Michael Green: Good afternoon. I’m Michael Green. I’m the Senior Director of Research at Employee Benefit News, and today we’re here to discuss the state of caregiving benefits. I’m joined by Jen, and I’ll ask Jen to introduce herself.

Jen Good: Hi everyone. I’m Jen Good, the Senior Director of Strategic Development at Homethrive.

At Homethrive, we help families manage the full complexity of caregiving through all life stages, from the high chair to the rocking share and beyond. My role is focused on learning from employers and caregivers to better provide the support that they need. Before this, I founded a company that was focused on supporting families after a loss that Homethrive acquired and is based in Florida.

Michael: Thanks. Thanks for joining us today, Jennifer. So here’s our agenda for the day. Topics we’re going cover are: who is a caregiver, what’s the impact, what’s missing, and finally, what’s next. At the end, hopefully we’ll have some time for a Q&A. So before we dig in, we’re going to talk about the research overview as a basis for today’s discussion.

We’re gonna be sharing some results from Employee Benefit News Caregiving 2025 Research. This was conducted in partnership with Homethrive.

The research we’ll discuss today expands on our 2023 study of caregivers. This year we sought to understand the real world balancing act that employee caregivers perform, including what additional resources they need to manage the complex demands of work and life.

This research was conducted online in August and September of this year, among 504 qualified respondents to qualify. Respondents needed to work full or part-time and have someone in their life who depends on them for care. Before we start to dive into results, Jen, can you take a minute just to talk about why Homethrive was interested in partnering with Employee Benefit News on this research?

Jen: Yeah, so our mission is to support the 73% of employees who are caregivers by combining expert guidance, hands-on help and emotional relief, improving productivity of retention, and most importantly, employee well-being. But to truly solve employees’ problems, we need to understand their situation, how it impacts them, and what they feel would make a difference.

So we partnered with EBN to help us learn more deeply about the current state of caregiving so that we can further enhance our support. To achieve this mission of being a complete solution to support employees in all the different ways that they care.

Micheal: Great. So who are the caregivers? Before we start to dive into this, I’d like to start with a poll question for the audience.

Given today’s discussion is all about the balancing act that caregivers perform between their caregiving responsibilities and demands of a job, we’d like to know if any of you have provided care for a loved one while you’re working. So here’s our poll question. If you could take a minute and let us know if you’ve done any of these things while you’re working. And while the results come in, Jen, how would you define who a caregiver is and the sorts of roles that they take on?

Jen: Yeah, so I think there’s people who obviously know that they’re caregivers, so the primary caretaker for a kid or someone who is living with an aging parent and helping with all aspects of daily life. However, we work with a lot of people who are not aware that they’re caregivers.

Maybe they’re on the phone with an aging parent every week worried about if they falling for a scam and are helping them go through their bank account, or their friend has mental health issues and they stop by to check in or to bring them food, or they do yard work for a neighbor and drive them to doctor’s appointments. So we actually consider all of these different people caregivers and support them in all the ways in which they give care.

So that might change some people’s answers who’ve already submitted the poll question.

Micheal: Yeah, I was going to say, very broad, right? It’s not just the very specific thing. I’m gonna give people a couple more seconds and then we are going to advance the slide and take a quick look at the results.

Let’s see how people answered. All right, so about 75% of our participants have provided care during the workday. Very interesting.

Jen: Well, that actually corresponds with some of our earlier research where we’ve seen is like 73 or 74% of all employees are caregivers, and so this basically exactly matches that result.

Micheal: Yeah. Really interesting.

To set the stage for our discussion today, our caregiving respondents in this year’s fielding primarily provided care for a child, a spouse or partner, or a parent. Fewer survey participants selected that they provide care for another family member, a sibling, or another person who they’re not related to.

Today we’re gonna focus on the groups who received the most care, so children, a spouse or partner, or parents. Our results showed that boomers and Gen X caregivers who participated in this survey were more likely to be caring for a parent and Gen Z. Millennials and Gen X were more likely to be caring for a child when compared to the boomers.

So, Jen, when you think about these caregiving roles, why do you think these caregiving roles are so distinct across generations? And specifically, are there any sort of societal or economic shifts that might explain why boomers and Gen X are primary caregivers for parents while Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X are more focused on caring for a child?

