Caregiving responsibilities holding back workers’ careers, says expert

Spending a lot of energy doing work for eight hours a day and then coming home to take care of caregiving responsibilities — that’s the everyday reality for working caregivers.

“Working caregivers really work almost a second shift at home,” says Liv Mendelsohn, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence, in talking with Canadian HR Reporter (CHRR).

Aside from their regular job, they are “juggling all the concerns of caregiving, and then coming home and providing another 30 hours a week on average of unpaid work in caregiving.”

More than 60 per cent of these caregivers balance work and care, often without their employer knowledge, according to the centre

And this has adverse effects on the careers of workers.

“For working caregivers, 15 per cent have to reduce their work hours, 10 per cent turn down job opportunities, and 26 per cent take a leave of absence,” says Mendelsohn. “And we know that this disproportionately affects women who have to often reduce their work hours or step out of the workforce for a while during their peak earning years.”

This applies to mothers who are taking care of their children, but also other workers who take care of other members of their family, says Christa Haanstra, founder and managing director of 4CStrategy, in the same interview.

“Unlike caring for a child – where the child's growing up and you're seeing them evolve and develop – often in caregiving, you're dealing with someone who is unwell and possibly deteriorating,” she says.

“So, there's a lot of mental and emotional strain that comes with that that's different from, say, caring for a child.”

Home-care benefits – or “caregiver-relief benefits” – could become much more crucial as the sandwich generation moves further through the workforce, one expert previously told CHRR.

Benefits for working caregivers

One way that employers can support working caregivers is considering “part-time work with benefits” for workers, says Haanstra.

This is “a really big opportunity for a working caregiver, because it gives them those extra hours in the week to be able to do the caregiving, but also not having to be in a part-time employment without benefits or contract work”.

Aside from this “future of work” kind of thinking, there are already a lot of benefits in place that working caregivers can take full advantage of, she says. These include remote work options, paid time off, family assistance programs.

“What we found in the work that we did is that there's often a lack of knowledge of that, both within the organization and by the employee, and they're not making those links together. So, there are existing things that employers can do that can basically just help create awareness that if you have caregiver responsibility, you could take advantage of these benefits.”

One company offers “care coaches” as an employee benefit to help those who are looking after unwell loved ones, all while managing to work full-time jobs.

Also, there’s the issue of working caregivers recognizing themselves as working caregivers, says Haanstra.

“It sneaks up on you sometimes. We can talk about the lack of self-identification as a working caregiver or as a family caregiver. That's also a piece of the puzzle. Often, once it gets too much, you start to realize that ‘Oh, I'm doing this whole extra shift on top of my employment’.”

Being an unpaid caregiver can be detrimental to Canadians’ well-being, according to a previous Statistics Canada (StatCan) report.

‘Let’s normalize’ working caregivers

The experts are hoping that stakeholders will talk more about the responsibilities, struggles and needs of working caregivers, and how employers can help them out.

“Let's normalize working caregivers. Let's talk about it. Let's make it safe to bring up the challenges,” says Mendelsohn.

“Some workplaces have put in place mentorship programs where someone who's been through it can support employees. Employee resource groups are another great example. But let's bring it forward so that people feel comfortable talking about it and can get the support that we know employers want to give.”

It’s also important to encourage working caregivers to share their own experiences, says Haanstra.

“People are building skills, transferable skills to the workforce. When they're caregiving, they're [also] project managing, they're troubleshooting, they're navigating complex systems. They're dealing with constant change. 

“There are many things that we need in today's workforce that are skills that people develop as caregivers as well, and that recognition of that skill that people bring back to the workforce, I think, is incredibly important.”