The holiday season here, and while many of your employees might be feeling festive, many are likely worried and stressed.
This can be especially true if your employees are doubling as caregivers to aging loved ones, and chances are, they won’t discuss it with their supervisors. Many just suffer in silence.
One in five workers care for an aging loved one or a loved one with special needs, and nearly 75% of them are women.
As we end the year still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, Homethrive’s VP of Client Development, Arlene Schiff, reminds us that those caregiving employees might be seeing their aging family members for the first time in a while. They’ll be taking stock of what they see.
Here are some concerning changes Arlene says a caregiver might notice:
- Physical: The loved one lost or gained too much weight. They’re not practicing proper hygiene and/or taking care of themselves.
- Balance: The loved one is holding on to furniture or relying more on a cane or walker to get around. They’re shuffling their feet instead of walking.
- Hearing: The loved one strains to hear someone speaking to them.
- Vision: The loved one has trouble reading or avoids reading altogether.
- Home environment: The rooms in the loved one’s home are cluttered and/or unclean. Their bills aren’t paid or are stacked up and stuffed in a drawer.
Your caregiving employee will likely be stressed as they remedy the issues they’ve come across, and this will distract them from their work.
Now is the time to offer your employees the gift of a caregiving benefit, such as Dari by Homethrive, that can reduce their work, worry, and stress, and allow them to bring their whole selves to work.
Dari by Homethrive is an option that allows employers to be proactive in preventing burnout for caregivers. You can offer it as either a partially subsidized benefit, a voluntary benefit, or as a covered benefit.
Dari by Homethrive offers personalized coaching, navigation, and resources available at your employee’s fingertips, 24/7.
Dari allows employees to:
- Gain a knowledge advantage with advice coming directly from our experts.
- Get real answers from real people who understand.
- Connect with a community of peers who can offer support.
- Go Dedicated (upgrade) for dedicated support to address all kinds of caregiving obstacles, such as finding specialists for grocery, meal, or medication delivery; scheduling transportation; coordinating home care visits; and more.
To learn more about how we can help, click here.