heard it described by actually a newspaper editor not too long ago, as you know, the social contract changing over the years socially, right? And thinking about the fact that years ago, the social contract was such that you could have a caregiver in the home with the children, oftentimes that was the woman or the mother staying home with the children. Right, but, our society has changed in such a drastic way, in such a significant way, that the social contract has really changed in terms of what women want to do, how they want to engage in the workforce. And at the same time, we never really changed how we supported those young children and families. We kept the same infrastructure, the same system, and yet millions upon millions of women joined the workforce, and yet everyone was just left to figure that out. When we look at other countries, especially other developed countries, the US is the only developed country, for example, in the economic development countries, that doesn't have paid family leave. And, you know, when we see the workforce participation rates for women in the US compared to other countries that have substantially larger supports for the care economy, we see women participating in the workforce at a higher rate in those countries. We know it does have a correlation, I would say, at least, right? And we certainly see that data telling us that.
EMILIE: I would also say that I've heard from women who do want to stay home, who want the option to stay home with their children when they're young, that it also feels like the social construct, or rather the social contract has changed in such a way as that feels out of reach for a lot of people, too, based on earnings of another partner in the workforce. You know, it's like living with a family of four on one person's salary is just not what it used to be. And so I think you're right, like, the world of work has transformed. Women have entered the workforce en mass, and nobody's changed anything that's going on at home. It's like we're all just left holding the bag and trying to figure out how to piece it together, which is exhausting, as you know.
NICOLE: Exactly. You know, I mean, if you're a parent who wants to stay home with your child, but you live in a state or a place where the cost of living is so high that you don't have a choice, that's a challenge to be there. And it's a challenge if you want to continue a career and you as a parent have to say, you know what? Not going, I can’t do that.
EMILIE: So what I love most about EPIC is the business perspective that you all bring. So help me understand, and help our listeners here understand, how is childcare and affordable quality childcare, access to that kind of childcare? How is that a business imperative? How is that an economic driver? Like, how do businesses talk about childcare as part of the workforce, and what do those solutions look like when it comes to employers? Partnering with public sector entities, especially here in a state like Colorado, that's really investing in this infrastructure. What do those partnerships look like? Like, how do we get businesses bought in on this?
NICOLE: Well, critical to America's success and national security and prosperity is economic growth, and I think everyone would agree with that. And key to economic growth is industry growth and innovation. And key to industry growth and innovation is growth in your workforce and development in your workforce. And your workforce cannot participate or grow if they don't have access to key supports like quality, early care and education for their children, period. Right? So, you know, that is the logic thread or the logic train that we follow when we talk about this and, you know, when employers look at this. And, you know, of course, the pandemic, the silver lining of the pandemic across the country was that there were many employers who had, let's call them, aha, moments about this, right? Where it was always an issue. Like, this was never not an issue, but employers couldn't not see that anymore. Right? And they couldn't not put it on their top five list of things that they wanted and needed to talk about as an employer. And so that fundamentally changed the conversation so that now employers are seeing, okay, this is a challenge. We need to do something about it, number one. Number two, the value proposition for finding and attracting employees has changed dramatically, in some cases depending on what industry you're in, right?
So if people are trying to weigh whether they want to go look for a job where they can work in a hybrid environment or even work from home, but, you know, you're trying to attract employees that need to come to a certain campus and location every single day. Well, then changing your benefit structure and thinking about ways that you can support those supports for families is oftentimes critically important. Now, we see employers really looking at things that they can do, and we help them do this and kind of categorize it into three areas. First would be what we call kind of, uh, family friendly policies, or quick wins. And borrowing this from the roadmap with the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation that they developed. But the quick wins category. Right? Like, how can you become a more family friendly employer through your policies and practices and procedures? Maybe that's training your managers on how to be more equitably minded as they're talking about childcare needs with their employees.
EMILIE: Or just thinking about them.
NICOLE: Right, exactly.
EMILIE: As a consideration,
NICOLE: How do you assign shifts in your organization? Or do you ask your employees about their childcare problems? Only 13% of employers actually ask.
EMILIE: I literally just came from lunch with a scrum master which is like an agile management, agile process manager of engineers at a major tech company. And she finds herself recently laid off and looking for a job. She has two children, eleven and 14. And she said to me, how do I bring up my childcare needs in the interview? And I was, like, shocked, because this is a woman who's in demand, right? Like, even though she's just been laid off, there is a lot of demand for her skill set in this economy, and there's not a lot of women in her engineering world in this line of work. And she still felt like her first concern was, my husband is a firefighter, so he's got 48 hours shifts that he's on for, and then he's off for four days. But, like, if something goes down in those 48 hours, I'm the default parent. How do I acknowledge this when interviewing? And I'm like, wow, nobody on the hiring side is even remotely thinking about that. And yet we have to worry about it on our side.
