At time when private enterprises are
trying to increase productivity, reduce costs and
enhance the quality of their products or services there
is a growing crisis in corporations today that is
preventing them from achieving their corporate goals.
Few companies realize the implications working
caregivers have on their internal costs and their bottom
line. Still fewer companies even know where to look for
these hidden costs. Only one in seventy midsize to
larger companies knows how to address this issue.
The closest thing a company
associates with the cost of caregiving to the company is
the absenteeism reports. Even in cases where
absenteeism is recorded, the relationship between the
numbers of days missed by workers and the reason for the
number of days is not clearly established.
Absenteeism may be the most obvious cost to the
workforce, but it is not the only cost or the most
expensive cost. Other factors such as attrition,
loss of good workers, increased health insurance
coverage, overtime, and constant recruitment of new
workers also cost the company and the workers.
The number of caregivers in the
workforce has increased threefold in the last five years
and will continue to increase in the next ten years.
What we are seeing today is only the beginning and
unless companies begin to help their working caregivers
they themselves will not be able to keep their
competitive advantage in the global economy. This
is no longer a problem that affects only women in the
workforce or lower income workers, but is a problem that
exists at the CEO level as well as the lower
administrative levels of the company echelon. This is a
problem that also affects working men, and young and
older workers alike. For years the problem
has been handled by the mid level managers who have used
leniency in granting permission for workers to leave
early, come late, refuse to work overtime and while the
managers have done their best to help good workers
balance jobs and work the poor workers have been left
alone to tackle the problem. For years the problem has
been handled silently by the working caregiver who has
given up promotions, careers, training opportunities to
provide care to a family member. But these individual
solutions are no longer appropriate or recommended.
The first sign of relief for working
caregivers came with the passage of the Family Leave Act
which allows workers to take time off to care for a
frail family member. This law helps working
caregivers by guaranteeing their jobs while they take
unpaid leave to care for the family member. But it
does nothing to educate, facilitate, support and provide
the necessary assistance to working caregivers after the
crisis situation ends. It does nothing for the
company which loses a valuable worker on a temporary
basis and is replaced by a not so experienced worker.
Many working caregivers have forfeited this unpaid leave
option because of the unbearable financial burden giving
up a paycheck represents to them and even though they
needed the time off they were not able to afford it.
Many working caregivers are not even aware of the law
that protect them from losing their jobs,
Many working caregivers have given
up a job at a financial cost to be borne by them alone
for years to come. Financial costs in the form of
a lower pension or no pension at all, lower social
security at the time of retirement and the loss of a job
at a time in their lives when finding another job
becomes almost impossible.
We have reached a point in the road
that something should be done. On one hand government
can pass a law to financially support the Family Leave
Act by mandating that employers with more than 50
workers offer at least a portion of the time off with
pay. California is the first state in the nation
that has passed such a law. On the other hand,
companies are requesting that the Mandates of the Family
Leave Act be weakened in the form of less time off or
plain dismissal. This is not going to solve the
core problem, on the contrary, it will produce more
absenteeism, loss of good workers and increases in
health care coverage resulting from higher health claims
by working caregivers.
The solution from the point of view
of the working caregivers and from the financial
perspective of the company is one and the same.
That mutually beneficial solution is for companies to
include in their benefit package a working caregiver
assistance program. Those companies that have done it
have achieved a higher degree of worker satisfaction,
reduced attrition of good workers, have increased the
quality of their products and services and kept the
loyalty and goodwill of their workforce. For
working caregivers this has been the answer to their
prayers. They no longer have to miss work, come
late, leave early, be on an infinite number of phone
calls or spend their entire working day worried about
mother, father, or husband at home.
In my years helping working
caregivers have found that a successful caregiver
support program goes beyond information and provides
intervention, services and ongoing support tailored to
the needs of each individual caregiver. I
have also found that if corporations see this as an
imposition, not as a quality control measure, they will
never make the investment in the program. It is up to us
caregivers to make the corporate world aware of our
needs and to support efforts that will alleviate our
ongoing burden. Contact your human resource
department and find out what they offer in terms of
working caregivers, and if they don’t, let them know
that assistance exists to support corporations to deal
with this challenging and growing crisis.
For corporations to maintain their
competitive advantage in the global market they need
dedicated and experience workers willing to give 120% to
their jobs this is achievable is they now that
corporations are willing to help with their family
caregiving responsibilities. The rewards are there
for companies that provide assistance to the working
caregivers. This is an investment that at the end will
save money and generate goodwill for all.
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