The Quiet Workforce Revolution Your Business May Be Missing
Workforce
There is a major shift well underway in America’s workforce. It may already be a powerful undercurrent in your company. You might even be aware of it. But you are most likely similar to other companies. This force is not yet top of mind. It is merely another factor in your diverse workforce.
Of course, I’m referring to employees who are expected to provide unpaid caregiver services. These are your full-time workers who are quietly caring for an ageing parent at home. Theirs is a journey that starts with visiting a doctor for simple medical treatment.
Many times, that treatment plan evolves to beyond simple to unplanned roles during an already demanding life. Frequently the cared-for individual may have physical limitations or can be mentally challenged as with Alzheimer’s patients.
The bottom line is your worker is spending countless hours of his or her own time feeding, cleaning, giving medication, providing companionship, and ensuring safety for this person. They may be up late, get up several times in the middle of the night, and rise earlier than normal just to make sure their ageing parent is comfortable and well taken care of.
Most workers find that quietly handling what they perceive as individual employment or family care need is probably not the most successful approach.
As a nation, we have not yet formed an at-home care approach, yet are experiencing a continuous flow of healthcare devices and responsibilities with a description of use on a 2”x 3” instruction note stuffed in the product box or a paper hand out to access medical office portals.
The Undeniable Shift in Aging Parents Living With Their Children
With record-high costs of health care, it’s unreasonable to think most workers can afford to put their ageing parent in some kind of assisted living facility. Additionally, many adult children insist on caring for their loved ones themselves.
There is plenty of research to show ageing parents are far happier and more responsive when living close to or with family.
The vast increase of seniors in the American population is accounting for the big upswing in unpaid, employees with care roles in the workforce.
Here Are Some Basic Facts That Help Put This Demographic Swing In Perspective.
- The number of 80-something seniors is rapidly rising.
- Their care often falls to baby boomer children.
- In recent years there have been 7 caregivers for every 80-something seniors requiring care. But that number is falling.
- Baby Boomers are turning 65 at the rate of 10,000 per day.
- 73% of Baby Boomers think that their family will care for them.
- Families are smaller these days; so ageing care may easily fall on a 2-person household.
- By 2030 there will only be 4 caregivers for 80-year-olds.
We aren’t the only ones experiencing this massive ageing shift. Countless other countries are seeing the change. As people live longer, their care late in life often falls to their children or other family members. The American at-home care system still holds an antiquated ideology that someone is at home to provide family care.
This is clearly in direct conflict with and socioeconomic shifts such as wide-ranging working families and well-defined shifting demographics. Naturally, technology is assertively moving healthcare roles are pushing family care roles to new levels of professional ageing, wellness, and care roles.
The quiet worker revolution is expanding to a workforce revolution and unfolds as a systemic family, medical, healthcare, ageing and employment revolution. It is now a national revolution.
The family caregiving demands have morphed into a labour market dilemma. Do we develop family care skills for an already employed population? Do we develop a skilled healthcare workforce?
Impact On Your Business
We call the undertaking of the unpaid family caregiving role the care creep. It slowly arrives at your family doorstep and cleverly jumps into your backpack with you to your place of work.
This is when your employment situation starts to feel the pinch.
Very simply, the chances of your workers having a person with health or disability challenges, requiring at home are quite high. In any given workplace there are probably 25- 35% of the employee team that is challenged by some degree of care commitments.
Those who face eldercare perform 20+ hours per week for 5+ years. Resulting unplanned care demands are at the root of unplanned absences, adjustments to work schedules reducing traditional on-premise face time.
As roles increase they solidly spill over to the work team and business commitments. The tally is $36 Billion per annum in wastes to the business’s bottom line.
Unpaid Caregivers
Although they may not talk about it, unpaid caregivers have some common concerns and needs.
They frequently don’t get enough sleep. After working a long, demanding day for you, they’re back home taking care of one or more individuals. This may be after decades of raising their own kids. Many are tired, very tired, and still having to meet unthinkable demands 7 days a week.
Meeting employee care challenges, managers and colleagues will greatly benefit from a corporate policy that sanctions virtual working. That means exercising (as business appropriate) the freedom to work where, when and how employees need without repercussions.
Success for the mobile and CareWise™ Corporation includes comprehensive use of available unified communications technology, sustainable employment, and caregiving education program for all workers. A CareWise™ philosophy including reasonable care challenged employee policies is needed now, not as some suggest at the peak of the care crunch in 2030.
What does a corporation or team need to do? Create a modern mobile enterprise CareWise™ ideology and game plan.
Watch for workers quietly making calls home to check on their parent. Their concerns span a 24/7-day. Remember, there is no one home to care for the Alzheimer’s patient who might let him or herself out and wander off. Everyone is at work, calling home, and hoping everything are going OK until they return home at 6 or 7 this evening.
The currently quiet workforce dilemma must move from a silent revolution to discussions of business plans addressing total workforce 2021 leadership and mobile solutions.
In the next blog post, we’ll talk about what you can do to address this employee caregiving challenge in your business.
Also Read about Lifeworkx Inc.
