Additional Resources Mentioned
Takeaways
Tip 1: Self-Identify and Strategically Disclose
- Assess your company culture first
- Examples of supportive company policies
- Disclose early in the journey
- Plan your conversation
- Frame it collaboratively
- Document everything
Tip 2: Build Flexibility
- Explore flexibility options in your organization
- Propose pilot arrangements
- Consider team involvement
- Create backup plans
- Leverage technology
- Consider career flexibility
Tip 3: Leverage Your Resources
- Connect with colleagues who are also caregivers
- Explore Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
- Look for community resources
- Take things off your plate
Tip 4: Plan for the Unplanned
- Understand your benefits and protections
- Create a caregiving budget
- Explore financial resources
- Build an emergency fund
- Prepare for career transitions
Read More in This Blog
Full Episode Transcript
Nancy
Have you ever thought, ”I wish I knew how to have a constructive conversation with my manager about how to align my work responsibilities and my caregiving responsibilities?” In this episode, we’re talking about strategies to help working family caregivers thrive at both work and at home. We’re sharing four tips.
Sue
Caregivers often feel torn between their responsibilities at home and their professional responsibilities, which they’re trying desperately to fulfill, often without support. According to the Alzheimer’s Association of the 12 million family caregivers for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias, approximately 7.2 million are working in paid employment outside the home. That’s a lot.
My own experiences when working full time and also navigating roles of caregiving taught me how challenging this is because I was on these caregiving journeys for many years. I never self identified at work. The company culture that I was in was never supportive of that. So I really can relate to what it felt like. And I know that I’m not alone.
Nancy
You’re right.
Sue
That leads us to tip one. This leads us to tip one, which is to self-identify and strategically disclose. And when we’re talking about this, we want to learn how to explore safely, sharing what we’re navigating and being able to advocate without fear. So it’s really important because we can’t get support if the company doesn’t know we need it. So we need to try to figure that out if at all possible.
One of these statistics, and in this episode, we’re actually sharing a variety of different kinds of statistics. One of these is from the National Alliance for Caregiving, often known as NAC, and then also AARP. And they’ve both identified that fewer than 20% of employees who are also family caregivers actually self-identify in the workplace. That is really, really challenging. It’s got a lot of problems associated with it, but it’s challenged because they’ve got fears for job security, they’ve got fears for privacy concerns, and also stigma that might go along with it. So there are a variety of different kinds of reasons that people don’t self-identify, none of which are very helpful at a time when you really need the support as possible.
Safe disclosure begins with each of us and a great place to begin is with our company culture. One of these is assessing our company culture. Learning how the company already addresses temporary seasons in our lives like through their family medical leave act or FMLA, through how they handle different kinds of maternity or paternity leaves or bereavement.
Two examples of this are companies who’ve already implemented policies, one of which is Deloitte. They implemented a family leave program that provides up to 16 weeks of fully paid leave for caregiving purposes. And this includes elder care. This policy allows employees to take time off for caregiving without sacrificing their income or job security.
And another company who’s done this is Microsoft. Microsoft has a family caregiver leave policy that provides up to four weeks of paid leave for employees caring for immediate family members with serious health conditions. So it’s great that companies are seeing and recognizing this. And it also helps when we’re figuring out how to have a conversation because there are examples that can already be modeled.
What we want to do beforehand is evaluate how supportive our workplace is with embracing these work life issues of other temporary seasons. And you can do that by having conversations with other people, learning what they’ve been talking about and seeing if other employees are sharing openly about their caregiving responsibilities.
Nancy
Well, and like you said, less than 20% are self-disclosing. The last company I worked for, I was there for 26 years. So I was very well aware of the company culture, but I was fortunate enough to work for a company that had a very supportive company culture. So I disclosed immediately and this included my father’s Parkinson’s, which he had for 25 years, my husband’s dementia and my father-in-law’s dementia. And I think the real advantage when you disclose early is that by default, it’s not affecting your job as much. So you’re disclosing at a time where, yes, there might be some effect, but you can start to build that collaborative path together with the organization, with your management team, with your support team, so that as it builds up and it does start to affect things more, you’ve created a path that works or at least a collaborative culture with your team to where everybody can work together as opposed to waiting until it’s causing huge problems. And now you’ve got a big gap between what you can do at work and what you need to fill for caregiving responsibilities.
