Ajith Segaram is the Head of Global Account Management for Care.com’s enterprise segment, Care for Business, which offers customized corporate family care benefits packages to support working families at more than 700 global clients. In this role, Ajith oversees the Company’s account management team that supports clients directly with their family care programs, marketing initiatives, performance reviews, and any potential client or user issues.

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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and I’m so honored to have with us today Ajith Segaram. He’s the head of Global Account Management at Care.com. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Ajith.

Ajith Segaram: Thank you for having me, John. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John: Yeah, Ajith, before we get going and talk about all the important impactful work you and your colleagues are doing at Care.com, can you share a little bit about your background? Where were you born, where did you grow up, and how did you get inspired to get on such an important and impactful journey you’re on right now?

Ajith: Oh, thank you. That’s a great question. I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. My parents came from East Indian descent and immigrated here a while back. I’ve been on a care journey probably my whole life. I was raised partially by my grandmother on my maternal side, and as I got a little bit older, she became older, and I actually became the primary caregiver for her at a certain point in time and was really instrumental in just helping her through the elder years of her life. As that was happening, and shortly after that, I had children on my own and became your typical sandwich generation– someone that needs care on both sides, right? I had, at the time, an aging grandparent and aging parents, and young children at the same time, and at the same time trying to build a career, hold a job, and just saw the challenges that can bring as a working caregiver in the workforce. As I learned about the mission Care.com was on, I had a few colleagues that I’d worked with in the past that were working here, and really just started following what they were doing, and became inspired about the mission they have and how they really help people to address the care needs, which are so important in everyone’s lives, but also really equip them to excel their careers– particularly women, right? I think we saw in the pandemic a lot of women leaving the workforce just because access to care and other options wasn’t yet available. It really has put our society back, right? For me, I’m proud to be part of this journey. I really believe in what we’re doing as a company and really helping employers provide that care benefit to their employees, to keep them productive, keep them focused, and really keep them happy.

John: That’s wonderful. Talk a little bit about Care.com. When did it start, and what was its mission originally when it set out, launched, and started to scale?

Ajith: Yeah, it’s a great question. Care.com, I believe, was founded in 2006 by Sheila Marcelo. She was someone who was also struggling through her own care journey herself, right? I think she was looking for care for her young children, and she was taking care of an aging parent. As she was navigating the care landscape, she really identified this gap in the ability of people to access care. She created the concept of Care.com as being in place for people could come for care. Originally, it started as a consumer website just for people like you or I to be able to create an account and basically find caregivers to help them, giving them a place just to find more information, screen them, book them, and really work with them going forward.

John: Originally, it was B2C.

Ajith: Originally, it was B2C. Correct.

John: Then, what happened? What was the evolution?

Ajith: Yeah, it’s a great question. We had a very large tech company approach our founders at the time and basically indicated they had a large percentage of their employee population that were purchasing consumer memberships from Care.com. They wanted to see if there was a way that they could help subsidize that for their employees. I think they were very insightful in understanding that by providing care for your employees, you can keep them more productive, you can retain them, and just create a better environment to work in. So they approached us and said, “Hey, can we find a way to subsidize this?” Of course, we said, “We can definitely look into that and figure it out with you.” Hence, Care for Business, as it’s known today, was born, and the idea was that we set up a separate division targeting working with employers to help provide these family care benefits to their employees and their working caregivers in their workforce.

John: Got it. Now, the original founders sold the business, and it’s now owned by IAC or something like that.

Ajith: Yeah, I believe the company went public on the NASDAQ, and it was acquired from IAC and by IAC in, I believe February 2020 right before the pandemic

John: Ajith, when did you join?

Ajith: I joined in October of 2020. Right in the midst of the craziness of the pandemic.

John: Right.

