The Growing Pressures of Caregiving on Employees and Business
Is Caregiving Really Dual Employment
There are many implications for a “dual-employed workforce”.
Increasing needs in elder care, combined with inadequate support from the government, insurers, and healthcare providers are all leading to an unstable caregiving infrastructure that impacts individuals and businesses.
The good news is that we know this is a problem. We can start to deal with it. Businesses and organizations can strengthen the employer and employee caregiving infrastructure. We can do this by identifying, understanding, leading, and supporting across several major areas.
It can be a difficult area though, so we’ve taken some of the common questions we get at LifeWorkx and provided clear answers to each one. Read on to find out about the big issues with employee caregiving, and what your business can do.
Why is employee caregiving becoming such a big issue?
It’s a combination of several factors. The population is getting older and living longer — as a result, elder care is becoming increasingly vital, and the people most often providing that elder care are family members. These stats provide a clear overview:
However, there are around 70 million baby boomers, aged between 54 and 72.
Every day, 10,000 baby boomers turn 65.
Over 43.5 million people in the US have caregiving responsibilities, with the majority of those caregivers are working.
Informal caregiver services are worth over half a trillion dollars every year to the economy. Caregivers cannot manage, nonskill workforce who are in care jobs mostly by circumstance, not a choice.
Eldercare on average is a 5 ½ year commitment consuming again an average of 25 hours per week. (current workforce policy does not meet these needs)
This has a huge impact, on society as a whole, and your employees. Because around a quarter of any workforce also provides caregiving, this will impact your organization, damaging staff morale and causing lost productivity that eats into your revenues and profit margins.
Most businesses don’t prepare for these demographic shifts. But you can start planning now — these societal changes aren’t going away, and the businesses that handle these inevitable trends are the ones that will attract the most talented employees, and retain a powerful workforce.
Should my employees be providing family caregiving themselves?
Perhaps not, but in many cases, they will be faced with big challenges to keep their job and be confident that family care responsibilities are met.
On the other hand aging, people want to stay in their homes and avoid formal care facilities. Moreover, regardless of this trend, our aging population is already facing a growing burden on healthcare provision and social welfare programs.
Moreover decisions have not made about baby boomer home or healthcare infrastructure. Including management accountability, technology investments, delivery channels, and costs.
In addition to that, part-time or full-time paid care can be very expensive. However many people won’t have the spare income to pay for professional caregivers. Even with the insurance.
However finally, of course, there are the strong emotional ties that your employees will have to take care of family members. Along with their desire to provide the best care they can. We need a more balanced ideology supporting aging members of our society to stay at home.
As societal, demographic and labor markets have shifted, the ideology of caregiving must be updated. Working family cannot continue to be considered the backbone of the country’s care system.
Also Read: Employee Caregiving Challenges
