WATERTOWN, S.D. (KELO) — How does one solve both the worker shortage and the childcare crisis? While no one has the perfect answer, a nursing home in Watertown is doing what it can to create a solution for them and their employees.
While they pride themselves on the excellent care they give, staffing has been a big issue at Jenkins Living Center in Watertown for the past few years.
“As the pandemic kind of happened, we saw that we had to either we had to reduce census days based upon the overall staffing that we’re leaving the industry as a whole, not just at Jenkins, but everywhere in the community,” Jenkins CEO, Kasey Klapprodt said.
The consequences of having less staff reaches far beyond the walls of Jenkins.
“It affects overall community, it affects the surrounding area because it is– we have people that need service, people that need placement in long term care, and they’re not being able to find that currently,” Klapprodt said.
Staff at Jenkins knew they needed to do something to attract more workers. After taking a look at their employee demographics, Jenkins decided to team up with Lake Area Technical College Educare to provide 50% off childcare services for Jenkins’ full-time employees.
“I think a lot of people, it was kind of a sigh of relief,” Klapprodt said.
People like Yolanda Garcia, who recently found out her daycare provider was retiring.
“Trying to find someone that you trust and that is reliable and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg was a lot, especially because I do have to two of my small children that are not in school. So that made it difficult,” LPN, Yolanda Garcia said.
Having Jenkins cover half the costs was extremely beneficial to her and her family.
“It’s going to help a lot financially because they do cover half the cost, whereas, you know, you have to cover all the costs for your daycare and that gets to be really expensive,” Garcia said.
Giving her peace of mind for her children, and her job.
“It makes you feel like you’re more than just an employee. Like they have your back. They’re looking out for you, making sure you’re able to get here to work,” Garcia said.
Larissa Sokolosky’s daycare provider was also retiring.
“It was crazy. It was probably a week and a half, two weeks after my grandma had announced that she was retiring. And we were kind of in a panic for that little bit, trying to figure out what we were going to do. And then this kind of just fell into our laps,” LPN, Larissa Sokolosky said.
While Jenkin’s pays for half of her childcare now, Sokolosky is most appreciative that she didn’t have to find a new daycare.
“The biggest for us was the place to go to not have to spend all those hours on the phone calling out and trying to get on a waiting list, talking to friends, figuring out who they call next,” Sokolosky said.
Sokolosky says the new program sends a message that Jenkin’s values their employees.
“Just to start with that family atmosphere, your coworkers care about you. They care about your family,” Sokolosky said.
Erin Haufschild also is appreciative of the new Educare program…
“So on top of, you know, just having that reliable childcare, it’s also with getting 50% off, you know, it’s a financial benefit,” Social Services Assistant, Erin Haufschild said.
But for her, the program is the reason she is now able to work there full time.
“I actually started here part time because I just I couldn’t find anything. And once we kind of found out about this benefit and my application was approved, you know, I was actually able to switch to full-time,” Haufschild said.
Which has helped out everyone in her family.
“It was really stress relieving for me and for Alex and just knowing that he’d have, you know, good childcare on top of finding childcare yourself to make sure that it’s, you know, reliable,” Haufschild said.
As this new program aids families amidst the childcare crisis, it also helps a business in need of more employees, and in turn, the whole community.
“If we can solve our staffing situation, it’s going to be able to open the door for what we can do for our service, for the community and moving forward,” Klapprodt said.
