Taking Care Of Unpaid Caregivers In Your Workforce
.More people than ever are serving as unpaid caregivers, usually for an ageing parent at home. The most recent count is 67 million Americans are working while serving as unpaid caregivers in their off hours.
These workers often have huge challenges. Most are baby boomers who have already spent decades raising their own children. Now, just as their children are heading out into the world as young adults, 70 and 80-something parents are moving in to be cared for.
Parents often need rides to doctor appointments, medication administered, feeding, cleaning, and much more. In past decades this might have been taken care of by a stay at home spouse. These days everyone is working. The senior is home alone. With a hope and a prayer. Workers going to their job with fingers cross will not experience any family emergency or worse while they are away.
This often is not the best solution for you. You have valued managers, accountants, teachers, craft workers, attorneys and more who can’t fully concentrate on their jobs. These employees often arrive worn out from a long night up with a demanding relative. This arrangement is not good for them or for you.
The Switch to Freelancers and Work From Home Employees
When you ask most unpaid caregivers what work arrangement would make their difficult lives easier, most will point to a job that would allow them to work all or some of their week from home.
This was once hard for employers to imagine. A common belief was workers don’t do what you expect, but what you INspect. Then with the Great Recession companies increasingly used freelancers and work from home staff to cut company operating costs.
Employees staying in touch by phone, e-chat, text, and email is not at all unusual today. Not only have employers become better at offering and managing flexible working, but workers are also much better at staying disciplined and effective when working from home.
The freelancing arrangement allows unpaid family caregivers to live far more efficient lives. They can be there for the family when a challenged individual needs attention. They can administer medication, take care of emergencies, even duck out at pre-arranged times to take a parent to the store.
Big Benefits for You
Many workers will simply choose to become freelancers. They will offer their services to companies and enterprises for set fees. As an employer, you are now able to shop for very highly skilled workers who are working at prices far lower than in past decades. These people are organized, motivated, and ready to give you a better service. More than you may have been getting from your in-house staff.
Additionally, you get a lot of operational and tax savings.
You don’t need office or workspace for telecommuting freelancers. They work from home. You can 1099 them as independent contractors. That can save you one of your biggest expenses calculating and paying employee withholding taxes.
You save in multiple ways while getting better service from happier, more focused workers.
With a little smart creativity, this unstoppable change rooted in demographics could offer you a great opportunity while helping you play an important role in the life of your community.
Employers Capability
Until employers innovate corporate-wide employee remotely, at-home family care monitoring capabilities in their working facilities, the primary option is the freelance independence of where when and how one works.
Employers dramatically influence at home healthcare assumptions and invest in disruptive at-home care solutions the care challenged worker will see the freelance option as viable. Until the government energizes resource reallocation to meet the ageing baby boomer infrastructure needs, including a mobile professional at-home care workforce, the private sector “ traditional” labour market sustainability will continue to decrease.
Pending corporations’ appreciation that the modern workforce requires solid incentives to join their firms, dramatically changed worker buyers’ market offers people greater control over their income, diversity of work and better performance standards.
The Way We Work™ is changed. Employees expect corporations to address the burdens of family care and their job continuity. It’s a choice that the private sector leaders must make. The sooner, the better.
In future LifeWorkx, Inc. Blogs, we will address a new idea. The read CareWise™ culture is an inclusive workforce ideology. Implementation of corporate mobile enterprise infrastructure is the place to align the worker needs with new workforce policy. Explore how corporations can take caregiving out of their benefits departments and into their workforce strategies. It’s a win-win solution.
Also Read: Keep Holidays Joyful and Meaningful
By Jeannette Galvanek, CEO, LifeWorkx, Inc. 2017. www.LifeWorkx2021.com. The Global Caregiving Gold Rush, now available on Amazon.com.
