Creating a culture of support for working family caregivers
The turmoil of the past two years has brought calls for paid family leave and flexibility for working parents to the forefront.
Several years ago, I had to leave a job to take care of my mother during an end-stage cancer battle. This wasn’t an easy decision for me: I was 39, at the height of my career, and in a role that I had spent years building up to.
This decision didn’t come without consequences—to my career, my family’s finances, and my sense of self. And it was a loss for my employer as well; I forfeited the years of experience that contributed to my team’s overall success and left a senior role on the team empty.
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Caregiving is the most overlooked gap in employee benefits and support today. The tumult of the past two years and the Great Resignation that followed have left employers reassessing their obligations to their employees’ physical, mental, and financial well-being. They’ve brought calls for paid family leave and flexibility for working parents to the forefront. The needs and impact of family caregivers, who contribute $470 billion in unpaid care, must be taken into consideration as well.
A growing crisis
Caregiving is a critical driver of the core issues employers and HR teams are tackling today: DEI&B, return to work, and employee mental health. While the effects of caregiving are not new, the pandemic has led to a permanent shift in the way we integrate work, life, and care.
Prior to the pandemic, Harvard Business School reported that 32% of caregivers voluntarily left a job to care for a loved one at some point in their career.
Caregiving responsibilities also fall disproportionately to minority groups. Women account for 61% of caregivers, and 39% are people of color. Teams focused on building equitable workplaces for these communities will fall short if caregiving is not taken into consideration.
Additionally, 72% of caregivers report clinical signs of depression due to the deep isolation they often face. Caregiving is still so deeply hidden in our society and workplace, many employees don’t share this part of their life out of fear that it may impact their career path or perception in the workplace.
A solution for change
I come from a family of doctors and have built my career in the tech space. Despite this, in the years I spent caring for my mom, I found it nearly impossible to find access to information and resources that could help me manage her care in my home.
Moments after she received life-giving chemotherapy, she was released into my care. It was my responsibility to make sure she had enough protein, that my home environment was clean and safe for her and my family to cohabitate, and to drain her stomach several times a day. No one trained me to perform these nursing duties. Before choosing a doctor, or treatment plan, or ordering medical supplies, I needed to do hours of research just to understand what options were available to me.
It didn’t take long for this to become completely overwhelming. The time and focus my caregiving responsibilities required left me unproductive at work and completely burnt out, and I felt like I had no choice but to leave my job to care full time.
After caring for her throughout the progression of her disease, my mom passed away. In my deep grief, I felt frustrated. It felt as if I had been completely overlooked by the health care system and unsupported by my workplace.
Just a little support would have made all the difference in my ability to balance work, life, and care. In today’s modern era of emerging benefit programs, employers have an opportunity to create new tools and resources that reflect the challenges their employees face on a daily basis at work and at home.
An employer’s impact
The employee benefits landscape has made tremendous progress in improving parental and fertility needs. But the reality is that the $530 billion in lost annual productivity due to illness-related situations is actually four times greater than that of fertility and maternity situations.
To ensure employees feel supported in every phase of their family life, the realities of caregiving must also be addressed with proper benefits, tools, and resources. Employers must start looking at benefits solutions for their workforce that integrate and amplify the existing employee benefits available to working caregivers, benefits that many of them are not aware of, and that they are too tired and overwhelmed to research.
As employers increasingly acknowledge the work/life integration of employees around their roles as parents, it’s important to do the same for caregivers. True support takes into account multiple layers: local and community resources, coordination of friends and family, access to an expert who can help them navigate the process. Each employee will have their own approach, and it’s the employer’s role to provide access to that support.
There are business benefits to supporting caregivers as well. In a recent study conducted with Anthem, Inc., the second-largest health care provider in the US, we discovered that employee caregivers with access to ianacare saw an 83% increase in productivity, 30% decrease in stress and burden, and reported 96% employee satisfaction.
Looking ahead
In an environment where employers are increasingly concerned about offering a culture and benefits package that attracts and retains staff, providing a benefit that increases loyalty, employee satisfaction, and productivity is of tremendous value. It’s not only the right thing to do for employees who desperately need support; it’s smart business.
Recently, I have found myself thrust into the role of caregiver for a second time, now caring for my father, who is 83 years old with two chronic conditions.
My experience this time is different. I am balancing caregiving, work and family in a new way – with support and by asking for help. I know where to turn for reliable and personalized information when faced with a difficult care decision. I have a simple way to organize and mobilize my friends and family’s offers to help, and a dedicated expert in my corner who can guide me through each evolving step of my father’s care journey.
This new approach has made all the difference. Despite the incredible demands I face as a wife, mother, caregiver, and CEO—being equipped with information and support at every turn truly empowers me with the options I need to make the best choice for myself, my family, and my career.
Jessica Kim is the co-founder/CEO of ianacare on a mission to encourage, empower, and equip family caregivers with the practical tools and communities, so no one does it alone. She is a three-time startup founder, speaker, and caregiver advocate.
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