NICOLE: Right, right, exactly. And they're not even thinking about sometimes, do you have great talent that you could be attracting into your organization who may not even be able to interview because of childcare challenges? Right?
EMILIE: Oh, my gosh, yeah.
NICOLE: Those policies and procedures, the quick wins, right? Like, what are the internal things your organization is doing where you have opportunities to be more family friendly? Second would be internal investments. Can you invest in this in some way in your workforce and in solutions for your workforce to address these challenges around childcare access and affordability? And, you know, let me tell you, this is something that does impact women, certainly on a greater scale. And at the same time, when companies are implementing these solutions, it's important for them to communicate it, that this is something that is, number one, an equitable benefit, because the workforce that oftentimes employers say that they want to attract and retain and promote and build, is the workforce that is having the greatest challenge with childcare. Right? So this is an equitable benefit. It is not an equal benefit. Right? There's a difference between that. And it's equally important for them to make sure that this is presented as something that they want working mothers and fathers to take advantage of, right? That they're not, like, keeping that status quo totally.
EMILIE: Let's take a time out there, because I know this is a quick list of three that I want to get to, but this is worth diving into, because equitable, not equal, is really interesting in that not everybody needs this benefit. Right? That's what you're getting at. It's not every person is going to have equal access to affordable, quality childcare. I don't want to have kids. Why should I give a sh**. About this? Why should my company be giving benefits out, uh, to those parents when I'm still here at 6:00 p.m. working away? And that feels not equal. And it's not equal. But what you're saying is it's equitable. It's driving equity, because we want to remove the childcare barrier from preventing that coworker of yours from even being in the office to begin with, right?
NICOLE: Absolutely.
EMILIE: So, equity is about removing obstacles, not giving everyone the same thing, but giving people what they need to be producing and contributing. Yeah?
NICOLE: Yeah, and as organizations are communicating that, explaining that to people. Right. Being transparent and why you're doing that and how it's being implemented and communicating, you know, the double shifts that people are working because they have a challenge with finding the right talent and finding the right people. Right? That’s all tied to this core issue around childcare oftentimes.
EMILIE: And we're not saying this is the only thing.
NICOLE: No,
EMILIE: This is not the only barrier. Like, also people dealing with aging parents and all of that. Yes, caregiving comes in lots of forms, but this is one thing we can remove. Um, the other thing I really love is how much millennial dads are starting to really feel the pain of childcare, too. It's like millennial dads are spending three times as much time with their kids compared to men from two generations ago. And now the millennial dads at the baby showers that I'm going to at the first birthday parties, one year old birthday parties that I'm at, all the dads are like, how much are you paying for childcare? And the dads in my you know, Leadership Denver group are like, what do you recommend for childcare? And I'm like, this is how it begins. This is how we change the world, is men need to feel the pain that women have been dealing with for a long time.
[LAUGHTER]
NICOLE: Yeah, it's very true. And it's important, again, that we acknowledge this is not an issue for women to figure out. This is something that men and women should both be, you know, supporting and actively utilizing, because we'll never get to gender equity if we're, you know, putting childcare supports into place and saying, oh, this is for the women.
EMILIE: Yes, exactly, exactly. Okay, what's the third prong that you kind of focus on?
NICOLE: So, the third prong is really, how can employers engage with communities as well? Right? What can they do from a community advocate perspective to be a voice for that? And that's, again, one of the powerful things about EPIC is business leaders saw the opportunity to harness, the leadership, the leverage, the social equity, right, the influence that they had as CEO’s, as business leaders, as prominent figures in society, to say, hey, this is important, everyone. We have to wake up. We have to do something about this and put this on our top three list of things to tackle. And that's a big thing, right? It's one thing for a small community organization to advocate for something that may come across as something that they're advocating for, for their own benefit sometimes, right? Or sometimes that's how people might see it.
EMILIE: Or just as, like a moral good, right?
NICOLE: Exactly. Yeah. But to take business leaders and say, hey, we need to solve this for our community at large, what can we do about this that's powerful? And so they can engage in, you know, like, things like proposition EE, like we had in Colorado, which funded universal preschool. We had business leaders really engaged in that effort, even thinking about things like design. How did we design that program? So it worked well for working families. Right. They dove in. They helped think through those things and actually support that and get that past the finish line. And business leaders are important from that aspect as well.
