
The Atascadero Chamber of Commerce is collaborating with First 5 San Luis Obispo County and community leaders in on family friendly workplaces. Across the globe, businesses of all sizes are recognizing that supportive policies and practices increase organizational productivity, while also boosting the physical and emotional health of employees and their families. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the overlapping lines between work and life, and provides a unique opportunity to consider how family-friendly options may be incorporated at your business.
“Quality of life is why most of our companies and residents choose to call the Central Coast home. Family-friendly workplaces add a critical quality of life component that is not captured by compensation alone. Promoting work-life balance and flexibility allows parents and careers to exist in harmony.” – Loreli Cappel, Deputy Director of Economic & Community Development for the City of Atascadero
Family-Friendly Workplace Toolkit
The Family-Friendly Workplace Toolkit is designed to help employers large and small assess current business practices, identify opportunities for change, explore the benefits of family-friendly workplaces, and find the right size solutions for their business and their employees.
Child care survey results
Want to stand out from the crowd in attracting and retaining quality employees? Offer child care-related benefits to working parents.
That’s the key takeaway from a survey of working parents showing that childcare in San Luis Obispo County is nearly impossible to find — and prohibitively expensive if you do.
Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents believe their employers could do more to help them address child care needs. That’s a critical finding in light of several parents who indicated that they switched jobs or left the workforce entirely because of child care challenges.
Survey results | Good for families = good for business

You can read more about how childcare impacts our families in San Luis Obispo County by clicking on the guide or here.
Here are some key findings:
• Most child care workers can work full-time and still not earn a living wage.
• Child care is expensive, and child care workers likely cannot afford full-cost child care for their own child.
• There is a large need for additional child care capacity in SLO County.
• Meeting 100% of the low-end estimates for the potential need for child care in SLO County would increase Gross Regional Product (GRP) by more than $108 million annually and support and create 425 jobs from this new economic activity.
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