2 Years and 2 Tries Puts PacifiCare on List of the 100 Best Family-Friendly Employers : Benefits: But what put this company over the top was a rare $15-per-week subsidy for child care or elder care for workers earning less than $60,000.

CYPRESS —  Making the national list of top companies for working mothers took PacifiCare Health Systems two attempts, two years, more than 28 hours of preparing paperwork and a commitment to build a $2.5-million on-site day-care center.

But what put this company over the top, according to Working Mother magazine, which lists 100 family-friendly companies in its October issue, was a rare, $15-per-week subsidy for child care or elder care for PacifiCare employees who earn less than $60,000.

Terry Hartshorn, chief executive of the health maintenance organization, said he would run a progressive company even if there were no such thing as a Top 100 list.

But being selected for the list, he said, will give his company a competitive advantage when the recession lifts and the pool of employees shrinks.

“What I would hope we’ll get from being named is a further ability to recruit and maintain a good, solid work force,” Hartshorn said. The health care industry is dominated by women, he added, and women are the ones most likely to look for a company that is friendly to families.

Of course, with unemployment high and layoffs continuing, not many companies are worried about finding available employees. Even though health services have continued to do well through the recession, Southern California’s health maintenance organizations are contracting. Many competitors entered the field during the late 1970s and 1980s, and now the stronger operators are buying the weaker ones.

PacifiCare, in fact, bought another HMO, Health Plan of America, last year. Rather than lay off the 20 or so people in duplicate positions, PacifiCare created a pool of employees and asked each department to consider placing them in other openings. They were all given jobs.

Hartshorn believes such an act will pay off in employee loyalty, and, ultimately, on the bottom line.

“We try to be a positive place,” he said. “Employers can become a drain sometimes in terms of tension. We want to be a challenging place where people can advance and grow in an atmosphere of respect.

“Ten or 15 years ago, companies wouldn’t think about family benefits. Work was work and home was home, and you tried to keep them separate, like church and state.”

Beyond burnishing its image with potential employees, making the Working Mother list has set a benchmark for the company, said Pat Erickson, employee services manager. She put the paperwork together for the application; most of the 500 companies considered for the list this year nominated themselves, according to Working Mother.

Erickson is also a driving force behind the child-care center, which is scheduled to open in October, 1993, across the street from PacifiCare’s corporate campus in Cypress. It will accommodate about 120 children.