These are times when employees are concerned about their jobs. They are under more pressure than ever to be present and productive at work. If you employ people who are caregivers, you are aware of how much pressure they are under at home in caring for aging parents.

It is likely that you employ people who are taking care of their aging parents at home. Most persons providing caregiving are employed. For those caregivers who are 50-64 years of age, an estimated 60% are working full or part time.¹ Caregivers are under pressure to juggle parent care demands, their own families and their jobs. They are jugglers extraordinaire. Can they keep all the balls in the air? You are probably aware of the things they deal with. Caregiver problems and challenges can carry over into the workplace and cause a person’s attention to be divided between their very real demands at home, concern about an ill or disabled loved one, and their responsibilities at work.

More than ever employers want to retain employees but may be forced to operate with a reduced work force. You expect your team to be at work and to be free from distractions while there. When employees are not focused and are not at their best, productivity is impaired. This has come to be broadly referred to as “presenteeism”. More and more employers are paying attention to this. One employer reports that 30% of employees come to work at least 5 days when they are too distracted to be effective and 28% of workers took time off for caregiving.² Presenteeism has been estimated to cost employers an estimated $2,000 per year for each employee.³ A staggering 37% of employees with current elder care issues have lost work time because they spend up to 11 hours per week taking care of matters at home.⁴

The duration of caregiving has been found to be an average of 4.3 years in a study by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.⁵ Most striking is the well documented effects of caregiving on a caregiver’s mental and emotional health. Depression is the most common disorder with 20-50% reporting this as a problem.⁶ The per employee costs associated with the impact of depression and other mental illnesses is $348 per year according to the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies, Cornell University (2004).

Nationally and locally employers are instituting strategies to lower the costs associated with reduced presenteeism. Some have added an elder care component to their employee assistance program. Some are providing unique individualized benefits to effected employees. Face to face consultation has been demonstrated to relieve stress, provide valuable resources, and teach skills for managing caregiving demands. The result is a productive, focused employee who feels more in control of the many demands they face. The small up front costs to help caregivers cope while managing their jobs may help avoid the cost of replacing the 9% of caregivers who quit their jobs.⁷

Chrysalis Case Management can help explore how your company or business can provide caregiving coaching to effected employees.

1 AARP: A Report to the Nation on Independent Living and Disability. Washington DC: AARP, 2003
2 Chaifetz, R. Elevated Stress Levels Leads to Presenteeism. ComPsych, provider of EAP programs.
3 Cigna Behavioral Health, April 26, 2004
4 Risk and Insurance. March 2004
5 Caregiving in the U.S. Bethesda: National Alliance for Caregiving and Washington DC: AARP, 2004
6 Schultz, R. et al. Psychiatric and Physical Morbidity Effects of Dementia Caregiving: Prevalence, Correlates, and Causes. The Gerontologist 35: 771-791, 1994.
Cohen, D. et al. Caring for Relatives with Alzheimer’s Disease: The Mental health Risks to Spouses, Adult Children and other Family Caregivers. Behavior, Health and Aging 1: 171-182, 1990.
7 See #4

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