Flexibility: The Heart of a Caregiver-Friendly Workplace

Flexible Schedule

Permission to work outside of a company’s normal business hours can be immensely helpful to workers who balance caregiving and their paid job.

While there are 168 hours in a week, the majority of American businesses have rigidly clung to just the hours between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. This rigidity may be forcing your employees to sneak around, just to be able to take care of their families.

By imagining how much of your company’s work could get done at any other time, you can create a wealth of possibilities for employee caregivers. For example:

• Could someone condense their work week into fewer days, giving them an extra weekday to manage caregiving responsibilities?
• Could someone come in at noon and work into the evening, so that they can reserve their mornings for scheduling physical therapy or doctor appointments for their loved one?
• Could someone work on the weekends, when other family members can take care of their loved one?
• Can your company offer a combination of all of the above?
• What about a temporary shift from full-time to part-time?

Flexible Work Environment

Where companies have landed on the work-from-home spectrum in a post-Covid world varies across industries, but one thing is clear: Almost every company learned how to do it. Companies can make this possible by:

• Allowing a certain number of hours or days each week for working from home.
• To avoid stigma, permit this accommodation to all employees.
• Provide the technology to enable remote working.
• Rethink the need for all positions to be present in person, and whittle the in-person requirements to those that truly benefit your company and workforce.

Flexible Paid Time Off

Maybe your company offers paid vacation, some sick leave and a couple of personal days. What if you didn’t keep tabs on what kind of leave workers take but instead included it all in one pool of “paid personal time” to do with as they choose?

A system that pushes employees to take sick leave when they aren’t actually sick doesn’t feel right to them and perpetuates stereotypes of caregiving workers “gaming” the system.

Flexible time off policies can add flexibility without increasing the amount of paid leave your company provides. These may include:

• An open leave policy that grants paid time off to be used for vacation, sick or personal time — however the employee chooses.
• A leave policy that doesn’t ask the employee their plans for taking paid time off.
• The ability to take a half-day or just a few hours of leave, rather than an entire day.

Flexible Benefits

Many part-time workers are just as loyal and valuable as their full-time counterparts, and despite vague federal and state regulations, many companies and organizations already provide benefits to part-timers. This arrangement can be the perfect solution to employee caregivers who love their jobs but cannot commit to a 40-hour work week.

• Many benefits can be “scaled,” such as time off, so that there is equity between part-timers and full-timers.
• Providing part-time employees with health insurance while also allowing employees to temporarily shift from full-time to part-time work can help companies retain valuable employees who need more time for caregiving.
• Supporting part-time workers can give companies enhanced flexibility for staffing and may also provide budgetary advantages in that a highly qualified worker can be employed for less than a full salary.