A few months ago we covered one aspect of longevity — whether the risk of outliving your resources is greater than the risk of dying too young. Increased longevity is also changing the social and economic pressure many in the workforce feel, and as benefit professionals we need to consider how we can help. I like to refer to this issue as the sandwich and the barbell because they are two aspects of longevity, putting pressure on both employees and employers.
Let's start with pressure on employees in the sandwich generation. They are sandwiched between parents and grandparents who need assistance with some part of their daily living activities, and children who are dependent on them. These employees have to manage their work responsibilities and their family life in a delicate balance. How do they do a good job at work and answer increasingly challenging family needs?
Now, let's consider the barbell of employees. For many years, baby boomers were the largest working generation in the workplace. Today, we are told that millennials have surpassed boomers and now represent the largest block of workers. Employers are faced with the retirement of experienced boomers taking a great deal of collective wisdom with them. Millennials are replacing these boomers, but need training and guidance.
And at the middle of the barbell, many times, sit the employees in the sandwich generation. They are the people in workplace leadership roles — formal and informal. They need to make up for the lost experience of retiring boomers as well as train and develop the millennials coming into their areas. They are caught between pressures at home and at work. Business managers are caught with keeping the business running while providing a work-life balance.
The story of a friend illustrates the issues these employees face. She is a professional in her 40s, living in Dallas with her husband and two pre-college teenagers. She normally faces quite a bit of pressure just balancing her job responsibilities and the demands of the teens as they face college.
Recently, her husband developed a medical condition, so he is undergoing treatment and is unable to work. Meanwhile, her retired parents live in Omaha. Her father is trying to recover from complications of heart surgery and her mother is trying to be a caregiver while facing age-related issues of her own. My friend has been shuttling to Omaha to help with her father, while at home she's balancing the teenagers' needs, her husband's needs, and her work obligations. She's in the sandwich at home, and the barbell at work.
As benefit advisors, helping employees like my friend remain productive even when facing stress is an opportunity. Make sure your employer customers provide employees a well-positioned Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Today's EAPs provide a full range of services that are designed to help relieve stress. They provide advisory and educational resources on a wide range of topics ranging from grief counseling, financial education, dealing with eldercare issues, family relationships, career issues, and workplace and domestic violence.
EAPs can assist employers by helping employees be more productive, and diminishing “presenteeism” as well as absenteeism due to the stresses of life. EAPs help the key people sitting in the middle of the workplace — in the generation crunched by the sandwich and the barbell.
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