Caregiver Employee Benefits: Build a Program That Helps Employees and Companies

With leadership on board for a culture shift that supports caregivers and a commitment to flexibility, your company can design a package of benefits that effectively supports your employee caregivers.

Small and medium-sized businesses can get volume discounts by partnering with other SMBs, or they can consider using the services of a benefits provider such as Homethrive, with expertise in employer caregiver benefits.

Keep reading for categories and examples of caregiver benefits working for other companies.

Caregiver Support

Reduce Absenteeism and Increase Productivity

• Few employees are experts at caregiving; they just learn as they go along. To accelerate their learning, maintain a list of local resources, such as financial and legal assistance, directories of home care agencies, caregiver support nonprofits and adult day care services.
• Online or in-person access to the expert advice of a caregiving coach can help employees navigate the world of caregiving.
• Discounts for tools, products and subscriptions such as home monitoring systems and life safety devices can put employees’ minds at ease while they are away from their loved ones.
• Discounts on reputable respite care services can make it affordable for employees to hire a few hours of in-home care each week, time that they can remain at work and unworried about their family member.
• Subsidized counseling with experts in legal and financial planning can greatly reduce distraction and uncertainty by putting in place wills, power-of-attorney documents, estate plans and other legal and financial agreements.

Paid and Unpaid Leave

Improve Worker Retention and Decrease Turnover

• Generous paid leave policies can give employees the time they need to care for loved ones and strengthen employee loyalty to a company. More leave can be granted for more years of service, encouraging workers to stay.
• Flexible leave policies that don’t require a reason (like sickness or vacation) can allow employees to take time off to care for a family member without feeling like they are misrepresenting their need.
• The ability to shift to part-time and back to full-time can be a great source of comfort to employees. Part-time options that allow some or all benefits to remain in place are especially helpful.
• Allowing employees to donate some of their own paid time to their co-workers who have exhausted all other options as part of a leave-sharing program can build camaraderie. However, consider a program like this carefully, as they can receive negative backlash and be viewed as a lack of support from the company itself. There are also many ethical and accounting considerations before implementation.
• For companies of 50 employees or more, employees can take unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks, according to the Family Medical Leave Act. While many employees cannot afford this, it does provide job guarantee for those who can. Caregiver-friendly workplaces will do a good job of communicating this federal program.
• Several states now have paid leave laws. If your state is one of them, your employees can take advantage of this, with your assistance.

Stress Reduction

Lower Healthcare Costs

• Yoga, meditation, and massage can help caregivers (and all employees) deal with burnout or anxiety. These benefits can be provided in-house or from external vendors with discounts. There are even online classes and resources your company can make available.
• Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) can offer caregiving-specific emotional support and encouragement to employees.
• Offer private space for phone calls. Open plan offices lack privacy, which can add to an employee-caregiver’s stress level when making calls on behalf of their loved one about sensitive topics.
• Employee caregiver support groups can help employees feel less alone in their situation and provide workplace friends who understand.
• Allowing for telehealth appointments can lower company healthcare costs while also increasing usage by employees, who may find a video call with their physician much easier and less time-consuming than driving to an appointment.