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Benefits and Pensions MonitorCaregiver Stress The phenomenon of workers who call to say they won’t be in for the day has a name. It’s ‘casual absenteeism’ and it is becoming a growing problem in the workplace. “People take time off work to take their elderly parent to the doctor and they won’t use vacation days for this sort of thing,” she says. Seward says corporate Canada should be paying more attention to this issue because it’s costing businesses money. Granted, many large companies, such as financial institutions, have eldercare support programs which help their employees navigate an often unresponsive healthcare system on behalf of their aged parents. But then again, many big companies don’t. And what about smaller companies in the 100 to 200 employee range? Seward says “These companies say they can’t afford such programs, but I tell them they’re paying for it anyway because their people are using company time to look for information. If employers take a good hard look at the demographics of their workplace, they’ll find out pretty fast how many people are caring for elderly parents.” Home Instead Senior Care is a non-medical care and companionship service for seniors with 21 locations across Canada. The company has prepared a report on caregiver stress and the results paint an alarming picture of increasing pressures suffered by family caregivers. For example, it found:
Bruce Mahony, who runs two Home Instead Senior Care locations in Toronto, says many of his clients are faced with the burden of looking after elderly parents in some way and also have children of their own at home. What’s more, the elderly parents often live in a different part of the country so the long-distance aspect comes into play. This, he said, can have serious impact on one’s work performance. “If this is becoming a problem in an organization, action needs to be taken,” he says. “Very often, EAPs (Employee Assistance Programs) step up to handle the eldercare portfolio. But many companies who want to retain older workers – people in their 50s and up – will have a better chance of hanging on to them if they have a program in place to look after this sort of thing.
Assist Employees Eldercare providers go into companies and tell the employee assistance people about services that can assist employees who might need help. Indeed, the problems of working people trying to deal with their elderly parents goes beyond taking them to the doctor. There can also be a wide range of legal and financial concerns. Dealing with the healthcare system is another issue. It can be a bureaucratic nightmare in terms of time searching for information. That is where eldercare consultants come into the picture. They help employers avoid the issue of ‘presenteeism,’ an HR term referring to distractions that take up time at work. Dealing with all the demands of elderly parents is becoming a big chunk of this today and ‘presenteeism’ is most defi nitely on the rise. They will go into an organization and do seminars that effectively arm employees, or their managers, with the tools to help them navigate the healthcare system, never mind the legal system. The idea is to prepare workers before a crisis takes place. Unfortunately, most people don’t do that. The degree to which Canadians are unprepared for their own aging is, in fact, alarming. “Fewer than 50 per cent of Canadians have a will,” says Mary Ellen Tomlinson, of Senior Care Options Inc., “and even less have a Power of Attorney. But what if something happens, an elderly parent has a stroke and is suddenly incapacitated. Then the children need legal documents for access to their parent’s safety deposit box. If they don’t have such documents, even having Power of Attorney won’t matter.” Eldercare consultants give employees the tools to handle a crisis before it happens. “If you’re an HR manager, you should take cost-effective steps that have an immediate payback so your people won’t be costing your organization time and money,” says Tomlinson. Employers must be armed with information to help their people navigate the healthcare system, as well as the legal and banking systems. In the long run, it will be a good investment.” ■
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Jerry Amernic is a writer with Freedman & Associates