Walgreens

Walgreens is the largest retail pharmacy chain in the United States, with over 8,000 locations across all 50 states. They are headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois—a suburb of Chicago—with over 260,000 employees throughout the U.S. In 2013, they decided they needed to expand their child care offerings and determined that KinderCare Education at Work was the right choice for reaching their dispersed workforce across the country.

Client's Goals

Walgreens places a high value on not only recruiting and retaining top talent, but on working to keep them as well. They believe (as do we) that one of the best ways to attract talent and take care of their employees is to offer tuition savings on high-quality child care. Despite having existing child care partnerships, Walgreens reached out to KinderCare Education because no other educational organization could deliver what they needed: to expand and enhance equitable child care benefits for all their employees.

We were able to offer Walgreens a variety of tuition savings choices for early childhood education and before- and after-school care. As Jennifer Higgins from their Work-Life Programs department puts it, “Their footprint enabled us to implement a child care solution for the largest possible number of team members through a single partnership.”

Our Partnership

Just like KinderCare Education, Walgreens values partnerships—and so from the beginning, Walgreens was committed to a highly engaged relationship with us. To increase employee awareness of the new Tuition Savings benefit, KinderCare Education at Work collaborated with Walgreens Work-Life and Communications teams and created a strategy that included an Open House event at a Chicago center, flyer distribution, newsletters, and intranet postings. Our partnership continues to grow through seasonal program promotions and special offers extended to Walgreens employees, and ongoing information on child development and parenting available through our online portal.

Outcomes

The Tuition Savings benefit launched at the end of 2013, and by the close of the first quarter of 2014, 140 Walgreens employees were taking advantage of it. 180 children were placed in our programs within one year—and as a result of the benefit, Walgreens employees saved a total of more than $167,000 in a 12-month period. In addition, employees have utilized this benefit in as many as 32 states.

I am very excited about being able to partner with KinderCare Education at Work because they have so many locations, as well as a great curriculum and flexible scheduling our team members need. Their footprint enabled us to implement a child care solution for the largest possible number of team members through a single partnership. This is an invaluable benefit to our team members throughout the country.
-Jennifer Higgins, Work-Life Programs, Walgreens