Early learning begins at home and a former IBM executive suggested yesterday that child care and workplace flexibility policies should be basic benefits not cutting edge perks at companies hoping to be among the nation’s best employers, according to a report.

A top reason to offer flexibility is that it’s more expensive to hire and train new employees than it is to give workers tools to navigate the rising demands on workers with children, aging parents or both, Katherine Lewis reports in “IBM's Ted Childs Grades Corporate America on Workplace Flexibility.” And if companies want to remain competitive, Childs says executives need to get on the flex program.

Along with White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, he (Childs) told the conference that the U.S. needs widespread workplace flexibility in order to compete economically with other countries for talented employees. "We're in a war for talent like anyone else," Mullen said. – Katherine's Working Moms Blog, 11/30/10.

(Lewis is a veteran journalist, who now covers work-life balance and parenting issues. Check out her story and entire blog.)

Flexibility often sets the tone for parents when they are choosing child care and preschools for their children. If they don’t have flex, they often have a hard time making everything work, which, in turn, can influence their choices.

This story is only one development from an important conference, now in its second day, “Focus on Workplace Flexibility.”

You can follow conference developments on Twitter at #focusonflex and @KatherineLewis.

Early Learning Depends on Fair K-12 Funding: Once you have read about the latest in work-family flexibility, go over to The Huffington Post to read about how school funding is unfair “in many states,” and why this matters to early learning. Current reform initiatives, such as attracting and retaining qualified teachers, providing high quality kindergarten and preschool, and offering extended learning time cannot be sustained or succeed without fair school funding. – Huffington Post, 11/2/10.