Ajith: At the time, the pandemic actually amplified the need for care because I think it took people out of their regular routines. Their regular care options were not available. Daycare centers were closing down during these lockdowns, and really, companies started to get more desperate to be able to do things for their employees, right? We had a lot of companies approach us, and we partnered with a lot of companies to set up new programs to provide that care benefit to their employees. Many of them are now working remotely or doing different things outside of their normal day-to-day routines, really, their care needs had to change, right? What’s interesting is that if you look now, as people are returning back to work, the same thing is happening, right? People have made arrangements for care while they were working from home remotely. As companies are asking people to return to the office, their needs and their care options have changed, right? Now, they’re looking to say, “Okay, I may be in the office three days a week and home two days a week. I need to have some flexible care options that can help take care of my loved ones while I can stay focused at work.”

John: That’s so interesting. I never heard that terminology before, but it makes so much sense, the “Sandwich Generation,” both up and down, has challenges of parents grandparents’ care, and also children’s care. I mean, it really makes sense what you’re saying. You are the head of Global Account Management for Care.com’s enterprise segment, right? Care for Business.

Ajith: Right. That is correct.

John: Is there still a Care.com consumer version as well?

Ajith: There is, yeah. We’re continuing to provide care to consumers continuing to involve our platform. Basically, we have a digital marketplace that allows consumers and users to find the care that they need, right? This could vary from childcare to adult care, pet care, and even housekeeping, right? The things we consider self-care, right? It’s really become the world’s largest platform for care, and we’re continuing to evolve, enhance it, and bring new features, and continue to grow our network of caregivers.

John: Let’s talk about Care for Businesses. That’s what you oversee. If you and I are in an elevator together and we’re in a big city and we’re going to the 60th floor, but we’re on the ground floor now, and I say, “What do you do, Ajith?” You tell me what you do and you give me your title. I say, “Okay, so what does Care for Business do for employers?” What do you guys do for employers? What’s your compelling pitch?

Ajith: Great question. Ultimately, we partner with our clients to provide them a full suite of care solutions, right? This can include access to our platform back of care for when their regular care arrangements are not available. Tutoring resources, and Care Specialists which is basically a white-glove concierge service that can provide one-to-one guidance through life’s major events. We offer discounts on everyday products and services through our LifeMart platform. We provide what we call a holistic benefit offering when it comes to family care. So finding and accessing full-time care, backup care, and some of those ancillary needs that people have as well.

John: I don’t think I’m talking out of school, and if I am, just please tell me, but when we talk about enterprise clients and people that you manage for the Care for Business side, we’re talking about Best Buy, Starbucks, Facebook, Google–some of the biggest brands on the planet.

Ajith: That is correct. Yeah, we service a lot of Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 clients. More and more, companies are realizing that family care benefits are becoming table stakes. We’re seeing a growing demand across all companies and large employer segments as well as small businesses that are really seeing the need and seeing the impact that providing these benefits can help on their employees, right? We’ve seen a 31% increase in productivity among their employees and a 28% improvement in retention. As well, just the ability to hire better talent because it creates a more attractive package for potential candidates.

John: It’s a recruiting tool and a retention tool, and it also goes to culture, employee happiness, and satisfaction. Because as you and I know, especially with your generation and younger, it’s not only about making a paycheck, it’s about making a difference.

Ajith: Absolutely. Simply put offering family care benefits to employees of smart business, right? Workers stay satisfied, they’re more productive, and most importantly, they come to work for you and they stay working for you.

John: That’s a great point. Without giving away which of the brands, but these are big brands you’re dealing with, these are big enterprises. What percentage of employees take advantage of the package that you offer? Is it 5% at each company? Is it 10%? Is it more or less? How much are you getting when these brands offer the amazing, wonderful, and relevant services that Care.com has?

Ajith: It’s a great question. I think it varies from product to product. I would say, when we look at the surveys that we’ve done, 81% of employers have really said that companies have had a positive impact across their entire workforce. When you look at things like enrollment in benefits, we see ranges anywhere from 10% to 20% to 30%, but it really varies by industry. You see, maybe some industries, like manufacturing, that maybe more male-dominated and might have a slightly lower take rate than others. Healthcare is a big one where we see, especially with like longer shifts and more last-minute changes, much higher enrollment. Ultimately, it varies. But the one thing I can say is that it’s insurance in the sense that it’s also a benefit that’s there when you have the need. Maybe you don’t have a need right now, but it’s also comforting to know that should you have a need, particularly as it relates to senior care, because sometimes, things can change very quickly in terms of situations. Again, you might be at a point in your life where your children are aged out and you don’t need that level of care, but maybe some of your aging loved ones are at the point where maybe they may not need care today, but in the near future, they would. So again, this is something that grows as your use case grows. Then as you look at our other products such as our Care Specialists in the one-to-one concierge service we provide, we cover a large variety of different life events, right? Anything from getting married to moving, to whatever, and we can help employees along that journey. By doing that and offering those services, we’re really helping employees provide our benefit equity and reach people that may not have taken advantage of traditional family care benefits.