Jen: Yeah, so actually I think this one’s really straightforward to do with their ages. So Gen Z is currently up to 28 years old, and millennials are 29 to 44. Gen X is 45 to 60, and then the younger baby boomers are 61 and then up to 79. So more math here, but the average age of first birth is currently about 28.

So you’re seeing that about half of people who are currently having their first baby are Gen Z, and then the other half are millennials. Okay? Even more math. But in 1970, that average age for having a first child was a little bit over 20, around 21. So on average, Gen X’s parents are about 65 to the early eighties.

Baby boomers who are still working have parents in their mid eighties or older. And then Gen X and the older millennials are in the middle, so they’re most likely to be sandwich generation caregivers with some younger kids still at home. But parents who are beginning to age, and this is actually the majority of the current workforce, as I think Donna put in the chat, they’re in an impossible position, juggling career and care and often don’t have time to care for themselves.

Then of course, this doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story, so some Gen Z of course are caregivers for parents or grandparents as well. And then just looking forward a little bit, all baby boomers will be over the age of 65 by 2030.

So in just five years; time’s going so fast. So basically four years now. It’s awful. Yeah. And so we’re facing a caregiving crisis due to this demographic shift with an entire generation that will be requiring more care.

Micheal: Very interesting. Yeah. So of the caregivers who participated in this survey, a majority of them work in an office with about a third working a hybrid model. And they have flexibility at work, whether it’s flexible hours or flexible work location. In the last five years, a fourth of caregivers have had their company change the number of days they’re required to work in office with that average change just around two days.

So Jen, how do you think that flexibility has impacted caregivers ability to balance work and their caregiving responsibilities?

Jen: Yeah, so we’ve heard stories from employers about how during work from home, people began balancing increased caregiving responsibilities and work in a different way. So like for example, helping a spouse with little things throughout the day, like cooking a meal or a parent get to the bathroom, or picking up a kid from school at 3:00 PM. But now that employees are requested to go in, they have this gap in care where they can’t be there to do these little things anymore and they’re struggling with how to fill these gaps in caregiving that they leave behind when they’re now on site, say from nine to five.

Micheal: Very interesting. So now we can start to dig into the impact.

So there’s unique sets of caregiving responsibilities. Everyone’s situation’s unique to them. Our caregivers shared the types of care or support that they provide. At a very high level, these common problems, the common problems they’re managing are physical mobility challenges, chronic illness and memory issues.

It’s really interesting to see how the types of support provided vary by who’s receiving the care. What do you think, Jen?

Jen: Yeah. So going that click deeper that you’re mentioning of the results in the most common challenges by group, for children I think it’s really interesting that 30% have challenges with neurodiversity and 25% have struggles with mental health.

So increasingly at Homethrive, we’re getting asked to provide support around this, helping with individualized education plans for children, helping navigate mental health providers and insurance for parents. And then in terms of caring for parents, nearly 65% have physical mobility issues, 50% have chronic illness, 48% have memory issues, but even more than children 33%, one third, have mental health challenges.

And this may be obvious to everyone on the call, but if you add up those numbers, people don’t just have one challenge. Caregivers may be assisting parents with not just physical mobility issues, but mental health or critical illnesses as well. And so it’s that combined burden of care. And then when caring for spouses, the biggest issues are mental health challenges again, and chronic illness.

And as we age, there’s an increased risk of developing a chronic condition that’s disabling, and so that often leads to half of a couple becoming a spouse caregiver. Both mental health concerns and chronic illness are generally long-term concerns. So for people who are caregiving for spouses, this is likely to be something that they’ll be supporting for years to come.

Micheal: So when I think of caregiving, I tend to think of the direct, tangible day-to-day tasks that someone does to help a loved one. These caregiving respondents are frequently concerned about how they’ll support and care for those who need it, especially when it comes to children. So how do you think the emotional weight of caregiving influences caregivers’s performance or engagement while they’re at work?

Jen: Yeah. So first I’d just like to say how dramatic this is. Forty-five percent of people say that they are always concerned about how they’ll be able to support and care for their children, and 30% are always having these concerns about parents or their spouse. And then 60 to 85% are often or always worried about these things, and that is just such a major source of stress and anxiety that can take a toll on the mental health of caregivers as well as their ability to be present and focused at work.

