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How to Balance Work and Caregiving Responsibilities

Tips for managing competing demands and where to go for help

By Kathy Kelly and Family Caregiver Alliance

 

Holding a job and caring for a frail or ill older family member at home can be a huge challenge as you attempt to balance competing demands on your time and energy. As our population ages, more families than ever are providing this care. According to studies, as many as 42 percent of working Americans — more than 54 million people — have provided eldercare in the last five years; 17 percent currently provide care.

(MORE: Special Report: Transforming Life as We Age

The average age of caregivers is 49 — a peak year for earnings and for career achievement. Women take on slightly more responsibility for care, but men are greatly impacted, as well.

 

  • The massive boomer generation is at caregiving age, and soon many will need care themselves
  • We’re living longer, resulting in more debilitating, age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, arthritis, diabetes and stroke
  • Hospital stays are shorter, so more care is needed at home
  • Women, traditionally caregivers for children and the elderly, are now often in the workforce and less available to provide full-time care
  • Work disruptions due to employee caregiving responsibilities result in productivity losses to businesses of an estimated $2,110 per year per employee — up to $33.6 billion per year for full-time employees as a group

 

The types of care families typically provide range from personal services (bathing, dressing, help with toileting, feeding) to everyday tasks and activities (preparing meals, providing transportation, handling finances, managing medications, coordinating services, communicating with health care professionals). The average caregiver provides care for more than four years, with some care extending for decades. Few caregivers use paid help. Fully 76 percent of working caregivers rely only on their families and themselves. At times, caregiving can seem like a second job.

 

While families may undertake such care willingly and lovingly, there can be long-lasting consequences — both personal and financial — for working caregivers. These may include poorer health, increased stress, time lost from work, lower productivity, quitting a job to give care, lost employer-paid health benefits and lower current and future earnings, including Social Security and pension income.

Eventually, 10 percent of caregivers report quitting their jobs to provide care full-time, resulting in an average loss of more than $303,880 each in wages, Social Security income and pension income over a lifetime.

 

Keys to Managing the Balancing Act

 

To start trying to manage work and caregiving responsibilities, it’s important to evaluate your parent’s living situation and assess how care needs can be met. Consider your parent’s safety, isolation, ability to be left alone, medical needs and what help is available to handle basic daily activities.

 

Your challenge as a caregiver is to determine how best to utilize the time and energy you have available for caregiving in addition to meeting the demands of your job and family. Everyone’s situation is different, and for many families, there’s no simple, single solution.

(MORE: An "Angie's List" for Aging in Place)

Instead, they create an intricate patchwork of services and assistance. Be aware that care needs will change, so different solutions may be needed in the future.

 

 

  • Information and referral services These are generally free and maintained by senior, community or government organizations, to help you locate local programs and services. Some employers also offer information through Employee Assistance Programs.
  • The internet  It provides resource listings and online support groups where you can seek information. Family Caregiver Alliance’s (FCA) online Family Care Navigator offers information on public resources for every state. The U.S. Administration on Aging's Eldercare Locator provides information on Area Agencies on Aging and other services.
  • Informal arrangements There may be chores that can be done by friends, family, neighbors or faith group members.
  • A family meeting It can be helpful to get siblings and other relatives together and identify needs, discuss medical legal and financial issues, share concerns and delegate tasks.
  • Adult day centers Many working caregivers find adult day centers to be life-savers. The centers provide social and therapeutic activities for older adults and adults with disabilities in a safe, supportive environment. Some offer transportation, meals, personal care, and medical or allied health care. Participants attend several hours per day, up to five days a week, making it possible for you, as caregiver, to go to work assured that your parent is in a safe place.
  • In-home care This can be formal (paid) through a home care agency or a privately hired aide, or informal (unpaid) — a friend, family member or volunteer.
  • Other community resources Services include geriatric care managers, home-delivered meals, transportation, temporary overnight care, and support groups. An FCA fact sheet on Community Care Options offers more information.