Sue
And what I think is so important about what you’re saying, Nancy, is it’s really counter to what people have traditionally done.
Nancy
Right. They’ve tried to do it on their own till the very last minute. They didn’t want to burden anybody else. They didn’t want anybody else to know all of these other things.
Sue
And you’re actually helping flip the consciousness of it to say, no, instead of waiting till it’s really, really a big deal and you’re going to need to take a lot of time off, gradually start when people are just aware of it and then they can be building policies or they could be practicing and saying, OK, well, if I’m not here, then what would be and it’s kind of like when you think about someone who pregnant. Well, they’re not all of a sudden going to go out on maternity leave. It doesn’t just happen without anybody knowing. It’s no surprise they are having a baby. if you think of it like something like that, we’re on the ramp up in the beginning, but when you’ve got months and months to say, hey, when I’m not here, let’s do this. So you’d have the ability to adapt. And that’s really kind of the opposite of the way many family caregivers have thought about introducing this at work. So that’s really, really powerful.
Another thing is to plan your conversation. Think about it beforehand and to walk through what it might look like so that you’ve really been able to consider all the components of it before you go either to your direct manager or to your HR representative. And that’s going to vary by company.
Nancy
Whoever you feel the most comfortable with. Some people are more comfortable with their manager, some more comfortable with HR. It really doesn’t matter. Have the initial conversation.
Sue
And yet, especially if they do what you’ve talked about – bringing it in early, you’re talking about your commitment to working with a company and you language it. So it’s like, I’m navigating this caregiving season. I am fully committed to staying here and continuing to work. Let’s explore together how we do this and how we make it work. So you’re able to collaborate together from the very beginning and do that. And then also focus on solutions, right?
You’ve already thought through some of the things and you may have already talked to support groups with other people who have had caregiving responsibilities and what they’ve done at work and things. So when you go in, you already have identified solutions and potential things you could be bringing and you can have meaningful conversations.
Nancy
I think that’s really important. It’s a much easier conversation with your manager or even HR. And don’t get married to the solutions. Let’s put it that way because they may or may not work for your company. But people would much rather hear about a challenge that comes with potential solutions than just a challenge that you, you know, put in place in their lap.
Sue
Right. So I think that’s a great plan. Come with a solution. And then the other thing is when you’re having these conversations, go ahead and document them. And you’re documenting the conversations, the boundaries, the accommodations, the things that you’re thinking about. And it’s not to protect yourself. It’s so that you can all be on the same page as you go through this journey. And it makes it easier for everyone.
Nancy
When you come into this thinking of it collaboratively. And when you document it, write it down and send it back to whoever you had the conversation with. So make sure that you’re on the same page. Absolutely. Completely sharing it with everybody. Because you may have misunderstood something. It’s to find that out sooner rather than later.
Sue
So from the very beginning, make sure when you’re having the conversations that we’re going to collaborate and we’re going to share all the information together. You know, it’s all how you put it together. You can look like you’re protecting yourself or you can look like you’re being transparent. I want to make sure I understand and that I have what we agreed to right.
Nancy
That’s a great point. So you want to go to tip two? Tip two is about building flexibility. And we all know dementia caregiving. What do I even want to say? There’s no consistent pattern. And I would not say that’s consistent. There’s no, it’s consistently not consistent. And, you know, unfortunately your loved one is not going to follow your schedule the way you would like them to. Because dementia is on its own timeframe and its own path. So obviously the more we can build in flexibility, the better off we’ll be.
Just some facts from the Alzheimer’s Association. 57 % of dementia family caregivers report having to go into work late, leave work early, take time out, or even reduce their hours. So, what you want to do is just make sure that you explore flexibility options in your organization.
Does your organization allow remote working? Do they have flex hours? Do they have shortened work weeks? So maybe you’ve got somebody who can help care for your loved one four days a week, but you’re going to be responsible for three days a week. So you can front load your work week into a compressed work week.