As you were saying, Michael, a piece of this is also that mental load. So that invisible ongoing cognitive labor of managing a household and a family, which includes the thinking work of planning, organizing, anticipating needs, like scheduling appointments, planning meals, keeping track of supplies, which often but not always falls disproportionately on mothers.

And this unacknowledged burden can lead to stress, burnout, resentment, because it’s emotionally and mentally exhausting. And I know we’re going to talk about this a little bit later, but another big piece of this is the stress around the financial side of it. Will I have enough money? What happens as I age?

Will I have the ability to continue to care for someone if they need care after I’m no longer able to do it? As well as the balancing of work and care.
Micheal: They’re busy, as this slide shows. But the takeaway here is really clear, for some people who are caregivers, that caregiving is another full-time job.

You did a great job of talking about that mental load, of that responsibility for caregivers. And now we’re seeing some additional data about how time-consuming that is as well. So, Jen, can you talk a little bit about how the caregiving responsibilities that parents and that sandwich generation employees can have taken on?

Jen: Yeah, so digging into the data, again, a little bit more for children. The median person is spending an additional 30 hours a week caring for children and then for sandwich generation caregivers who may be balancing care for both parents and children.

If they’re at the median, they’re doing 45 extra hours per week, so more than another full-time job. However, there’s a substantial subset, nearly a quarter of parents and 10% of those caring for parents and spouses, that are doing more than 50 hours a week just on the direct care piece of it.

And this is what we call the second shift, the unpaid work that’s done at home after doing a paid job. So it’s that constant mental load, who’s picking the kids up, actually doing it. And this leaves, I think Donna mentioned it right away, but very little time to care for yourselves for sleep.

And for taking on any extra work responsibilities and while the majority of hours are direct care, um, a substantial amount of time is around care coordination and transportation or other support. And this part may be less fun, like you’re not necessarily actually with that loved one, connecting with them.

You’re just doing this behind the scenes work. And that’s also where it can be easier to take the burden or help take the burden off of employees and give them some time back.

Micheal: It’s so critical, the second shift. That’s such a great way to describe what that really is. So we’ve talked about the mental load and the amount of time that is spent caregiving, but caregiving can be also expensive.

Many of our caregiving respondents said they’re spending $500 a month or more on caregiving related activities. So we talked about these other strains. How does that financial strain contribute to the overall stress and anxiety that caregivers may have?

Jen: Yeah, so doing a lot of breaking down the math here.

The most common answer is $500 or more for each group. The median household income in the U.S. after taxes is about $65,000. So going through the math on that, at just $500 a month, you are already at over 9% of the median person’s income spent on caregiving a year.

So now many of these people are saying that they’re spending more than that, and if they’re caring for people in more than one of that group, it could be doubled. So this is a major expense. Financial strain is huge, 20% or more of their disposable income on care for people that are caring for multiple people or who are above the median.

And that can be a huge, immense stress. I mean, if you get at the answer before where a huge percentage of people said they’re always worried about this. Yeah. I think this is one of the big reasons why. So, a New York Life survey said that about half, I think it was like 47%, of sandwich generation adults say that there was a time that their household was unable to meet essential expenses due to the cost of caregiving in the past year.

So this is a huge percentage of people that are just not able to get by due to caregiving costs or that’s a major piece of it. And with inflation, all of these things are getting harder. And on our side at Homethrive, one of the most common things that we get requests for is helping navigate benefits like applying for Medicaid, finding community resources for transportation, or grab bars, or just helping find these affordable options for support.
So we hear about this financial stress quite a bit.

Micheal: Yeah, it’s really interesting. You, you mentioned the $65,000, is the household income after taxes on average here in the U.S. and thinking back to the one of the original slides we showed, I believe a majority of the respondents that participated in this fell in that lower income bracket that we had.

So this is really relevant and interesting.

So, caregiving is expensive. It takes a lot of time, but there’s also the personal toll that that responsibility takes on a caregiver. These caregivers reported feeling more stressed or anxious. They exercise less frequently, they have a harder time sleeping. And as we just touched on, they experienced increased financial stress as well.

