90% of aging Baby Boomers want to age at home.
But they need help.
So now, 73% of employees provide care for aging loved ones.
Businesses have started investing in their employees’ aging family caregiving solutions to meet baby boomers’ expectations to stay in their homes.
Employers help employees balance the conflicts between care and their job by offering home-based solutions such as flexible scheduling, PTO, and leaves of absence.
“This home-based approach supports employees in caring for their aging parents in the home, but it undermines the stability of the workforce,” explains Jeannette Galvanek, founder of CareWise Solutions and retired AT&T executive.
New Management Stressors
Team leaders face more stressors as staff shortages, productivity losses, employee caregiving demands, and higher team expectations skyrocket.
Employees face more stressors as they take on heavier workloads to compensate for staff shortages while meeting higher expectations. Plus, most are torn between the demands of their careers and caregiving.
Building an effective team becomes more challenging with distracted workers and leaders who lack vital skills and resources. Workplace communication falters and negatively impacts every aspect of the employee experience. How people feel and talk about the organization directly impacts retention and recruitment.
Like it or not, managers are taking complicated actions to address the business consequences of the unrelenting burdens their employee-caregivers bring through the door each day.
The Good News
The good news is that many of these challenges have workplace, team, and employee solutions.
The magnitude of working caregivers in every workforce suggests that managers must spend much more time talking about and coaching the team about the work and care collision and finding mutually acceptable solutions.
Educating the entire team about care challenges and solutions helps maintain business direction and supports the individual’s employment and life commitments. This is especially important for People of Color and underserved communities disproportionately driven from their jobs to care in a dysfunctional work and care environment.
This complex workforce matter has implications from trust to empowerment to productivity and motivation.
Giving people time off is a more straightforward solution than addressing the “underground” conversations among silent caregivers and team members concerned about equity.
A business brand is built or damaged daily with the manager’s competence to lead the care crisis.
What is your business doing to build a care-aware employment brand that attracts, retains, and develops people over the average 5 1/2 years of employment clashing with aging family caregiving?
Managing the collision of work and care is a management skill. What’s in your corporate training program? Managers need care and career skills to lead a high-performing and caring team.
CareWise Solutions helps managers see the employment and career imperatives to open up conversations about care management, giving employees the confidence to stay on the job. We offer custom education and coaching for individuals and teams. We are socially responsible and contribute 10% of sales to Carewise Solutions, Educational Charity-a 501 (c ) (3) Delaware corporation.
Contact Jeannette Galvanek for a free 30-minute discovery discussion.
- All Employee Orientation – Self-Paced Program
- Team Leader Care Aware Series – Self-Paced or Facilitated Sessions
- Human Resources Strategy – Small Group Sessions/On-Demand
- Leadership Beliefs – Small Group/On-Demand
- Caring Place Hub Implementation – Consulting
Jeannette@carewisesolutions.com
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