Eldercare and its impact on the workplace. (Health Care Services: Advertising Supplement).

Like Millions of Baby Boomers throughout America, Molly Andrews finds herself balancing a family with school-aged children, a full-time job and the needs of her dependent parents. Coordinated services, arranging for eldercare, dealing with emergencies and mediating family conflicts often takes its toll on Molly's professional life. The endless telephone calls, missed days at work, and the inability to accept a much wanted promotion not only impacts Molly, but her fellow Boomer employers, as well.

For millions of working Americans, the emotional strain of balancing work with caring for an elder family member is increasing, with related consequences for employers. Data gathered from a 1997 national caregiving survey conducted by the National Alliance for Caregiving and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) estimated the cost to U.S. employers in lost productivity due to caregiving for older adults to be between $11.4 and $29 billion per year. The impact on employment productivity is also likely to grow, as both the population ages and the number of workers balancing jobs with caring for an aging family member increases.

On the employer side, by 2005, for example, approximately 37% of the American work force will be aged 40-54, the prime years for elder care issues to surface for adult children. Like Andrews, these individuals are referred to as the "Sandwich Generation," family members caught between caring for an elder parent and managing their lives, including caring for their children. By 2009, the number of Sandwich Generation employees in the country is expected to increase to between 11 and 15.6 million working Americans, representing approximately 10% of our workforce.

Furthermore, in 1997, the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) conducted a nationwide survey in order to understand the challenges facing individuals who provide unpaid care to a relative or friend aged fifty or older. Sixty-four percent of the caregivers were employed, creating a juggling act between work and caregiving responsibilities. The study found that the average loss in employees' wage wealth at retirement, due to lost wages and reduced retirement benefits was $566,443.

In 1999, the MetLife Mature Market Institute sponsored a pilot study called, "The MetLife Juggling Act Study: Balancing Caregiving with Work and the Costs Involved," which followed up on a subset of the 1997 NAC/AARP program participants. The study assessed the losses caregivers experience, by measuring the long-term effects of wage reductions, lost retirement benefits, compromised opportunities for employment promotions, and stress-related health problems. Nearly two-thirds of the caregivers surveyed reported that their eldercare responsibilities had a direct impact on earnings.

Behind the statistics is the physical, emotional, legal and financial fallout for working Americans involved in eldercare. For employees, this balancing act translates into lost wages, decreased pension and social security benefits, as well as having the effect of compromising potential job advancements. Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed stated that they had passed on a job promotion or additional training, due to caregiving commitments. Overall, nearly 40% of those surveyed reported that caregiving affected their ability to advance on the job.

Caregiving directly impacts the earning capability of workers who scale back to part-time employment as caregiving responsibilities demand more of their time. Other working caregivers retire early, due to the toll that caregiving exacts on their own health. The result is that both their retirement savings and discretionary spending during their active working years are compromised. Fifteen percent of survey participants took unpaid leave to provide caregiving.

The consequences are shared by employers who find that caregiving negatively influences worker productivity, employee turnover, absenteeism and early retirement. Employee preoccupation with caregiving issues is formally manifested through increased sick days, use of vacation time, a decrease in formal work hours, or early job termination /retirement. Informally their workers' schedules are affected in terms of productive time lost while making phone calls, taking time off during the day, arriving late or leaving work early. The negative results on employee retention and productivity is estimated to cost employers $29 billion per year. Federal legislation enacted through the Family Medical Leave Act and the California Family Rights Act requires employers to provide time to employees caring for a seriously ill family member, including parents.

Despite the losses, when MetLife's Juggling Act Study was published, only 23% of companies with 100 or more employees had programs in place to support caregivers. While about 60% of caregivers surveyed in the study reported that they sought assistance in locating eldercare resources, the arrangements made by employees were informal and not incorporated into company policy.

As a veteran eldercare expert, Bunni Dybnis, Director of Professional Services for LivHOME, an eldercare company which manage sall aspects of care of elders who choose to stay home states, "I have noticed that companies are increasingly responding to their employees' eldercare needs by including geriatric care management (GCM) benefits to assist the family caregivers in caring for the elder relatives. The GCM saves times by utilizing their professional expertise to objectively evaluate an elders needs, create and implement a plan and coordinate all services. This can greatly reduce employee stress by having an expert provide objective solutions as well as help families resolve difficult and emotional issues. The end result is a win-win situation for both employer and employee with a more productive work environment."

Employee Assistant Programs are now recognizing the shift in dependent care issues, as well. Workplace Options, Inc., a Raleigh, North Carolina, employee assistance program has been providing dependent care referrals for employees under their employer-sponsored benefit plans for eight years. Within that time, Dean Debnam, the company's CEO, has seen employee requests for dependent care referrals shift from being nearly 100% childcare-related, to present requests for eldercare referrals constituting about 25% of the total requests for dependent care referrals.

In the interest of maintaining employee productivity and retention, it is a significant benefit to employers to examine the human factors affecting working caregivers and to support employees in their ability to plan for and meet the long-term care needs of their loved ones.

An at-home assisted living company such as LivHOME works with families to identify these issues and then manages a plan of care going forward. The company is dedicated to finding solutions that enable older adults to remain in their own homes as long as possible while relieving the stress of employees associated with trying to juggle career/family roles. Its unique, integrated model of involving a geriatric care manager who works with the family, physicians, the caregiver and the elder to create a more cohesive care plan helps the Molly Andrews of the world to better plan and address these issues quickly and efficiently, leaving families more time for each other. The result is an employer who continues to achieve higher output from their staff and an employee who is able to focus on their family and career.

This article was provided by LivHOME. For more information, please call [phone] or visit www.livhome.com.