So what types of support? I mean, it could be emotional, it could be financial, it could be from the workplace or in their greater community. What would help make the biggest difference in reducing some of their caregiving stress?

Jen: Yeah, so I think all of these things play together. Financial strain, anxiety about how they’ll care for their loved one, the total lack of time, and then exercising less frequently.

Then not sleeping also increases the anxiety and depression. So it’s like the lack of exercise and lack of sleep is making these things worse. The anxiety and depression, which is making the inability to exercise and not sleep. So it’s this really vicious cycle oftentimes. But the good news here is that we have seen providing caregiver support have a dramatic impact.

So sometimes it could be someone to talk to, people need someone to listen and give that emotional support from. Sometimes it’s talking to an expert about a decision and just giving the person more confidence that they’re making the right choice. Other times it’s helping solve a financial problem or get someone some extra resources.

And then others, it’s our team fully taking things off of a caregiver’s plate to give them time back. So for example, we save the average caregiver 16.4 hours, and then 84% say that we reduce their stress and anxiety. So I do think the good side is that there’s an option to get help there, but we’re not the only solution.

I think more mental health support, exercise related benefits, flexible hours and work locations, and of course more money, can also make a huge difference to caregivers.

Micheal: Excellent. So now we’re gonna talk about what’s missing. So since our last survey in 2023, our data showed that organizations or managers are more aware of the caregiving responsibilities of their employees. So Jen, in your experience, why do you think these numbers grew? Do you think this could be related to the rise of hybrid work over the past five years?

Or are these caregivers more just generally more open about their caregiving responsibilities?

Jen: Yeah, that’s so interesting. I actually hadn’t thought about the hybrid work angle, but I do think seeing into people’s homes before the background screen came up did increase my awareness of what some of my colleagues, how they were living and seeing babies, seeing pets, all of that.

But I do think more broadly there is an increasing culture of openness, for a longer term than that. So I think it was in 2014 or so, Google published their work on studying high performing teams, and this concept of psychological safety was the number one contributor to high performing teams. So this was that idea that members felt safe being vulnerable in front of each other.

I think if we have a lot of HR people on this call, they probably are all aware of this work, but it’s now been more than 10 years since that result came out. And I think a lot of work has been done by HR company culture to build this idea, this culture of openness and psychological safety, both because it’s good for people’s experience at work, bringing their full selves to work, but also it helps organizations innovate and hit their goals.

I think the other factor, and this was another one that probably everyone has read something about, is different generations entering the workforce, starting to give care and then being represented in this particular survey. So there’s been so many reports in the media about Gen Z demanding more respect for their personal life, and also about millennial managers being extremely open with their teams.

There was a generational breakdown view of this in the original data and Gen X and baby boomers were actually the most likely to say that their manager doesn’t know about the scope of their caregiving responsibilities. And this may be part of the deal with the grin and bear it culture that I think is shifting a bit.

I also just wanna touch on, I think Michael brought the question that the same overburden exists for grandparents caring for their grandchildren to help their parents. And I’ll just say, personally, my sister just had a baby, so I’m an auntie. Congratulations to me. But my mom has been every nine to five.

She basically took a whole month off work to help care. Spending the night helping her and her husband. And it’s been a huge burden where I was actually getting concerned about her health. So it’s a blessing to get the ability to do that for grandchildren and anyone we care for, but it can become too much and have facts on people’s ability to work and care for themselves.

Micheal: Well, congratulations on becoming an auntie.

Jen: Thank you.

Micheal: I found the data on this slide really interesting. This data shows that caregivers feel supported by their supervisor, and they think that their company cares about their well-being and that they also worry that their caregiving responsibilities are going to impact how their performance is evaluated at work.

So, Jen, do you have any examples of policies or programs that can make caregivers feel that their company genuinely cares about their well-being and balancing their work responsibilities?

Jen: Yeah, I do. I think that it’s really heartening that the majority of people feel that both their manager and their company cares about them.

However, I want to look at the negative side, that meaningful subset who don’t know or don’t think that their company and manager cares. So maybe, overly optimistic, a little Pollyanna-ish about the good and people overall. I believe that less than 13% of these managers where their employees don’t think they care.

