Ready to Solve the Collision of Work and Care?

By Jeannette Galvanek, CareWise Solutions
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You have probably heard about an aging baby boomer care crisis. Have you translated that message into your business' profitability challenges or employees' ability to maintain their health, career growth, or stay on their jobs? Many businesses are investing in their employees’ aging family caregiving solutions to meet the expectations of 90% of aging baby boomers to stay in their homes. 

Does your company measure the costs of your employment and care collision brought on by a non-existent aging baby boomer caregiving system that now relies on your paid employees to do a healthcare job in the home? Do you know what your investments are returning? Have you considered reclaiming the health and effectiveness of your workforce balanced with encouraging their role as a caring family who works?

"This is not a matter of semantics. The difference between supporting workers who care about, not for, their aging family members is monumental. We will save the deeper national workforce and economic strategies for another blog. Note your scratchpad that it exceeds 10% of your annual revenue”. Says Jeannette Galvanek, CEO CareWise Solutions and former Senior Executive for workforce transformation at AT&T.

Employers have taken responsibility for helping employees balance the conflicts between care and their job by offering home-based solutions such as flexible scheduling, PTO, and leaves of absence. This approach supports employees in caring for their aging parents in the home. Remember that needs grow over time from picking up groceries and helping with laundry; over approximately 5 ½ years, their job grows from today's average of 25 hours a week or more of family caregiving growing to 24 hours a day if you can't afford or find staff to hire.

"Government research shows that after 10 hours a week, your (already working) caregivers start to perform nursing tasks. By omission or commission, employers and employees are covering the cost of home care at great expense; they are away from their jobs, losing income and family relationships, and many are on the verge of mental health crises," says Galvanek.

If you are a business decision-maker, you are scratching your head. Employers and employees find options for aging care choices slim, so they do what they can with the facts about families caring at home. You know that your work and care decisions can impact the sustainability of your business with a robust and motivated workforce. You know that employees want careers and more; your customers want relationships they can count on. Your work and care decisions impact the sustainability of your business, employees, and customers. Now that 73% of your workforce are employed caregivers, are you ready to measure the cost of wellness, productivity, motivation, team effectiveness, turnover, and retention issues due to Social Determinants of Care and an unprepared care industry?

Companies spend about $16,000 per employee on health care, with the employee spending about $6,000. Focusing on the employee caregiver isn’t always the priority of the CFO; employers lose about $10,900 per employee-caregiver per year in productivity losses, and employee caregivers lose at least $7,200 per year supporting family caregiving expenses. This does not include their income losses. The cost of employee-caregiver turnover can reach three times the salary of the employee being replaced, you are experiencing more significant benefits claims for health and disability, and the rate of successful employee-caregiver litigation exceeds 400%! The list can go on!

Clarify and Publicize Corporate Wellness, Work, and Care Values Institute a Work, Careers, and Care Education Curriculum for All Employees. Educate all team members. Every caregiver works with 5-7 others, and spillover and resentment happen.  Build a Culture of Health and Address Social Determinants of Health and Care. Learn To Work and Care More Naturally. (This can't continue!) The collision of work and care will be a 30-year phenomenon unless the business community takes a leadership path, finding better solutions to keep working caregivers and caring family members employed.

Visit www.carewisesolutions.com to calculate your business' cost of caregiving. We focus on helping working caregivers keep their jobs while supporting aging neighbors, friends, and family. We would like to invite you to contribute to our work as a socially responsible organization. Carewise Solutions, Educational Charity-a 501 (c )(3) Delaware corporation, Please reach out to Jeannette Galvanek, CEO, for more information. Please support us, and share this information with colleagues, families, and friends. Sign up for more blogs and business-focused care messaging on LinkedIn.