Businesses are coming to realize they cannot stand aside and let their employees take on the burden of caring for an elderly relative unaided, at least not without a cost.
Maybe one of your workers seems to always be on the phone handling family crises, while another is forced into early retirement—taking with them much of your company’s institutional memory—in order to take care of a parent. Either way, you pay.
To make the situation more concrete. MetLife and the National Alliance for Caregiving have an online calculator to give businesses an idea of their costs. Let’s say you are a relatively small company with one employee providing eldercare. The employee makes $18 an hour, including benefits. In that case, your cost is $2,193.88, including
- Replacement cost if the employee quits as a result of caregiving: $432.00
- Absenteeism (full days): $299.52
- Partial absenteeism (partial days): $114.84
- Costs due to workday interruptions: $387.00
- Costs due to crisis in care: $259.20
- Costs of supervisor time: $106.92
- Costs due to unpaid leave (finding a replacement, etc.): $230.40
That’s the cost per employee, so if you have 10 employees in this situation, your cost is $21,938.80, and so on.
A number of businesses have taken on the challenge head-on:
- Prudential Financial allows workers to hire a geriatric-care specialist with a $100 copay.
- McGraw-Hill offers the addition of an adult family member (an elderly relative) to the health insurance plan at regular family rates.
- Verizon Communications’ wireless division offers emergency in-home care, and has even extended the benefit to some part-time employees.
- Freddie Mac offers monthly support groups for those caring for family members and provides emergency elder home care, for which employees pay $15 a day.
- AstraZeneca employees receive 6 hours per year with a geriatric care expert who will help them access elder care.
- IBM offers discounted long-term care insurance, an ambulance at the touch of a button, and free software to assist employees who use the internet to find caregiver resources.
One of the best ways to alleviate the burden on your employees is through a companion care service such as Stay at Home. By letting us take care of the day-to-day issues, you make your employees happier and more productive.
You also
- Control your caregiver costs.
- Reduce your human resources requirements by offering Stay at Home as a preferred provider to your employees.
- Increase employee loyalty.
- Enhance recruitment and retention.
Your employees are worth keeping around. Let us help.