Sue
And many companies have already implemented these kinds of arrangements. explore. Because they may have them and you’re not aware of them because you haven’t needed them. Raise your level of awareness to what already exists because if you haven’t ever needed it, you may not have explored that they have it.
Nancy
And then if you find an arrangement that you think is going to work, Sue and I have given this advice before with other things, propose it as a pilot solution because you need to try it and make sure it works before everybody gets all bought in that this is the way it is. So propose a pilot arrangement, give it a shot, see how it works, observe and adjust as you get through the process and see if you need to make changes to it.
And when everybody’s bought into this being a pilot, everybody’s like, okay, well, let’s figure this out. This is a project we’re working on together and everybody can be part of the solution, which is what we really want.
Once you’ve come up with an arrangement and it’s either pilot or you think it’s going to work, discuss with your manager about whether or not they’d be okay with you talking to the rest of the team that you’re on. And the reason being sometimes those people can help you come up with even a better arrangement because they’re willing to job-share or to flex hours with you on different times or cover. They’ve been needing to make a change and haven’t had an opportunity until now to do it. So it would be great if you could be open about it and have a team conversation and just see if there are other options that maybe you guys haven’t even thought of or at least set expectations that this is how you’re going to be working for at least the near future.
Sue
I do have a lot of respect for what you said, consider it because it’s not necessarily something that is going to work in every company to have that kind of exposure.
Nancy
And then create backup plans because we know that there’s going to be emergencies. That is the nature of dementia family caregiving. And so now that it’s out in the open, at a minimum with your manager and hopefully with your whole team, you can do a better job of having a backup plan in case something goes wrong.
Another idea in terms of building in flexibility is leveraging technology. So you probably already have collaboration tools. COVID did that to most companies. You probably already have remote working tools like Zoom, collaboration tools, Google drives, lots of different places where you can work with other people and not necessarily be in the same room. Leverage those. Also leverage technology platforms for doctor’s appointments. Not every doctor appointment requires you to get in the car, drive to the appointment, have the appointment, and drive home. There’s a lot of telehealth, where you can actually go in and have a doctor appointment over Zoom or something like that. So that would save a lot of time and disrupt your workday less if you did that. And then there’s also technology around care plans. Because part of being a family caregiver is all the people you have to update every time something happens. Medication change or how’d that doctor appointment go or what do we need to do now? If you leverage technology for care planning like ElePlan, in episode 33, we actually talked to Amanda Lukoff from ElePlan about how to create a care plan.
You can do that manually in a binder, but one of the options that ElePlan provides is that you can do that in an app. So you could have the doctor appointment, update the app, and then everyone knows that after the doctor’s appointment to go to the app to look and see what’s happening. AARP also has something called Caregiving Companion that seems very similar where you can, people learn to expect their updates via a piece of technology and not you having to call everybody.
And then Sue knows this is my soapbox. When I say build in flexibility on tip two, I also mean your own flexibility with your career. So this isn’t a permanent situation. Just think it through for a minute. Maybe you’re an outside salesperson who has to be on the road a lot and that’s no longer practical. Does that mean that you can’t work at that company anymore? Well, you probably can’t be an outside salesperson anymore and travel if your loved one can’t stay alone, but maybe you can leverage the opportunity to be an inside salesperson. Might not be the same job, but for now it might accommodate what you need in terms of flexibility. So just think about your career options. It doesn’t have to be a permanent change, but maybe you change your role for this season of your work life.
Sue
And to your point earlier about making sure that you’re raising the awareness early in the journey. When you raise the awareness early in the journey and say, you know, right now I’m an outside salesperson, I’m on the road five days a week, I’ve got all these things, I’m not sure when this is going to change, but I believe that there will be a time. Let’s talk about what this could look like. How could I be training someone else and doing some other things? And so we are ready when it becomes apparent I need to make a change. What are ways we can be working together to plan this now?
Nancy
From my experience, I first moved to working from home when my husband really shouldn’t be at home alone by himself, but he was actually okay to do most things by himself. I eventually had to move part to part time and then I eventually retired. But that’s really where we are in terms of understanding the flexibility in your role and what you might want to be doing.