EMILIE: Well, I love how when you frame access to childcare as an economic driver and as a workforce barrier, of course it makes sense to invite employers to the table as you're starting to design solutions. They shouldn't be the only ones at the table by any means, but it makes sense that they should be included because it's not just a moral good. It's not just something that early childhood centers should be completely leading on their own. We need to connect it back to the workforce in terms of implications. Right?
NICOLE: Yeah. Employers, they really want to help. They see the problem oftentimes. And this is why we created our Employer Based Childcare Design Lab, which is, again, the first in the country, to your point, right, exactly.
EMILIE: Colorado. Colorado leading the way. Governor Polis, call me and sponsor the podcast, please. Yes.
[LAUGHTER]
NICOLE: Great. Yeah. But employers, you know, they came to us and they know, we see that this is a challenge. We see that supply is a huge issue. We want to help, but we don't know how to do this. This is not our core business model, right? We're concerned about the risk and all the different factors. And so we worked with the state of Colorado to not only create an employer based childcare grant program to incentivize employers to build child care infrastructure and supply in their communities, but also to support them with the technical assistance and the know how around that. So, concept of completion modeled after, you know, kind of an innovative startup design lab. Right. To say, we're going to give you all the tools and knowledge you need to understand how to navigate this process and go from concept to completion and final success with that.
EMILIE: which I love because you're also not letting them do it on their own. I trust ball aerospace to design like rocket engines, but not necessarily early childhood centers, right?
NICOLE: Yeah. Everyone has their own expertise.
EMILIE: Yeah. And what I love is, know what feels really brilliant on EPIC's part is you've partnered with the state. And thank you to our early childhood advocates here in the state of Colorado, like I read on your Colorado Employer Design Lab, tell me if this is wrong. But like, you can apply for grants as an employer to build a daycare center or an early childhood education center, whatever you want to call it, on campus, so that people walking into your office can drop their tots off on the way in the door, which is like a dream come true, quite frankly. And they can get $800,000 from the state to do it, is that correct?
NICOLE: That's correct, yeah. And most of the time, you know, these employers are very community minded in this approach. We help them understand what they need to do to be successful in terms of thinking about their community's needs. Most times, they're opening these facilities up to their larger community, not just focused on serving their employees only. And oftentimes they've also created really cool economic mobility and economic development opportunities for small business owners, primarily women. Who are these childcare entrepreneurs and business owners. So if, you know, they had a business, they were operating and they had always dreamed of expanding into a larger location. Oftentimes, those women entrepreneurs, they're so under capitalized and have so little access to opportunity, they'll never have the opportunity to build, for example, a $5 million new childcare facility, right? But an employer can do that, and they can build the facility and then give that economic development opportunity to that small business owner. So then they can operate a great facility, right? It’s a win, win. The employer has childcare for their employees in their community, but they don't want to operate childcare, right. And that owner and entrepreneur has really great opportunity to open up a new business as well.
EMILIE: Well, it makes me think about job creation and economic growth across class, because this is a stereotype for sure. But like, I'm imagining that the kind of employer that could make that kind of a community investment might have a knowledge worker economy or like a white collar worker class, and then they also are growing jobs from within the childcare center itself. Right. Whether it's those entrepreneurs who are running it, or the relatively working class population of folks who are working in those early childhood centers. It feels like economic growth, job creation across class in the same community.
NICOLE: Absolutely, yeah. And employers, of course, are also so highly effective at getting this done, right? They know the players in their local communities. They can pull people together to make things happen. The construction is, you know, going on quickly. Right? I mean, they bring, uh, usually a four to one or a five to one capital match to the table on these projects. So they're very effective, obviously, at bringing resources into these projects as well. So they really are making a difference. And adding, you know, in Colorado's case, thousands of childcare slots, with over half of those going to infants and toddlers, which is really where our core challenge is. right? You hear people talk about the term childcare desert, and what that means is basically for every one childcare slot, you have three or more families who are all trying to vie for that one slot. And in some areas of our state, it's worse. But the whole country is challenged with that.
