In the U.S., 73% of employees stated they had some type of caregiving responsibility. Of these employees, more than 80% of them stated that their role as a caregiver has affected their work productivity, according to a Harvard Business School study.

Employers have a key role in ensuring employees feel supported as caregivers. In a panel discussion during From Day One’s July virtual conference, Lydia Dishman, senior editor of growth and engagement at Fast Company, spoke with leaders on how their companies support caregiving and the impact they see.

Offering Support for All Types of Caregiving

When the pandemic closed the doors to offices and buildings, employees who were also caregivers had to learn to be a worker and caregiver under the same roof.

The reality of returning to the office has been difficult for these caregivers. In a study of the current trends in the child care industry, researchers found that nationally, child care employment has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. With limited access and increased costs of child care providers, workers feel the emotional and economic strain of separating from their caregiving duties as they return to the office.

Dan Figurski, president at KinderCare Education, recognizes the importance of child care benefits in his own company. In an employee survey, Figurski and his team discovered that child care was the second most requested benefit after medical benefits. In response, he and his team developed a plan to make sure employees’ needs were met.

“Cost and accessibility are two huge issues for child care. So, we’re connecting KinderCare partners with organizations that are partnering with other childcare providers to have what we call subsidized childcare,” Figurski said. “We [also] increase the subsidy of our child care benefits so our employees who have children pay no more than $100 a week, while we cover the remaining cost.”

Listening and acting accordingly to meet employees’ needs yielded positive results for KinderCare, which saw an increase in employee retention with these new benefits.

But caregiving isn’t just limited to child care. For some employees, providing care for their loved ones or parents can also be a responsibility. According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 24% of employees have access to paid family leave in the private sector workforce, leaving a resounding majority of employees paying costs out of pocket.

Companies need to also recognize the various types of caregiving and ensure they have benefits that encompass all of them. Christopher Smith, senior director of benefits at Universal Music Group, lauds one of the benefits his company provides to employees. “We introduced paid family caregiver leave where we’re not just focusing on folks who are having babies but focusing on family, so we have [time] to take care of each other,” Smith said. “I thought that that was absolutely incredible.”

Providing Flexibility for New Parents at Work

Without the need to commute during the pandemic, employees who juggled caregiving responsibilities were able to maximize time in their favor. For new parents, the shift in remote work was a prolonged opportunity to be there for their newborns.

As a leader of a company that produces breast pumps, products, and support, Dana Kirwin, director of employer and government relations at Medela, acknowledges how important it was to support parents in the early stages of parenthood. “We have a lot of [working parents] at Medela who need more flexibility and are capable of doing everything that needs doing. But maybe they need to take a break in the afternoon to get their kids from the bus stop and then jump back on or want to start their day a little bit later so they can get everybody out the door in the morning,” Kirwin said. “As a company, we’ve taken that to heart and moved from it being a manager-to-manager decision and instituted some policies company-wide to support it and I think it's been a very welcome change.”

For new parents, the return to work can be daunting when it comes to handling both work and caregiving responsibilities. New parents are dealing with sleep deprivation, and new mothers may also be dealing with symptoms of postpartum depression, which heightens anxiety and depressive thoughts.

Employees who become new parents simply aren’t the same as they once were, Kirwin says. During the transitional time of returning to work, employees need support not just from their companies but from coworkers as well. “Everybody says, ‘Oh, you're back.’ And they rush off to the way things used to be before that baby arrived. For an employee who comes back to work and is juggling sleeplessness and breastfeeding, a lot of that struggle is invisible,” Kirwin said. “The mental health and cultural support inside an organization to recognize what those employees are going through by instilling structure and policies that give them space to transition back is just really important.”

Instilling these types of change at a company starts with open communication. Employees need a safe environment to voice their needs, and employers need to be able to provide that.

Madison Randolph, Psy.D., registered psychological associate at Oaks Psychological Services, said providing a safe environment for employees who are new parents can help normalize these conversations for future employees. “Normalizing those conversations can be helpful for individuals that are experiencing those transitions, where everything is changing or shifting,” Randolph said. “Making it more of a conversation than a quiet topic is helpful.”

Easing Accessibility to Benefits

To use company benefits, employees need to first know and understand what benefits are provided to them. However, with difficult-to-understand terms and technical issues, accessibility to benefits can be a challenge.

Arturo Arteaga, senior total rewards director at VCA Animal Hospitals, said communication and reeducation on employee benefits are key in making sure employees know where to look for their benefits.

“Benefits are not easy to memorize and too complex to know exactly what you have to do in each case,” Arteaga said. “Employees need to know where to go, where to find information, who is the right person to talk to so they can take advantage of those benefits at any given time.”

For employees, not only can finding information about their benefits be a challenge, but access to these benefits can also be difficult.

Smith emphasizes the need for companies to make sure employees can access their benefits information more conveniently. “You're not usually needing any benefits when you're sitting at your desk. It’s maybe after five o'clock and now you’re in line at the pharmacy, “What's the number that I call? What's my ID number?” We get those questions a lot, so we need to do whatever we can to reduce any barriers to accessing benefits information.”

Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City.