Life Meets Work Blog

The Washington Post just ran a special piece about caring for elderly parents.

Some statistical highlights:

Men who turn 65 can anticipate 17 more years, and women 20 more.  Two-thirds of these seniors will need some form of long-term care.

Yet….fewer than 5% of the elderly live in institutions. And nursing home use has been falling for 20 years.

How is that possible? Families are stepping up to the plate.

Most of this care comes from women. Seven of every 10 adult children who help frail parents are daughters.

But don’t imagine these women are leaving the workforce in droves.  More than half of adult children who help elderly parents also work full time, and 10 percent part time.

The author writes, “Most caregivers with jobs report sometimes having to arrive late or leave early; smaller proportions take leaves, cut back to part-time schedules or turn down promotions. A few even give up their jobs.”

Employers have to ask themselves several questions then:

• How important are these caregivers (boomers with decades of experience) to the team?
• Is there an ROI in programs that help reduce their stress?
• What am I willing and able to do to keep them on board?

The answers?

• Very
• Yes
• ???

We can anticipate the answer to the first. These boomer caregivers are our knowledge transfer agents—the ones who understand big picture trends and customer relationships the best.

We know the answer to the second.  Mountains of stress management literature tells us unequivocally that sustained stress limits performance, leads to workplace turnover, and increases medical and insurance costs.

But the answer to the third is obviously much harder to arrive at as we must examine our own organizations. Where are we at culturally? Can our managers support these changes? Do we have the technology to change the way we work?

Change is hard. And there is no one-size-fits-all solution for workplace flexibility.

Can you offer flexible start and end times?
Okay, yeah. Easy.

What about work from home options one or two days a week? 
Yeah, I suppose.

What about fulltime telecommuting?
Oh. Hmm.

Would you support an extended family leave?
Sure, if we had to. But just how extended are we talking?

Could you transition these folks into consultant/contractor positions?
Gee…that would have huge implications.

We get it.  These aren’t easy questions to answer.  But they aren’t going to get any easier the longer you wait.  It only gets harder as the need increases and the time frame for implementation shrinks,

In the case of Life Meets Work boomer blogger Eileen Thompson, her company’s retirement policy prevents her from consulting for the company for six months post-retirement and only with executive VP level permission thereafter.

The reality? She’d have a far easier time contributing her “retirement” services to a competitor.

Is that what you want for your senior level staff? Of course not.

Is that what could happen if you don’t question and prepare. Of course, yes.

Posted by Jaime