Support your team with the benefits of a compassionate care policy.
Each holiday season, businesses look for ways to show appreciation by investing in their employees. Holiday parties, swag gifts, trips, and bonuses are the norm. But this holiday season, give your employees something they truly value: more time with their families when they need it the most. This month, our company rolled out a new policy that allows employees flexibility to take care of those they love—their families.
We live during a time when many employees also serve as caregivers, whether for children, parents, or other family members. This growing responsibility has led to what Dorothy Miller termed the “sandwich generation,” describing individuals who care for both their children and aging parents.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that by 2030, all Baby Boomers will be 65 and older, and the World Health Organization projects that from 2015 to 2050, the percentage of the global population aged 60 and older will almost double, rising from 12 percent to 22 percent. Alarmingly, according to the AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, 53 million family and friends provided care and assistance to loved ones in the U.S. in 2020, an increase from 9.5 million caregivers in 2015.
The daily stress of caregiving
While frameworks exist for healthcare teams to support caregiving families, work environments must also be sensitive to the daily stresses of caregiving. Jennifer Wolff at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explored the social and emotional impacts of caregiving on employees and found that caregivers reported significantly higher emotional, physical, and financial difficulties when compared to those offering no help.
In Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees, Selma Archer and Zack Demopoulos urge employers to assess their support for working caregivers by asking four key questions: how many caregivers they have, whether policies are in place to support them, if employees are informed about available benefits, and whether those benefits meet caregivers’ needs.
While reading their book, it became clear that I wanted to support caregivers in our organization by giving our employees the unexpected gift of a compassionate care policy. Little did I know that 5 weeks later, my own mom, who lived with me, would be diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and I was facing weeks of appointments that would impact my daily routine. As the company owner, I didn’t feel guilty about taking my mom to her appointments. It was important to me to share this freedom with my employees, who must drop their children off at school, pick up their sick baby from daycare, or spend time with a parent who is having knee surgery. I hope that offering a policy that affords our employees flexibility and balance will create trust, empathy, and compassion that goes beyond the workday.
Create a policy for compassionate care
Here are the steps I took to create our compassionate care policy:
- Determine how many caregivers are in your organization. Ask your employees individually or send out a survey.
- Explore the challenges. Have meaningful conversations about your employees’ specific challenges involving work and caregiving. Ask questions about appointments and events, such as doctors’ visits, daycare drop-off, or afterschool activities.
- Identify workplace modifications. A traditional 8-to-5 workday may not cut it anymore. We’ve incorporated flexible start times for parents who take their children to school, allowances to make up missed time for parents’ doctor appointments, and remote work hours for employees who have live-in parents for whom they care, to name a few.
- Create a safe environment for transparency. Encourage employees to be truthful about the challenges at home and how work might offer support. This transparency starts at the leadership level.
- Build ongoing trust. When employees have to attend care appointments or events, leadership must not use verbal or nonverbal language that leaves the employee feeling uncomfortable or guilty for taking the time. Always present empathy and encouragement. The expectation of employees, though, is reciprocal respect: putting in extra time when they can, stepping up when others need to care for a family member, and being honest about how they support the organization.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate. Continually build trust by reinforcing that taking time off for care is acceptable and important to the organization. Communicate the policy when it is first introduced and reinforce it as opportunities present themselves—individually with employees or during team meetings that reinforce culture and values. When issues or concerns arise, both employees and leadership must address them promptly. An open communication channel is critical to build ongoing trust.
A compassionate care policy is a gift you can give this holiday season that will continue giving back to the company and its employees year after year. By empowering your team with the benefits of a compassionate care policy, you’ll create an environment of trust and support that will extend your ROIs beyond the walls of your company.
Article originally published on December 16, 2024 on Inc.com.