As an employer, providing well-rounded caregiving support to your employees is essential. It’s important to understand the differences between child care and eldercare support and the complexities that come with each. Let’s take a look at how you can provide well-rounded caregiving support to your employees so they can feel supported in their personal lives and their work life.
Understanding Child Care Services
Child care services encompass a wide variety of activities, from providing daycare and afterschool programs to helping parents find reliable nannies or babysitters. Child care support is critical for working parents, especially those who have children under 5 years old.
According to a survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 89.1% of families with children have at least one parent working – including many single parents. Furthermore, 62.3% of children with married parents have both parents employed full-time or part-time outside the home. With this in mind, employers should consider providing child care support such as onsite daycare, discounted rates at local daycare facilities or babysitting services, flexible work hours, and more.
These are important benefits that can help reduce stress for working parents and encourage them to focus on their work without worrying about having enough time for their family obligations.
Employers should consider offering onsite daycare centers, flexible working hours, and backup childcare options as part of their benefits package in order to support employees who are responsible for caring for young children. Additionally, employers should consider offering financial assistance for childcare expenses such as tuition fees or transportation costs. Each of these benefits will not only help your employees feel more supported, but they’ll also boost productivity and morale.
Understanding Eldercare Services
Eldercare services focus on the unique needs of elderly individuals, ranging from home health aides to adult daycare centers. Eldercare is one of the fastest-growing needs for families in the U.S., especially as our population continues to age and life expectancy increases. According to AARP, 53 million Americans currently provide unpaid eldercare services – that’s roughly 1 in 5 employees!
Employers can support their employees by offering eldercare services, such as subsidies for home health aides, discounts on medical supplies and equipment, referral services to long-term care facilities, flexible scheduling options to accommodate caregiving responsibilities, or comprehensive family caregiving benefits such as Homethrive.
These benefits can help employees better manage their caregiving obligations while still attending to their work duties. Additionally, employers should consider offering financial assistance for eldercare services such as medical bills or transportation costs.
Providing well-rounded eldercare requires more than just providing financial assistance; it also entails understanding the emotional and physical needs of those receiving care. Employers should ensure their eldercare services program includes access to medical resources such as medication reminders and home healthcare visits, as well as emotional support resources such as counseling and social activities. In addition, employers should also consider offering respite care options so that caregivers can take a break from their responsibilities without worrying about the safety of their loved ones.
Just like child care benefits, offering employees the peace of mind that their aging family members are being taken care of can not only help to reduce stress, but also increase productivity and company loyalty.
Creating An Environment Where Everyone Can Thrive
Providing well-rounded caregiving support is essential in today’s world, where most families include multiple generations living side by side. But providing well-rounded caregiving support isn’t only important for employees; it can also be beneficial to employers. By understanding the differences between child care and eldercare services, as well as ways to make them more cost-effective, employers can help their employees provide the best possible care for their loved ones.
Homethrive is proud to now offer end-to-end family caregiving support, now with childcare assistance powered by TOOTRiS, a platform that makes child care convenient, affordable and on-demand by connecting working parents to nearly 200,000 providers nationwide.
Listen to this podcast episode to learn more about this new partnership:
We’d love to partner with your organization to provide critical caregiving support. To learn more about supporting family caregivers, check out more resources on our website. If you’d like to receive insights delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our weekly newsletter!