Like I think more people actually do care. And a lot of times what we see is that the manager doesn’t know what to say, is so afraid of saying the wrong thing, that they say nothing at all, or actually should have been more afraid about saying the wrong thing and does say the wrong thing, or that they feel really under pressure themselves to deliver on company OKRs, KPIs goals and they don’t know how to manage.

So to help with this for companies that do objectively care because they’re offering these caregiving benefits, we try to help make sure that the message of care flows through the organization with manager trainings and toolkits on how to support caregivers.

I think the other thing is on the concern with work performance. So we mentioned it was like 75% of this group and a simpler number of employees overall are caregivers. The other 25% aren’t the only good performers. There’s obviously caregivers on this call that are employees that are excellent performers.

So I think the best things that we have seen to help these employee caregivers are one: supporting with caregiving to reduce performance impacts to help boost productivity and give them that extra time back. And then second, just supporting with their mental health to reduce the anxiety about performance, which oftentimes is good.

On the first point around supporting with caregiving, this can look like backup care to reduce unexpected days off when planned care falls through, supporting with logistical issues to reduce burnout and decision fatigue, finding community resources to reduce that financial stress and help them show up present at work.

And then for number two, that anxiety about performance. We can help with lending a listening ear, connecting to other mental health benefits to help people to get the support they need to be present at work.

Micheal: So this data is a snippet of data that we had on the previous slide, but we split it a few different ways. It shows that some groups express more career related concerns. So on this chart, we’re showing that Gen Z and millennials, if your race is non-white you’re one of the middle income earning groups, those were groups who expressed more worry about how their caregiving responsibilities would impact their work performance.
Jen, do you see any surprises in this chart?

Jen: No. For the most part, I think it is as expected. But I think, digging deeper, Gen Z and millennials are probably more nervous about career performance because they’re earlier in their careers. So there’s more room for career divergence based on differences in performance or it could have a longer impact.

They might be less established. And then for the racial impact, we see that non-white women, especially Black and Latino women, are more likely to be the primary caregiver for more people in a multi-generational household. So they actually have, on average, more caregiving responsibilities, more time devoted to caregiving, and potentially more concerns about the impact of that increased caregiving workload on their performance.
On the income side, I think the biggest thing to note here is that this concern is across all levels of income, so across all levels of an organization and across all types of employers.

Micheal: Yeah, really interesting. All right, we have time for another poll question for everyone. So we’ve talked about how companies are trying to support their caregivers and how those caregivers have been more open about their responsibilities. What we’d like to know from you, whether or not you’re a caregiver, or what types of support do you think you’d prioritize for caregivers.

And as these poll results start coming in, Jen, you have a background in loss support, how much have you leveraged some of that experience to other parts of caregiving?

Jen: Yeah, so I think loss is an extension of the caregiving journey. I personally got involved with loss support because, when my grandmother got diagnosed with terminal cancer, she really cared about getting organized.

She put a sticky note on every single thing she owned, so no one would fight over it. But then as she was passing, she kept waking up in the middle of the night worried about all these different things. Like did we know who came and shoveled the snow? They were in Buffalo, New York.

Did we know about the actual silverware, that was silver, and we wouldn’t throw it away. But then even though she was so careful about this after she passed, it was a total mess. So there was a bank account, her Money of My Own account, that didn’t have my grandfather’s name, where she was sort of squirreling money away her whole life, which ended up triggering probate.

No one knew the password to her phone, or where the title to her car was. And so then the week after she passed, my whole family was making customer service phone calls, and the logistics of that were a huge stressor on my grandfather who was grieving the loss of his wife of more than 50 years.

And my grandfather was actually a judge. So the fact that even he was confused, it’s like, how is anyone dealing with this? And then this is just so common. So on the law support side, you’re dealing with an average of 500 hours of logistical tasks that you have no expertise in while grieving.

And so explaining more about law support, just so I can tie it to caregiving in a second, but how we support with this is a combination of both practical support, getting things done, taking off of people’s plates, and emotional support. And we have a mix of digital tools that people can use to self-navigate paired with empathetic, real human expert support. And so with caregiving, I think the main challenge is similar. It’s handling really high stress emotional situations while balancing a large amount of practical questions, often with complicated medical or legal navigation that you’ve never had to face before.

