Is HR helpful for working family caregivers?
Okay, I’m on a roll here - I am determined to find out what HR department’s focus & chart of responsibilities are in the medium to large companies? Why is that important to me?
Well, I’m wondering if HR has changed since the time I was a family caregiver for my aging mom and dad (a long distance caregiver)? At the time, both my parents were getting up in years and slowing down a lot. Mom’s health took a dive and dad became weaker and more feeble. My sisters and I were helping A LOT! Mom and dad depended on us tremendously.
Working full time, I was at a disadvantage. So, I helped as much as I could by talking with parents’ doctors and health care providers via phone to get answers for my sisters who were the “hands on” caregivers. I also did the research on health topics and senior care online. This was my part in helping and caregiving.
Think about it.. I’m full time working at a job. A lot of my time at work was spent on worrying about my aging relatives, doing research, and talking with sisters about their care.
While at work, many of my colleagues (out of 30 - about 10) were dealing with the same concerns and elder care issues. I got the bright idea.. “go to HR to set up a caregiver support group so that we can all share info and research”. I thought this made sense, since we were wasting productive employer’s time looking for similar help and resources. This makes sense to you too, right?
Well, it did not to HR! The benefits Director told me “we can’t support a caregiver group” by helping you set up a monthly brown bag luncheon!”
“What?” I exclaimed. “Why the heck not, don’t you see how you would help us be more productive here at work?”
HR said that it’s against company’s policy to support any cause! Hmm.. I remember the company supporting a drive against cancer by doing extensive marketing to employees to donate time & money for that cause! Well, I reminded HR about that..
“Oh, that’s an annual cause the Executive management decided to support. We can’t take on something a few employees want to support… if we do that, we’ll be supporting all kinds of causes.”
I remember and reminded HR that we were not asking for their support.. just a table in the lunch room to meet once a month and putting a sign on the fridge to remind those who would like to attend.
So, what’s your experience at work? Do you feel supported by HR, your boss, etc. for your caregiving needs?
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Carol,
The company my wife works for had family leave time of up to 12 weeks, with the option of taking them as personal emergency days. My wife used the second option as a caregiver to get time for doc appointments and other related care issues.
Unfortuneatly, this was unpaid paid time unless she burned her vacation and personal days, which she did.
Now that our state has implemented mandatory paid family leave, it is harder for the employees to get the time off. The company developed a much tighter requirement schedule.
Comment by Stan Cohen — July 20, 2009 @ 8:41 am
Employers (and HR) has come a long way the last 20 years. It is quite common today for major companies (Fortune 500) to at a minimum offer an elder care consultation, resource and referral program. These programs are typically a part of the company’s Employee Assistance program (EAP) and about 90% of the Fortune 500 offer an EAP to employees. How they work is you call the EAP elder care counselor and they can do everything from educate you about your elder care options (e.g., in-home care versus assisted living), refer you to local providers (who they prescreen), locate support groups and even provide emotional support if you are stressed, depressed, etc. Some employers have gone even further in terms of supporting employee’s elder care needs by offering to pay for in-home assessments (for the employee’s aging parents), contracting with geriatric care managers who provide support to employees, etc.
The bottom line - most good companies today recognize that helping employee’s with their elder care needs makes good business sense. And this will only increase the coming years. Corporate elder care benefits in the 2000s are what child care benefits were in the 1980’s.
Comment by Mark Willaman (founder of SeniorCareMarketer.com) — July 20, 2009 @ 7:22 pm
That’s too bad that this particular company was so negative to your idea. Nowadays, Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) for most corporations gladly provide support to adult children of aging parents by hiring a geriatric care manager for limited hours, to do an assessment of your parent, and provide counselors for support. The goal is to prevent a high rate of absenteeism due to caregiving issues. This may be something that some employees are not aware of but should look into.
Comment by Olga Brunner, MS CMC — July 21, 2009 @ 10:36 am