Our backyard executives continue to meet on Tuesdays for lunch. The discussions about how aging caregiving impacts their families and organizations become more serious every week. This Tuesday, Tom, Nancy, Mike, and Sandy are talking about this year’s holiday season.
Discussions revolve around how family traditions have changed. They describe the shift in their relationships as they become more like the parent as their aging parents require more care. They share stories of past holiday seasons as tears well up around the table.
They know they have two problems to solve. They face the stress of being a family caregiver themselves. Plus, they are responsible for ensuring the stability of a workforce threatened significantly by the caregiver crisis. They decide to shift the discussion to what they can do within their organizations to make a difference in their own situation and for their team members with caregiving responsibilities.
Tom shares a startling statistic.
“I read in the Washington Post that caregiver demands are now the number two reason after retirement why someone exits the workforce. If 80% of caregivers have a paid job, what can we do to help our people manage this juggling act? I’m pretty much at my wit’s end myself. I can’t even imagine what some of my team members are dealing with.”
After struggling to understand the problems, the group agrees to consider what they need to do next to bring care management to work. They talk about ways they could equip managers with the skills and resources to actively support people in the care and work collision. Ultimately, they agree they want to do everything possible to reduce the exhaustion and unfair burdens permeating their businesses.
How Organizations Can Impact the Caregiving Crisis
It’s time for business leaders to say, “Enough! My employees are not free healthcare workers! Instead, they need to be caring family members.”
“It’s not okay to accept national employee burnout as a natural state of being. We cannot allow business investments in attracting and developing teams to be lost or redeployed. Our baby boomer generation and people with disabilities deserve better.” ~Jeannette Galvanek, Founder and CEO, CareWise Solutions
Address the needs of employees at all levels immediately – 80% of caregivers do not have access to benefits.
A small 2021 survey by caregiving coordination technology platform Homethrive suggested that nearly 80% of caregivers did not have access to caregiver support benefits at their workplaces. Nearly two-thirds of employees believe their employer should offer caregiving coordination benefits, and 85% would use it if they did. More than half of employees would change jobs to have access to such benefits, especially various options.
Nancy made a list of what was covered during lunch. Here are the ideas our executives curated from their brainstorming sessions.
- Create additional acceptance in the workplace of the caregiving crisis and its impact on everyone.
- Provide benefits and resources that help caregivers make better choices, which can include backup care assistance, consultations, and resources.
- Connect caregivers to resources and think of the entire family as the caregiving unit — a group of individuals who need help. Offering counseling for the spouse of a dementia patient can help reduce depression, for example.
- Build communication channels within the organization and send the message, “It’s okay to ask for help and support.”
- Pay attention to the disparate impact of caregiving on lower wage earners and people of color (BIPOC). This goes beyond diversity into Equity principles, including the right to work and have family responsibilities in America.
- Conduct an anonymous survey to determine the number of caregivers and the extent of the issue in the organization.
- Invest in the ability of employees to manage immediate short-term issues and continue to implement longer-term solutions because this is the beginning of a major shift in workplace culture.
- Offer a complete solution, such as the Caring Place HUB with CareWise Solutions education and training as a part of the fabric of the business, going beyond the current wellness program and EAP.
Employers and Employees Have Rights
Employees have the right to care about, not for their aging family members in healthcare-type roles. Employers have the right to maintain their workforce.
Americans, employers and employees alike, are asking why there isn’t a driven, directed leadership effort to put the home and community care professionals needed in place. The nation wants to know where the necessary changes in employee benefits and private insurance policies are. ~Jeannette Galvanek, Founder and CEO, CareWise Solutions
Employees are additionally burdened by picking up out-of-pocket expenses of over $7,000 a year for each aging family member.
At CareWise Solutions, we ask for significantly increased capabilities of all healthcare workers and care economy employees to raise awareness of the work and care collision. It’s time to change the assignments given to family caregivers in all circumstances. This includes transitions from healthcare to home providing adequate support when a patient has a working caregiver or doesn’t have one at all.
The National Caregiving Crisis
The caregiving crisis is now accepted as a national, even global, issue. Conferences and summits discuss the issues for days at a time. Everyone must come together to create the highest-level policy changes that could truly impact the lives of family caregivers, their employers, and their aging family members.
But it hasn’t happened yet.
In the meantime, CareWise Solutions offers the only comprehensive solution for employees and employers to move forward, take charge, and feel empowered to competently manage the care system we all need.
The Tuesday Lunch CEOs – The Next Steps
Our Tuesday CEO team drafted a document to describe the desired state for their employment brands based on the list Nancy made from their discussions. They plan to share it with their leadership teams after the holidays and ask for feedback. Ultimately, they want to build a statement that can become part of the organizational mission statement. They recognize that national and global changes will take time, so they act to make the differences they can for themselves and their employees now.
When your organization is ready to take the next steps toward building a comprehensive solution for the caregiving crisis, CONTACT US for a free 30-minute call.
