‘Not out of the woods’: Caregivers still need more support

Employees are done keeping their personal lives separate from their professional ones, and that includes their caregiving responsibilities. 

Between 60-70% of employees will have caregiving duties at some point during their tenure according to the Harvard Business Review, but are those employers prepared to support them? A panel of industry experts weighed in at EBN’s Workplace Strategies Conference in Austin, Texas, this week. 

“Caregiving has not gotten easier for families — I would argue it's gotten harder,” said Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, CEO of health consultant company Wellthy. “The pandemic squeezed families and put them into scramble and stress mode, and that has not let up.”

Between 2015 and 2020, the National Association for Caregivers reported an increase of 9.5 million family caregivers in the United States — more than one in five Americans.  While employers are aware that they need to provide better, more holistic benefits, they’re still lagging when it comes to adequately providing caregivers with relief.  

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And as more and more people feel comfortable identifying as caregivers and asking for support, the discrepancy is a pain point employers will need to address.  

“People are now identifying as caregivers,” said Loi Stoddard-Graham, vice president of product and business development for MetLife Legal Plans. “I myself take care of seven elderly people and I never called myself a caregiver. But in the pandemic, when people are dealing with doctors, and going to hospitals, ultimately they realized, ‘I'm a caregiver and I need support in a different way than [my company] has been providing.’” 

That support goes beyond just offering flexibility, according to Lisa Rill, sociologist and executive director of Senior Life Source, a non-profit organization that provides education on aging. It’s about creating an environment where employees will feel comfortable enough to share their experiences and make more tailored demands.

“Why are we comfortable saying we’re going to leave work early to go take our kid to the dentist, versus needing to leave work early to take our mom to the doctor?” she said. “We're all going through it, but nobody's talking about it. Just normalize the conversation and destigmatize it.” 

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To facilitate that communication, media company TheSkimm has a monthly lunch with executives where employees can voice their needs and their concerns, as well as an anonymous suggestion box where they can submit comments and questions regarding their benefits. 

“We can have solutions, but I think it's really important that we're coming back to employees and listening in the places that they want to hear from,” said Lisa Dallenbach, chief people officer of TheSkimm. “Sometimes the answer is we can't help yet, but we hear you and we’re working on it.” 

At Wellthy, which has offered caregiving benefits and support since before the pandemic, they’ve continuously adapted and expanded their benefits over the years, and have since expanded to international clients. Being flexible and offering continuous digital content and education can keep the conversation top of mind for employers.

“I'm hopeful that we keep the pressure on the topic and keep discussing it because we're not out of the woods,” Jurist-Rosner said. “Things are harder than they were.”