Your Employees Are Also Caregivers. Here’s How to Support Them.

Summary. Research shows that 73% of people surveyed in the U.S. have some type of caregiving responsibility. So, how can you better recognize this important role in your employees’ lives, understand how it impacts their work, and better support them? Articles and podcasts from HBR’s archive suggests five key strategies: gather better data, understand that caregiving includes — and goes beyond — childcare, work to adapt your company’s caregiving policies and culture, recognize that caregivers make great employees, and advocate for better public policy.

Caregivers are most certainly among your employees. According to a recent study from Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work project, 73% of people surveyed in the U.S. “reported having some type of current caregiving responsibility.” This may involve caring for children, parents, siblings, other relatives, friends, neighbors, or all of the above.

According to study authors Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman, however, “employers do not measure and thus do not realize the extent to which employees are burdened by care.” While only 24% of employers said caregiving affects employee productivity, a whopping 80% of employees said it does — though they’re likely not willing to admit this publicly for fear of hurting their careers. As a result (and also due to the extraordinarily high cost of childcare and eldercare), many talented people simply quit: 32% of respondents said they’d left a job due to caregiving responsibilities in total, with the number being as high as 50% for those aged 26−35.

There’s much more companies can do to support their caregivers. This involves both understanding their value and adopting policies that are in line with people’s needs and lived experiences. Here are some strategies from HBR’s archives on how to do this.

GATHER BETTER DATA.

It’s likely you have no idea how caregiving affects your employees. And for all the talk about making better decisions based on data, companies rarely collect any on working families. To do so, consider the following suggestions from authors Amy Henderson and Sarah Johal:

• Investigate what other companies are doing around measuring caregiving status and learn from them about what’s working and what’s not.
• Ask your employees what they need, gathering information from surveys and ERGs.
• Share what you’ve learned to build transparency and trust.
• Encourage more companies to gather this kind of data, too.

UNDERSTAND THAT CAREGIVING INCLUDES — AND GOES BEYOND — CHILDCARE.

Often, the abstract image people have of caregiving is limited in scope — picking up a child from school, for example, or going on parental leave. While these activities are absolutely central to caregiving, people may also be managing a child’s mental health, or helping a parent, spouse, or friend dealing with a medical condition like Parkinson’s or cancer. As professor and caregiver Anne Bardoel notes, “in one sense you can talk about somebody’s kids with them at work. We don’t often have a conversation about elderly parents…or brothers who have autism. … So, I’ve now realized that people come to work with all sorts of things that you don’t know about them.” She suggests managers be proactive about saying things like, “if any of you ever have any issues family related, I’m always happy to provide you flexibility” to open up the conversation about caregiving and expanding the possibility for support.

WORK TO ADAPT YOUR COMPANY’S CAREGIVING POLICIES AND CULTURE.

Sarita Gupta and Ai-jen Poo of Caring Across Generations advocate for two key things companies can do to help their employees caregivers. First, echoing Bardoel, they recommend offering flexible benefits for everyone to normalize taking leave. “Care isn’t just something that young women do for their children; a middle-aged man or an older employee may equally need to take time off,” they note. “Framing the benefit as care leave and offering it as a paid benefit takes away the stigma for women around both maternity leave and elder care, and reduces the stereotype that women should be primary caregivers.”

This leads to their second suggestion: aim to reduce stigma around caregiving. “We have been culturally conditioned to refrain from talking about care needs or caregiving responsibilities when we are at work, especially with our bosses. Companies can begin to change this in subtle and explicit ways,” they write. For example, “human resources departments can bring in experts to talk about caregiving, encouraging employees to feel more open in sharing their experiences and how caregiving impacts their work.” And leaders can openly self-identify as caregivers — “particularly those who typically don’t reveal themselves to be in caregiving roles, such as men, young people, and senior managers.” This might involve them being explicit about leaving early to care for a family member, or displaying “photos of older parents, children, or pets on their desk as a way of affirming these roles.”

RECOGNIZE THAT CAREGIVERS MAKE GREAT EMPLOYEES.

A survey of caregivers from the Rutgers Center for Women in Business found that respondents reported improvements in their humanity, productivity, and cognitivety that can help companies “maintain culture, connect people, and ensure smooth operations.”

According to authors Lisa Kaplowitz and Kate Mangino, more humanity involves “empathy, emotional intelligence, collaboration, and teamwork” that makes “one a better coworker, a kinder manager, and a more understanding leader.” Increased productivity is due to the fact that caregivers are “problem-solvers who excel at time management can prioritize, persevere, and make decisions with imperfect information.” And cognitivity involves “anticipating needs, spotting small problems before they turn into big ones, putting measures in place to avoid issues down the road, and always staying a step ahead.”

In total, these skills “bring people and processes together, which is the foundation of a company’s culture.”

ADVOCATE FOR BETTER PUBLIC POLICY.

There’s a lot business can do in offering paid leave and supportive benefits and culture, but the government plays a vital role as well. According to sociologist Caitlyn Collins, the “free-market approach has failed families spectacularly.” In particular, “Americans are among the most stressed-out people on the planet.” Collins suggests four key areas where policy can help support caregivers’ basic needs: paid leave to manage family health and well-being; quality, affordable early childcare during work hours; fair work schedules to accommodate routine family time; and living wages to meet basic material needs.

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At some point in our lives, we will all be caring for someone else. As my colleague, Amanda Kersey, writes, “sometimes we see the need coming and can plan for it, but a lot of the time, we can’t.” And no one should be left hanging when that occurs. There are still major gaps around care, but with gaps come plenty of room to find solutions and close them. So, take some time during this November, National Family Caregivers Month, to explore what your company actually knows, and is actually doing, to support the vast majority of employees who care for others.