 

A growing number of employers recognize caregiving as a workplace issue that affects everyone from CEOs to delivery staff. Larger corporations sometimes are able to offer support in ways that smaller ones cannot. But there are actions that companies of any size can take to support employees who have caregiving responsibilities:

  • The most requested adjustment is flexibility in work hours. This may include allowing a change in hours; a compressed work schedule; a part-time schedule; job sharing; telecommuting or a limit on mandatory overtime. Studies show that flexible scheduling improves job performance, decreases tardiness and employee turnover and increases job satisfaction and retention (even for employees are who are not currently caregivers).
  • Companies with 50 or more employees must comply with the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave (or 26 weeks to care for an active service member). The leave may be used to care for a seriously ill parent, spouse or child. Job and health insurance are protected. However, approximately half of U.S. companies have fewer than 50 employees and are exempt from FMLA requirements. Nonetheless, many use FMLA guidelines to provide support for individual employees.
  • Paid Family Leave is a mandated benefit that covers caregivers of a seriously ill parent, child, spouse or registered domestic partner, as well as new parents. Only a handful of states currently offer paid family leave.
  • Knowledgeable HR or Employee Assistance Program staff can provide information on helpful Internet sites, local services, care managers, and company leave policies.
  • Various state regulations and certain sections of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibit employers from discriminating against caregiving employees (for example, passing over employees for promotion or stereotyping employees because of caregiving status).
  • Company-sponsored training for supervisors enhances understanding of the conflicting demands of work and caregiving and ensures that mandates for family leave and antidiscrimination regulations are met.
  • Some larger employers offer “cafeteria style” employee benefits that allow employees to select supplemental dependent care coverage to partially reimburse costs for in-home care or adult day care. A few companies offer subsidized payments for geriatric care managers.
  • Sometimes, larger businesses organize in-house caregiver support groups, informational “brown-bag” lunch sessions or offer access to outside support groups.
  • Some employers arrange group purchase of long-term care insurance for employees, spouses and dependents.

 

The internet provides a wealth of medical and caregiving information available 24 hours a day on your computer, tablet or cell phone. Digital technology is also useful for ordering prescriptions, communicating with health care professionals, staying in contact with friends and family, scheduling home care, learning new skills through webinars, tracking movement and even visually checking on loved ones during the day or providing surveillance of your parent’s home when you can’t be there.

 

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How To Reduce Stress

 

 

Family-friendly workplace policies coupled with your own proactive strategies for providing care can go a long way towards making your caregiving journey more doable and less stressful.

 

Eldercare Locator

Information on services for older adults and their families.

800-677-1116

 

Medicare

800-MEDICARE or 800-633-4227

 

National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys

Provides information on how to choose an elder law attorney and referrals.

 

National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers

 

Families and Work Institute

 

National Council on Aging

Its website offers a BenefitsCheckUp tool to identify programs and services that can help with financing care and support services. 

 

Best Practices in Workplace Eldercare 

A 2012 report for employers from the National Alliance for Caregiving and ReACT (Respect a Caregiver’s Time). 

Kathy Kelly is the Executive Director of Family Caregiver Alliance and the National Center on Caregiving, based in San Francisco, Calif.

Kathy Kelly Read More
By Family Caregiver Alliance

MissionFamily Caregiver Alliance is a public voice for caregivers, illuminating the daily challenges they face, offering them the assistance they so desperately need and deserve, and championing their cause through education, services, research and advocacy.    Who We Are Founded in 1977, Family Caregiver Alliance was the first community-based nonprofit organization in the country to address the needs of families and friends providing long-term care at home. Long recognized as a pioneer in health services, the alliance offers programs at national, state and local levels to support and sustain caregivers.National, State and Local Programs Uniting research, policy and practice, the alliance established the National Center on Caregiving to advance the development of high-quality, cost effective programs and policies for caregivers in every state in the country. The National Center on Caregiving sponsors the Family Care Navigator to help caregivers locate support services in their communities. Family Caregiver Alliance also oversees Link2Care, an Internet support and information system for clients of California's system of Caregiver Resource Centers and operates the Bay Area Caregiver Resource Center in the six-county San Francisco Bay Area. In that capacity, the alliance's staff social workers work closely with families caring for ill or elderly loved ones. Our services, education programs and publications are developed with their expressed needs in mind, to offer real support, essential information, and tools to manage the complex and demanding tasks of caregiving.

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