In this solo episode, Kortney is diving into an often overlooked topic—working caregivers. Last week, we had an insightful conversation on this topic, and today Kortney shares her own family's journey through this challenging landscape. Her mom became the sole caregiver for her elderly parents, which drastically affected her ability to maintain a full-time job. This episode will explore the dual roles that many employees balance, the physical and emotional toll it takes, and the critical need for supportive workplace environments. We'll discuss actionable solutions like respite care, flexible hours, and tech solutions, emphasizing the importance of employer understanding and open dialogues. Whether you're a caregiver or an employer, this episode aims to shed light on how we can create a more inclusive and supportive work culture.

Connect with today's guest:

Connect with us at:

KortneyRoss.com

LinkedIn: @kortneyross

Instagram: @nextgenworkculture

Facebook: @nextgenworkculture

Welcome back to the Nextgen work culture. Today, I wanted to

share a little bit of a personal perspective on the

working caregiver conversation that we started last week with

Ashley Blackington. I've seen, I

mentioned last week, I've seen my mom go through this herself,

becoming the primary caregiver for her parents as they've

aged. Her father, unfortunately, was diagnosed with cancer, which

became a multi year journey where she

was doing most of the care for him, taking them back and

forth to doctors appointments, keeping up with all of the ordering

of the supplies, and just all of the stress that

comes along with that. And then since his passing, she's

also had to significantly help my

grandmother through a couple of surgeries and

medical issues and just dealing with, you know, adjusting

to life without her husband. And

I've seen that it can really take a toll on somebody.

She isn't really able to work a full time job

because the position that she had wasn't really giving her the

flexibility she needed or the time off that would be required

for going to all of the doctor's appointments with her dad when he was sick.

So she made the decision to leave her full time job. Um, she

was already working or on

her own business. She's an entrepreneur and

runs a small kind of antique

store with multiple vendors. She was running that

together with a couple of my family members, and now she runs it on her

own. So that has, she's shifted to make that her

full time thing instead of just doing it a couple of days a week like

she was doing when she worked full time. So I've seen this personally

in my own family and how it can really impact someone trying

to be a full time employee or

an employee of any kind. And also the caregiver,

the sole caregiver, in some cases, to an elderly

loved one. Unfortunately, she

doesn't have any remaining siblings to help her. Neither of her kids

are really able to help because I live too far away. My brother works

full time, so all of that burden has been on her, and

it really is a lot. According to

the AARP, about 61%

of caregivers are also working full time jobs. So it's not

like this is something that's uncommon. A lot of

your employees are probably dealing with trying to

also balance caregiver responsibilities. And the

Family Caregiver alliance found that 70%

of working caregivers suffer work related

difficulties due to that dual

role of being an employee and a caregiver. It can be really

challenging. Also, 23% of

older caregivers caring for people over 65

report a higher degree of physical strain

compared to 17% of those who were

younger caregivers. So as we have this

generation, moving into becoming caregivers

for the older baby boomers who are now becoming

over 65 is really not

only emotionally, but also physically difficult on them,

and they may need a little extra support from

their employers. Ashley and I talked about this last

week and how you could use the dovetail

app as an employee benefit to provide that

support. There's also some other

benefits that we discussed, like respite care,

which would be a benefit where, you know, say the

employee is going on vacation or they need to have their own surgery

of some kind, because we just talked about how this is really physically difficult

on older caregivers as well. So

respite care would help provide care for

someone that that person is the sole caregiver for for just a few

days or a couple of weeks. You could also provide

case managers or employee assistant

program, employee assistance programs

that would offer that care management of some kind.

And there are technical solutions that you can offer, such as

providing access to the app that

Ashley and I discussed last week. But the biggest things that

caregivers need from their employees is just that the

employee understands and

recognizes the diverse needs

of caregivers, not just childcare,

but also elder care. So there's a lot of talk about what can

we do for working parents. I talk about that a lot on this

podcast. That's what I'm super passionate about, because that's the phase of life that I'm

in right now and what I see the most of. But there's

also a ton of people who are

dealing with caring for the elderly or maybe someone who is

disabled. And a lot of times we have this sandwich generation that's

stuck caring for both, where you're not only caring

for somebody who is

getting older or having some other sort of medical problems,

but also still trying to raise your own children. And that brings

a whole nother level of difficulty into the

conversation. And I do have an episode about

the sandwich generation if you go way back to some of the first episodes.

Also, employees just need to

encourage, or employers need to encourage an open

dialogue and just have that

understanding that employees can come to you, talk to

you about their struggles, tell them, you know, tell you what they're really taking

the day off. Hey, I need the day off to go take my mom to

the doctor rather than coming up with some fake excuse

because they don't feel like they can tell you about their real lives outside of

work and being your employee that comes along with just

supporting, having a great work culture where everyone feels

supported and included and like they can actually talk about their lives outside of work

and be a real human being and an actual person and not just

an employee. It's also really great if you could

offer some flexibility where, you know, we

can flex hours or help make our own schedules or

something along those lines, or even provide remote work options if you're in a

field where, of course, that is possible.

So there's lots of ways that employees

can receive a little bit of assistance from their

employers, and a lot of it isn't really going to cost you anything. It just

might require a bit of a culture shift or a bit of training

for the managers to make sure that you're all on the same

page. It's very important that we

provide some sort of support for not

only working parents, but also caregivers who are taking care of

anyone, any loved one, whether

it's their mom or dad or their neighbor

next door, or a older

child who still has a disability that requires

them to live at home, you know, past 18, or

there's lots and lots of situations. So just keep in mind that

everyone's situation is unique. Try to get to know those

situations. You know, do some surveys to

understand what the needs of your employees really are, and

then you can start to figure out how can we reach them and help

them and provide benefits to them to meet

those, you know, meet them where they are in life.

So thank you so much for your

support and listening, and I encourage you to share

your own caregiving stories and

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