John: Got it. The companies that we talk about– these iconic brands like Facebook, Google, Starbucks, and Best Buy– that are using your great products. Their big brands, your Care for Business and enterprise segment, also for smaller companies that do $10 million, $50 million, or $100 million in sales. Where is your sweet spot of business besides the large enterprises? Is it also set up for smaller businesses as well?

Ajith: Yeah, absolutely. We have clients as small as 10 employees that still see the value in our benefit, right?

John: Oh.

Ajith: At the end of the day, regardless of how big the company is, individuals predominantly all have care needs, right? Everyone has some loved one that they’re going to need to take care of probably at some point in their life. One of the things about smaller businesses is that when somebody’s out and there’s only a 10-person organization, it has a much bigger impact on the day-to-day operation of the business. We actually are seeing a much bigger demand in that segment over the last few years, especially after COVID. We’ve seen a significant uptake in that small business segment, but we have clients of every size across almost every single industry. Again, that’s really compelling for me to see because it means we’re able to help people of all different types and sizes, right? Really casts a wide net. Sometimes we tailor our offering for different industries and sizes, but at the end of the day, we have something that we believe can help everyone.

John: How do you get the word out? What kind of marketing do you do? Is it word of mouth? Because, as you and I know, it’s a small world out there. Does Best Buy tell Target, and Target tell Walmart, and that’s how you get the next big retailer? Or are you out actively marketing and things of that such? How does your sales cycle typically work?

Ajith: Yeah, it’s a variety of different things. We try to market when we can. We try to partner with our clients to do case studies, and testimonials to help them tell their story about how we’ve been able to help them. We have clients that have done their own press releases and marketed. Some of them like to do that because it showcases them being an innovative and progressive employer.

John: Right.

Ajith: Also, being a great place to work. It’s a combination of different marketing events. We also attend a lot of trade shows specific to the benefit industry. We also work very closely with the government, both at the federal and state level, to really advocate to change policies, right? In fact, right now there’s a childcare summit going on in D.C., the National Childcare Innovation Summit. We have many care members that are there actually right now, today. Recently one of our clients, Suffolk Construction CEO, spoke on stage about how our benefits have helped them to really retain and keep their employees productive.

John: Got it. For our listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us, we’ve got Ajith Segaram with us today. He’s the head of Global Account Management for Care.com’s Enterprise Segment and Care for Business. Ajith, talk a little bit about your Care Spending Account product, what does that mean?

Ajith: Great question. Care Spending Account is a new product that we’re bringing to market. What it does is it allows employers to have more flexibility with how they help their employees access care and afford care. With our traditional offerings like Backup Care, it’s really meant to help replace regular care when it’s not available and find last-minute care options. We also have our Care Membership platform, which allows you to access and find full-time care options, but it doesn’t help you to afford it. When we surveyed our clients, we found that this was a big gap, and what our clients wanted to be able to help their employees is to address the full-time care aspect. The Care Spending Account is essentially a fund where employers can help fund and provide a subsidy to their employees that provides them a little bit more flexibility on how they’re spending it. For example, employers can decide, do they want to limit just childcare. Do they want to keep it to senior care? Do they want to really wide open to allow any different types of things? Ultimately, I think it’s a great tool for them to help many people, and it gives them more flexibility on how they’re helping them and how they can use the money.

John: What are the soft and the hard ROIs on great programs like that?