EMILIE: I mean, anyone who's been on a waitlist for a childcare center like myself, knows how insane it is. It's just bonkers. And so capitalism on its own ain't cutting it, right? Like, if supply and demand on its own were going to make this work, it would have been solved by now. And so seeing the state step in, seeing employers step in, these are the kind of creative solutions we need to actually solve for this childcare crisis. And going back to that social construct, it really struck me, that reference, because as a society, we agree at age five, we will educate your children, right? Like, Kindergarten has been around for quite a long time. It's zero to five where you are just on your own, right? You are just in a chasm. Society has no recognition for or seeming obligation to those children. And it's like, what do you think? They come out the womb at five years old? You know what I mean? How is that ever supposed to work, So, well, Nicole, this has been so much fun. I want to end with a question around what you see for the future of this work, because I have been talking to a lot of folks this year, and it feels like there's so much renewed energy around the care economy, whether we're talking about elder care or childcare, so much attention seems to be heading towards these initiatives. Ai-jen Poo’s Care Fest in Los Angeles this year comes to mind. It was a 500 plus person summit in addition to your summit. It's like a nationwide conversation that seems to be gaining a lot of traction. So I'm wondering, what do you think this means about maybe a political will developing in Washington or in our states like Colorado to actually create public policies and creative public private solutions to address this? Do you feel hopeful about where the conversation's heading?
NICOLE: Absolutely, I'm very hopeful, I do think that we're seeing a groundswell of, uh, interest and support around this topic. Employers are absolutely seeing the economic imperative for them to be involved and understanding that this is very closely tied to their goals around growth and you know, attracting the right talent that they're looking for. I also think that governments are understanding this to a whole new degree as well, and understanding that, you know, again, the way that we develop communities, I believe, is going to drastically change as a result of the pandemic. Thinking about how we develop communities where you can have intergenerational services all in one place, you have a live work play type format where people can really live their lives, work, have access to their services that they need, have all generations of their family nearby in their communities. So, you know, we're seeing local governments and communities starting to think about, how do we account for these services like, childcare and or elder care and supports for the workforce there and employers understanding that's part of it, too. I don't know if Washington's going to be the first to get this sound.
EMILIE: You sound skeptical. Fairly so.
NICOLE: We can all dream, uh, and at the same time, I think that we have some amazing solutions and ideas coming out of states right now where states are saying, you know what? We're going to start to figure this. You know, whether it's Colorado investing millions of dollars into you know, early childhood. Vermont launched a program where they have employers and the state, um, and families all contributing into care support, right. Kentucky is doing some really cool things, so there's lots of different models, I think, that are really coming forward out. And yes, you know, it has to be a public private sector solution. We're not going to get this done if we don't have everyone at the table and at least trying to move forward towards something good for everyone.
EMILIE: I love it. Nothing like a void of leadership federally to really spur innovation locally, am I right? [LAUGHTER] Well, Nicole, where can my listeners learn more about you, your incredible work, and your podcast that I'm just learning about?
NICOLE: So EPIC does have a podcast. It's called The Drop Off, which is a fun play on words around early. You, uh, know, we talk to some of our business leaders and really kind of get into their minds as to why they're involved in early childhood and a variety of topics. We, of course, have our website, which is coloradoepic.org, and you can learn more about all of our work and members and how to get engaged in our website. And then you can find me on LinkedIn and know I like to stay on LinkedIn and offer my thought leadership, for what it's worth, on early childhood and also on Twitter @theriehlnicole, R-I-E-H-L. So that's where I can be found.
EMILIE: I will link to all those wonderful places. And for any executives who are listening, join me in becoming a member of EPIC. I'm a new member, but I'm excited.
NICOLE: Yeah, without amazing business, uh, leaders like yourself who are willing to put their names on the list and put their voices towards this, know it makes such a huge impact. So thank you. And yes, we would love to have more business leaders joining us in this effort.
EMILIE: Amazing. Nicole, thank you so much for being here.
NICOLE: Thank you
EMILIE: For links to everything Nicole and I just mentioned. Head to BossedUp.org, episode 434. That's BossedUp.org, episode 434. And now I want to hear from you. How has access to affordable, quality childcare, or a complete lack thereof, impacted your career? How has it shown up in your workplaces, among your colleagues, if it's impacted them? And for my international listeners, please tell me what it's like outside of America when it comes to whether or not having a child derails your career and your family's finances, like it does for so many of us here in the States. And, of course, let's also talk solutions. What's working? Whose employer is doing a great job? Who's providing on site childcare? What has that experience been like? I would truly love to hear your perspective on this. And what gives you hope? Just like we ended this conversation with Nicole, what gives you hope about the future when it comes to initiatives like the one Nicole's spearheading around, reforming early childhood and our care economy, if you will.
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Let's keep the conversation Bossed Up Courage Community going in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook and in the Bossed Up group on LinkedIn. And until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose. And together, let's lift as we climb.
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