Family care benefits more important than ever in today’s workplace, study finds

Employers realize that providing these types of benefits contributes to their bottom line as well as worker wellbeing. The lack of adequate and affordable child care costs U.S. employers $23 billion a year in recruitment, retention and productivity challenges, according to the Council for a Strong America. Inadequate elder care resources adds $44 billion in similar costs.

“Despite media coverage of conflicts such as the battles over return-to-office mandates or the challenges of managing a multigenerational workforce, there is actually significant common ground, areas where the perceptions and wishes of workers and employers converged,” according to the 2024 Future of Benefits Report from Care. “And that common ground centered on care benefits.”

The survey of C-suite leaders, HR professionals and employees identified four key care benefits trends.

Caregiving is the common language across generations. Employee respondents across all four generations in the workforce (Gen Z, millennials, gen X and boomers) reported they have caregiving responsibilities for children, grandchildren, pets or seniors. About 1 in 5 said they previously have left a job because their employer lacked family care benefits. The percentage of employee respondents caring for seniors was nearly uniform across generations, and 21% of employee respondents said they would switch jobs to obtain senior care benefits.

Employee benefits ease the financial burden of caregiving: The soaring cost of care has employees looking for financially related care benefits through work, and this is an area where employers can deliver meaningful impact. Among family care benefits they would want to receive if they could only have one, employee respondents chose those that would mitigate the cost of care — dependent care flexible spending accounts and cash subsidies for care, which ranked first and second, respectively. These same benefits also ranked among the top four family care benefits among employers.

Successful work arrangements rely on family care benefits. As more employers ask workers to return to offices and worksites, the majority are providing benefits to support the transition. Nearly half of employee respondents reported that child care benefits were highly critical for them to return to office successfully, with 43% responding similarly for senior care benefits.

Related: High premiums make family coverage unaffordable for many workers at small employers

Family care benefits meet employers’ business objectives and workers’ needs. The majority of HR leader respondents agree that both child care and senior care benefits have a positive impact on employee productivity (82% and 78%, respectively). In fact, employers ranked child care and senior care benefits among the top benefits they are prioritizing in 2024, with 56% prioritizing child care benefits (up from 46% in 2023), and 50% prioritizing senior care benefits (up from 43% in 2023).

“While it is clear there is still much to do to bridge the gap of employer-employee expectations, it is equally clear that there is common ground to be built upon,” the report said. “HR leaders actually want to offer what employees are asking for, and enhancing care benefits is the place to start.”