Ajith: Great question. As I mentioned earlier, right? 82% of our employers have said they’ve had a positive impact on productivity, 81% have said it’s had a positive impact on retention and recruitment, and about 76% for senior care benefits as well, so those are pretty compelling numbers. When you think about turnover, the average plan, people stay in their job today. I think retention and attraction of talent are very key strategies for companies. People are a company’s biggest assets, and it’s about helping keep their best people, keeping them motivated, and keeping them present too. It’s not just being at work, but it’s able to be at work while having confidence that your loved ones are being taken care of and are in good hands.

John: Let’s talk about practicality. Whether it’s from a consumer point of view– because I’m both a business owner, CEO, and also just a consumer as well– is one of the great benefits of Care.com’s mission and value proposition peace of mind that when I use your great products and services? Whether I use it through your enterprise and business segment, which you run, or I just become a consumer on your website and just use the B2C opportunity, when I’m hiring these folks to help me with my grandchildren or my parents, you’re saying I have peace of mind because these are all been very vetted and highly qualified people. How does that work?

Ajith: Yeah, we have pretty strict screening processes safe. We take safety very seriously. We’ve invested a lot in being able to screen and what we call care to check our caregivers. We also give users the ability to do more enhanced types of background checks. Should they want to, they can pay an additional fee and do a more robust check. Again, for those people that just want to have a little bit more confidence in what they’re doing, they can access those reports themself before they make a decision to hire a caregiver.

John: Is it fair to say that your Care.com network of caregivers and service providers is the largest one in North America?

Ajith: Yes, absolutely.

John: This is a fascinating business model and one that I could, I assume that when you look at statistics of the sandwich generation, as you call it, which is a great name, that’s a very fast-growing segment of the population.

Ajith: It is. But what’s actually even more interesting, what we’ve learned in one of our recent Future Benefits report, is that caregiving is now actually affecting almost every single generation in the workforce. If you think about it, we have like four or five different generations in the workforce. Whether it’s senior care or adult care, almost every single generation has some responsibility for care going on, right? Whether it’s your parents or your grandparents. I think just more modern and complex families create more different care needs. But again, that’s something that was a bit eye-opening when we looked at that survey to see like, it’s not just your stereotypical generations that you think are taking advantage of care. It’s pretty much everyone across the spectrum.

John: I call and I contact my Care.com rep, and someone goes out to help one of my parents, but there’s not a good chemistry between that caregiver and parent, changing the caregiver is not a hard thing, right? Is that just part of the process of getting the right chemistry between the people they’re caring for and also the caregiver itself?

Ajith: Yeah, definitely. It comes down to personal preference. One of the features you have is you have the ability to read a little bit about the caregiver before you decide to screen them. You can interview them, you can chat with them before you decide to commit to them. Many people, including people that I know that work at Care.com have really found caregivers that have stayed with their families for many, many years, right?

John: Wow.

Ajith: Whether it’s like maybe they started looking at their children and down the road, maybe they had children. I think that it really helps people form that personal connection. We equip them with the tools to be able to find the people they want, but ultimately, it’s a very personal decision, right?

John: Sure.

Ajith: We want to take care of that, I think everyone has some personal preferences, and they just incorporate that into their search and screening. We try to match them as best as possible to what they’re looking for, but at the end of the day, it’s incumbent on them to decide if this is the right person for the need or the role they’re looking to fill.

John: If you’ve been there four years now, what does the future look like? What are you excited about and how much growth do you have in front of you?

Ajith: Well, I think the growth potential is unlimited, right? If you look at what’s happening in the US, right? You have a couple of events that have really happened, right? We’re coming off the heels of the pandemic. You have the cost of childcare that’s rising significantly year over year. Then, we have what we call the “Childcare Cliff,” which is basically the expiration of the funds that the government put in place temporarily during COVID that have now expired. Now, you’re having a lot of daycares being close, which means that there’s less availability, there’s less supply, and there’s more demand, and it’s harder. For me, this problem is only going to get worse in terms of people being able to need fine and access care. In terms of what we do, I think it’s something that this need is going to just continue to grow, and our role is going to be more and more important, and that’s why, we’re not just working with clients, but we’re also working with the government and policy makers to try and advocate to change policies to be able to just address this in the longer problem and the bigger picture here, right? So it’s not just about helping individual companies one by one. We’re actually trying to change the entire viewpoint of childcare, and how important it’s to the success of a nation, and really work with the government to modify the policies, modernize them, and really equip people to be able to afford access care.