So for example, the acute caregiving challenges can feel really similar in stress and grief to a loss. Sometimes we call it preemptive grief. The founder of Homethrive, Dave, was a medical exec. But when his dad got sick, he was really overwhelmed by both the logistical and emotional impact of it.

He gained like 20 pounds in two or three months. It’s just that extreme stress and lack of support. Yeah, and so interestingly, the support for loss and for caregiving more broadly is in a lot of ways similar. It’s practical help getting things done, experts to talk to or ask specific questions to, whether it’s figuring out home care or nannies or navigating the healthcare system, paired with that emotional support for all the challenges of care.

Excellent. Let’s see the results here. Yeah, so flexible scheduling, navigation help. Yeah, those are the biggies. I mean, that makes sense, right? It sort of lines up and so we’re going to dive into this next.

So our conversation today has been about caregivers, but even they need some relief. Some have considered leaving the workforce altogether, and I found it really interesting that almost half haven’t taken any action to accommodate their caregiving responsibilities. So, Jen, why do you think this is the case?
Do you think that there could be some sort of tipping point where caregiving becomes too much to handle in addition to a full-time or a part-time job?

Jen: Yeah, so I think one in five considering leaving is huge. This is a major impact to employers. Even if these people don’t leave, they may be less engaged.

But the biggest thing we see that tipping point is the financial ability to leave. So income may be the only thing tying people to their job. And you know, this isn’t a poll question, but I would say that a very high percentage of the people on this call may be working for money. And you know, if we win the lottery, we may not be here again or any longer, but caregiving is extremely expensive, so people are dealing with the financial burden of caregiving and the 30 plus hours a week of time.

So this number that are considering leaving may be even higher if it wasn’t tied to income and people had the financial wherewithal to leave. That being said, with the tipping point, often it’s a financial decision to stop working. So for example, we’ve seen people who need to have one partner drop out of the workforce because the daycare costs for two kids are more than their salary.

So they’d be losing money by working. So when it was one kid, the math made sense. When it’s two kids, the math reverses and that one of the parents needs to stay home. For elder care, it’s really similar. The average cost per hour of home care is $37 per hour. And that does vary by location.

But if you’re paid less than $37 per hour, it may make sense to stay home. And then if you’re balancing care for multiple people, that salary level where it makes sense to stop working can increase. Far beyond that as the cost of care is stacked up. Day care, home care, pet care, it all adds up on top of each other and at some point it doesn’t make financial sense.

I will also say the group that’s responding to the survey is adverse selected. This is a sample of only employee caregivers. So we’ve seen in our research on caregivers overall that as many as 30% of people have actually left the workforce. And these workforce numbers aren’t reflected in the sample.

Those people just aren’t invited to be in the survey. But caregiving is the second biggest reason why people leave the workforce. Number one, reason’s retirement. So this is a massive group of people. I will also highlight that even though on this chart, these are lower numbers than considering leaving, many people have already taken other actions.

So reducing workload, declining growth opportunities, switching jobs. And, as we have maybe seen above with the previous chart about stress or anxiety about performance, and as sort of common knowledge on this one, generally women are more likely to make these career decisions, including leaving the workforce.

But this maternal wall, we call it, it’s not limited to mothers. It can also affect men or others with caregiving responsibilities. So in terms of solutions, overcoming bias, I think you all said flexible schedules are big support with the logistics of caregiving too, but organizations can implement inclusive policies, offer greater flexibility in work schedules, encourage fathers to take paternity leave to normalize caregiving for men, and then use data to evaluate performance rather than relying on perceptions.

Just a few of the many ideas here.

Micheal: Yeah, I mean, like we said earlier, you know, there’s no one unique situation for everyone. Everyone’s situation is unique when it comes to caregiving. So it’s not like, here’s your booklet, here’s your packet, now you can go do it. So the next thing we’re gonna talk about is what’s next for caregivers.

We have one more poll question for you. In today’s discussion, we’ve been talking about working caregivers, the responsibilities they’ve taken on and on the previous slide, actions they’ve taken to accommodate their caregiving responsibilities. And we’d like to know which of the following might be a challenge for your company to expand their caregiving benefits.

