Have you heard that the Society for Human Resource Management has described Caregiving as the silent productivity killer? The Metlife study of Employer Costs for Working Caregivers estimated that U.S employers lose approximately 11.4 to 29 billion dollars each year as a result of employee Caregiving that interferes with work responsibilities.
Today, that means that it costs an employer approximately $2,500 per year due to loss of productivity per employee who is a family caregiver. Approximately 29% of the U.S population is involved in providing care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or loved one.
Half of all caregivers for persons aged 50 and over are employed full time and almost 75% of them have had to change jobs or stop working because of the demands of family Caregiving. Most employees who are family caregivers have symptoms of clinical depression that goes untreated. According to the University of Pittsburgh eldercare in the workplace study, the population of people over 65% is expected to increase at a rate of 2.3% but the number of family members available to care for them will only increase at a rate of 0.8%.
These trends result in the demand for workplace elder care programs that do more than provide the employees with FMLA benefits, phone numbers and lots of complex and confusing literature from social service organizations. Employees who are caregivers need real help while small businesses need to keep their talent and contain their group health insurance cost. Employers suffer increased healthcare benefit utilization because often, their employees who are family caregivers, end up becoming more sick than the person for whom they are caring for.
With the rising cost of insurance and the demands of the health care reform, employers with employees who are family caregivers face a huge challenge because 20% of these employees will quit their jobs to provide care full time. The cost of insuring these employees and then replacing them when they quit poses a financial strain on an organization.
Here are some frightening stats: 61% of family caregivers work full or part time, 45-65 year olds make up the biggest age group in the work place and 42% of US employees have cared for an older relative or friend in the last five years. Most employers do not have an effective elder care work place program as part of their employee assistance program.
The EldercareandCaregivingNework has a limited number of eldercare work place development grants for organizations in Northeast Ohio. Employers interested in a no obligation consultation about how an effective eldercare work place program could lower their business cost and improve productivity should call 855-942-9933 or send an email with a subject line “elder care work place inquiry” to Stella@StellaNsong.com.