John: Elder care too, right?

Ajith: Absolutely right. You have the aging baby boomer generation, and the number of seniors that are going to need care in the next few years is going to outweigh the amount of people that there are taking care of, right? We also are doing more grassroots things as well and trying to bring more caregivers into the market by doing local events and other areas to acquire more caregivers. It’s really trying to build a supply to keep up with the demand. But just to answer your original question, what gets me excited is our ability to impact people’s lives, right? One of the things I love about my job is almost on a daily basis, we get testimonials from users, and customers that just rave about how we’ve helped them in a very specific situation. Something that just really warms my heart because it knows that the hard work we do on a day-to-day basis has really impacted and touched someone’s life in a positive way.

John: That’s so great. Without giving away any secret sauce or any plans that your competitors could look at, or is this a business model that can be replicated and you guys could take this to Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world?

Ajith: I think so. I mean, that each country needs to be looked at a little bit uniquely because the environment and the subsidies the governments provide vary from country to country. So the US right now obviously is a very dominant market just because of the lack of funding and the lack of availability. But we do operate in different countries. We’re not as present heavily as we are in the US, but I think that’s something we’re always see evaluating, and we’re also see constantly looking at what’s happening in those markets. We also have a lot of global clients that want us to be able to support their employees in those other markets. So we do have services in those other countries we’re looking at, where we can expand, how we can grow our caregiver pool the same time keeping in mind the local nuances in a country, some countries provide a lot of benefits and support for children for parents, things like that. So again, it’s just fitting in, trying to understand where the gap is and try to see where we could add value.

John: What are you most excited about for the rest of 2024 and early 2025 in terms of Care for Business?

Ajith: I’m very excited about the Care of Spending Account that’s going to be going officially live in Q3. Again, being able to help employers help their employees in a more flexible way I think that’s going to be really impactful. Just in general, the continued innovation of products, right? Just looking at what’s there in the market, where there gaps, and how we can continuously innovate and get creative to solve these problems.

John: How many employees does Care.com have now, approximately?

Ajith: That’s a great question. I don’t know if Mackenzie if you knows the exact answer, but roughly I would say without caregivers, we’re probably around the 900 to a 1000 mark.

John: Your headquarters are in Austin, Texas, right?

Ajith: Our headquarters are currently in Austin, Texas. That’s right.

John: It’s a geographically diversified workforce in that you work out of Canada, other people work out of different parts of the country, so not everyone’s in Austin.

Ajith: That’s correct. Yeah, we have a few different hubs that we have. The majority of our employers. We also have decentralized teams that are across the country for coverage. Of course, our caregivers are in every single market, where we need to have care delivery.

John: Sure. You’re in all 50 states and all across the United States.

Ajith: We are definitely across all of the United States. Again, from a caregiver coverage perspective, one of the things we continuously look at is supply and demand data. We constantly evaluate where we’re getting needs and requests, looking at our supply and trying to continuously invest in improving our supply to keep up with the demand. At the same time, just looking at areas we call “Caregiver Deserts,” where there are some areas where there are no available caregivers or daycares within a 15-mile radius, right? We’re looking at those areas as well and trying to see what we can do in those areas when there’s big populations of people looking for care, to really help improve and just deliver care further and wider and across the country.

John: Ajith, this has been fascinating. It’s such a great business model and that it’s so important that we take care of our young ones and our older ones. As you say, the sandwich generation definitely needs some assistance to make their lives better and their loved ones lives better. I just appreciate the time of you taking to explain this all to us. For our listeners and viewers, to find Ajith and his colleagues at Care.com for business, please go to Care.com/business. Ajith, thank you so much for not only your time today, but I’m also grateful for what your colleagues have created and what you’re scaling, and actually for making the world a better place.

Ajith: Well, thank you for having me, John. It’s been a pleasure, and i look forward to connecting again sometime soon.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform, revolutionizing the talent booking industry with thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.