So what do you think the biggest challenge would be? And Jen, while these results are coming in individually, these options can be considered big challenges for most companies. But in your experience, is there a good, single starting point that you found that drives success? Or is it more important to simply just start that conversation?

Jen: Well, I think no one answer. Starting the conversation is great, but I think that oftentimes getting caregiving support done or implemented as an organization starts with the personal experience of employees. We often see change happen really quickly and this gets done when executives experience a caregiving challenge themselves and realize what an incredible burden it is.

And then if not an executive, the personal story of employees often goes a long way. Sometimes we see this through ERGs or a few vocal employees coming up and saying, “Hey, we need some support.” But, on the other side of that, stories aren’t always enough. We recommend pairing these stories with a clear ROI return on investment story about how these caregiving challenges are impacting productivity and retention for 75% of employees, and those are numbers we can help with as well.

I think the other option here on the screen is that, if there are programs with low engagement, we haven’t seen that it’s a barrier as frequently to caregiving because we’ve seen really high engagement. And I think it’s an average of 8.4% across our whole book of business, but as high as 86% at one employer and usually over 25% when backup care is included.

There’s this ability to refer to other benefits, so like cross pollinating or helping increase utilization of other existing benefits. So that not one we’ve really seen as much of an issue, but curious what the group says.

Micheal: Yeah. Interesting. Let’s take a peek. All right. Budget’s the big one, right?

I mean, not too much of a surprise there. Belts are tight for everybody these days. So as we were just talking about, even caregivers need support, but when we asked what support would be useful to them, there were two answers that were the top two, like clear answers, and those were flexible work schedules and locations and more financial support.

After that, they mentioned mental health or emotional support for themselves and access to in-home care. So Jen, can you give me an example of how companies have provided some of these types of support to help caregivers?

Jen: We’ve seen that many employers do offer some degree of flexibility in work location and hours, and that makes a huge difference.

Of course, depending on the business type of business, this may be more or less possible. On the financial support side for our backup care network, we have seen employers offer care credits so that caregivers can get financial support for a few workdays of nannies, daycare, in-home care in case normal care falls through, for example, pet care, older adults.
So we also offer discounts on more permanent care like daycares and preschools, and this is a tremendously popular benefit, the two of these. So, from the employer side, we’ve seen this backup care benefit drive significant results around less missed work days and people returning to work more. People were trying to work post parental leave.
So into that ROI story a bit. On the in-home care support, navigating the health system, which I think was finding transportation, this chunk of things, that was everyone in this group’s number two category. That’s something that we regularly support people with, one of the top things that we’re asked to do.
And then I think that peers or friends experiencing similar things is another great one that’s relatively easy to tackle. So we’ve worked with a lot of caregiver employee resource groups, ERGs, and some are really active. And so I’ve been to a few sessions where they all share learnings with local resources with each other and those financial benefits and just get that emotional release of connecting with others and being vulnerable and sharing their story and realizing that some of their colleagues are going through something similar.
Micheal: Yeah, it makes a difference, right.

So we asked the hypothetical question about choosing between their current job and a new job, and which factors might make the new job more attractive to accept an offer. So among the top answers were things like you’d expect to see, like salary and work schedule, but the caregivers who answered this survey, they valued things like schedule, flexibility, work location, and if there were caregiving benefits included.

So it’s worth mentioning again that everyone’s caregiving situation and work life is unique. Jen, have you seen any inventive ways that companies offer support to their employees?

Jen: Oh, I think that it’s so compelling that more than two thirds would consider each of these things as a major factor when selecting a new job.
The most impactful things, so schedule and location flexibility issues are just so meaningful. That being said, it might be harder to influence depending on the type of business or deep philosophies about business. That being said, supporting caregivers with other benefits is still so meaningful that 23% would consider it a primary factor in choosing a job.

And then personally, it makes me feel good that the work we’re doing is meaningful and important and makes a difference in people’s lives. I think on the creative, inventive side, I think it’s finding the right mix of things. Making sure that the ROI is clear and working with in the constraints of each business to make these meaningful changes that have an impact on caregivers while fitting into company business types and priorities.

Micheal: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Awesome. Jen, thank you so much for your time today. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. Let’s see if we have any questions from today’s attendees, and if we don’t get to everybody’s questions, someone from Homethrive may follow up with you afterwards, but we’re going to try to get to as many as we possibly can.