Sue
Nancy and I both strongly encourage you not to manage dementia care alone. We encourage you to include others on this journey. This leads us to tip three, leveraging your resources. Find support. And we learn to find support in the community outside work. There is support we can find at work like connecting with fellow colleagues who are also caregivers. And one of the things that we can do to give us that practical advice and some emotional support.
One of the other things that a lot of people have learned is that if somebody else is in a caregiving season and they’ve got some time, they’ll help you and you can help them and you can swap. And then almost every business has employee assistance programs. They’re different for different companies. Explore what they are. We often don’t explore them. I’ve talked to a number of HR leaders and they say, I don’t think 10 % of the employees know what our EAPs are. So explore what those are and they provide counseling. They provide a variety of different kinds of resources and support services.
And look outside of work, local respite programs. So take a look at these and they can provide some temporary relief from your caregiving responsibilities.
Another one, and let’s share this one because this has been huge for us, take things off your plate. We think, you know, we have to do it all. Well, no. So in some cases it is look at things where hiring a paid caregiver even earlier in the journey to do some of the things that are some responsibilities and would give you more capacity.
Something else is to consider professional care management. And whether this is an individual who does this or there are companies that have created solutions for this. One of those is called Wealthy and organizations like Best Buy and Hilton and Salesforce have incorporated them into their programs because they will help make doctors appointments, navigate insurance, help do some of these things that can often take so much of your time.
Nancy
You know, so I am one of the guilty people. I never looked at what my company EAP, Employee Assistance Program, offered. So, you know, don’t be like me. I wish I had because that’s a resource that I could have at least looked into.
Sue
Well, we’ve learned from what we have and what we haven’t done. I’ve looked at employee assistance programs that other companies have had and there are some really great, even in small organizations, they’ve got some really good plans. take a look at that.
Nancy
Anyway, how about tip four? Tip four is to plan for the unplanned.
Sadly, we know this is required when it comes to dementia. Really, when we’re talking about this, we’re thinking about how do you protect your finances? Because unfortunately, Sue and I both know caring for someone living with dementia is expensive and it’s not predictable in terms of how you’re gonna spend the money. Each journey is different. Protecting your finances, understanding what your benefits package is, what insurance is going to pay for, what kind of paid leave you can take. Those are all ways you can protect your finances.
It’s helpful to create a caregiving budget to understand what you’re expect to spend money on and make sure you understand where that income is coming from. It doesn’t always have to be you. There may be other family members who are willing to pitch in and your loved one may have long-term care insurance or other things that are their income like Social Security and make sure you apply for Social Security disability if they are not taking it yet. So there’s lots of ways to understand where you can get income. Create a budget with where those things are coming from. If you’ve never been on a caregiving journey and you don’t really know what that budget looks like, there are a lot of people who can help you. true. There are financial advisors that specifically focus on elder care as well. Another good example is exploring tax deductions. Paying caregivers is one of those things that goes into medical expenses. So you talk to your tax advisor and make sure you understand what all your tax deductions can be. And build an emergency fund as best you possibly can early in the journey where it’s not costing you as much because of that whole income disruption we already talked about. I ended up eventually going part-time. You may have to take a different role that doesn’t pay as much; you may even have to leave the workforce to become a full-time caregiver.
So as much of that as you can plan for ahead of time is really important. And I know you did that Sue.
Sue
I did. There came a time when it was the wisest choice, the right thing to do for me to step away from my professional career.
Nancy
But you planned for it in terms of you putting money away specifically to help.
Sue
I had already planned for it. I had also shifted our finances to be more conservative. And that was what we needed to do at the time. I think that’s what was the wisest choice.
Nancy
Let’s summarize? In this episode, we talked about strategies to help you thrive at both work and at home. We shared four tips.
Tip one, self identify and have a strategic plan on how to do that.
Tip two, build in flexibility. Don’t be caught up in the way things are. Think about all the different options you could possibly have.
Three, leverage your resources. Understand what’s all around you that you can take advantage of to help. Don’t feel like you have to do it all yourself.
And four, plan for the unplanned and protect your finances.
Now, if you have tips for working caregivers, please share those on our Facebook page, our Instagram page. The links are in the show notes.
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