First question for you, Jen, in a workplace setting, how do parents benefit from being referred to as caregivers rather than just being referred to as a parent?

Jen: Yeah, you know what? I’m not sure that parents really do, because I think sometimes we have this language that is unclear, so I think it is important to be like, okay, this is childcare and this is for parents, but I think Michael of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church also kind of answered William’s question in the chat.

His comment was the same. Overburden exists for grandparents that are helping. And so the term caregiver is just a little more broad, it’s a little more inclusive. And so with that in mind, everyone who’s caring for a child can get this benefit. They can get the same help if the grandparents are the ones who are taking care of the kid, for example.

And I think there’s a sandwich generation where it’s, yes, they’re caregiving as parents, but they also maybe caring for their parents. And so having this broader term helps make sure that all the different people who are facing this caregiving burden in the different ways that they care are included in the conversation.

But I think when we’re talking to parents, it’s also good to use clear language where they understand and resonate with how we’re talking to them. So, I think it’s by segment, we want to make sure we get the marketing right so people understand what benefits they’re getting and who it’s helping.

Micheal: Right. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I have another question for you. Do you think managers are equipped to deal with employee caregivers today?
Jen: I mean I think that goes back to the numbers. Earlier’s tough. Yeah, I’d say the majority are right, like the majority people feel supported. They feel like their manager understands their caregiving situation and cares about them.

That’s great. However, I think there’s that pretty sizable chunk. I think we’d have to pull back up that chart for me to give a real number, but it was big where the person isn’t sure their manager cares about them. Thirteen percent I think it was, where they think their manager definitely doesn’t care about them.

Those people are not equipped. So I think there’s variation within organizations and can help the people who are not in the group where their employees know that they care get to that.

Micheal: Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting. Another question for you. Are caregiving benefits becoming a competitive differentiator in recruiting?
Jen: That’s interesting. Yeah, I think to a pretty major extent since we saw, it was like a few slides ago that like 24%, somewhere around there, that many people would agree that they would pick a new job for a caregiving benefit. And then, similar but slightly higher numbers for flexible work schedule and location.

Okay, 23% primary factor. Great. So I didn’t fully make that up. And then another 5% contributing factor, so that’s more than two thirds would consider this a main factor in choosing a new job. So yeah, I think it’s essential to consider when thinking about recruiting employees.

Micheal: Excellent. I have one more question for you, and you touched on this a little bit earlier, but, I’ll be interested to hear your expanded answer. We’re starting to see senior leaders becoming caregivers themselves. How can HR best leverage that shift to drive more empathy and action across the organization?

Jen: Well, I mean, is it like more of like a call to action because like it’s, I’m going to say higher up the food chain, but it’s just, they realize that sort of acute need a little bit more now that it’s actually them.

I think there’s actually probably nothing more powerful than a key executive going through a caregiving challenge to make change for the rest of the employees because they really get it. Like you can’t go through a caregiving crisis and not understand how hard it can be, and how distracting it can be and how much time you have to leave work.

There’s like a level of empathy where you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes and know, wow, this is a big deal. But for many of us, it feels more real when you’ve been through it yourself.

And so I think HR leaders can use this moment where the executive is in tune to what others may be going through, because it’s so many of the employees, to then be supportive as a HR of course, in that moment, but then elevate that.

How many other employees, the stories you may have heard that you can share, the statistics around, okay, this is actually a major issue that’s both from a well-being standpoint of our employees, like an emotional standpoint, but also from a productivity standpoint, or a retention standpoint, can make a big difference to our organization. Let’s do something about it.

And I think that’s not right when they’re in crisis, but after they come back. Just obviously speaking of bad managers, it’s not the right time while someone’s in crisis to be like, “Hey, let’s talk about company-wide benefits” without listening first. But after you’ve listened, after you’ve been supportive as HR, now that’s a moment to say like, okay, let’s make a change on this to take what you’ve learned and benefit everyone else.
Micheal: Excellent. Yeah. Thank you so much. There’s no more questions. So that completes our presentation today. I want to thank Jen for her time today and I wanna thank everybody who chose to join us today and listen to this webinar. That completes the presentation. Have a nice day.