Atlantic Canadian businesses are losing productivity and failing to retain people as a result of the pressures extending from people’s commitments outside of the workplace, as working caregivers. It’s a reality affecting more and more of the workforce, advocates say, with the evolving situation tied to a mix of demographic changes, atop new ways we’re living and working.

New relief, as several advocates recently told Atlantic Business Magazine, comes when employers recognize the caregivers in their ranks and act on offering modern caregiver supports. There must be basic recognition of who is putting in hours in unpaid caregiving. Employers are also being advised to develop a basic understanding of how factors like new family make-ups — with fewer siblings for instance — are affecting how care is being managed in our communities, often with more taken on by working caregivers.

All in all, it’s considered an area with room for fresh ideas and clear workplace policy.

“Caregiving” isn’t pure friend or family time but covers active care for aging individuals in need of more advanced, direct assistance, and care for individuals with disease or illness of any age. It’s a “particularly relevant issue” for employers in Atlantic Canada, said Aimée Foreman, founding chair of the new registered non-profit Caregivers NB, not least of all given the average hours of unpaid caregiving already runs slightly higher here than in the rest of the country (an average of 5.7 versus 5.1 hours per day), with fear the gap could grow. The region is facing factors including a rapidly aging population paired with new limitations on immigration. There is hope of drawing in new participants already living locally into the workforce, but less potential there without understanding individual needs.

Employers not seeing working caregivers in their ranks, not responding to changing needs, she suggested, risk a rise in employee burnout or otherwise the loss of skilled frontline employees, managers, executives and board members.

Per Statistics Canada, at least 4 in 10 Canadians at last count provided unpaid care to either children or care-dependent adults within the past year. Half of Canadians currently are expected to be caregivers at some point in their lifetimes.

Founder and CEO of care economy advising company Silvermark, Foreman said she took on her added role with Caregivers NB because she wanted to do more to help people challenged by their caregiving commitments. Part of that involves connecting with other non-profits, surveying available programs and becoming a centralized resource for caregivers, regardless if care is related to say mental health or a disability.

Risk of losing talent

The closer you look at the subject of working caregivers, the clearer the challenges become. Last year, Statistics Canada highlighted “sandwich caregivers” as an example, being adults providing unpaid care to both children and care-dependent adults. The agency report highlighted about 66% of these caregivers were also not retired. Of these working caregivers, two-thirds said, “their caregiving responsibilities affected their employment or job-seeking activities in the past 12 months.” They’d sought to adjust their work schedules, cut back their hours, reduce work responsibilities. They looked at job postings, weighing options with greater flexibility, or even reduced hours or demands.

In an online webinar May 22, members of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce heard more about: “Supporting caregivers in today’s workforce.” Chamber CEO Morgan Peters said the session came out of conversations with Foreman. For him, he said a focus is really retention of workers long-term, and well-being all around in the workplace.

“Especially with changes to the immigration system over the last year or so and reductions in immigration, we’re trying to encourage our members, to provide them tools for engaging more with the domestic (local) workforce,” he said, emphasizing a need for gains and not losses.

It’s about more than conversations. In feedback to various surveys and polling, working caregivers have expressed interest in supports including monthly allowances, free counselling and respite services. However, days off where the reason includes caregiving, or more flexible work arrangements have also been mentioned.

The subject falls alongside others the Chamber has been publicly discussing in recent years, being issues perhaps once siloed years ago as home or social issues. They include access to primary healthcare and housing. Tax rates, government debt levels, red tape are all still important, Peters said. However, these other subjects — what he referred to as “business enablers” — are very much also in mind.

Understanding the needs and desires

Christa Haanstra is a caregiver to her father, who has late-stage dementia. She is also founder and managing director of 4CStrategy Group, focused in the healthcare sector, and lead for the Working Caregiver initiative with the national Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence (CCCE), a program of the Azrieli Foundation. She also took part in the recent webinar held by the Chamber.

Per CCCE research and survey, she noted, it seems a lot of business leaders in Canada just haven’t spoken to caregivers in their organizations and don’t really know what their people might need. She acknowledged it can be a sensitive subject but added it’s possible to prompt discussions.

“What we heard loud and clear in regards to that is when a senior leader, so someone in the c-suite, a CEO, a VP, an executive vp, even a director is talking openly about their caregiving experience, it sets the stage that other people can bring it forward,” she said.

The CCCE has found, in terms of policy in Canada, caregivers will more commonly speak to “one-off” experiences, arrangements with their respective employers. There also may be a policy on the books related to childcare, as an example, or one related to medical leave, but not necessarily policies taking into account all facets of caregiving.

Targeting policies and practices isn’t easy. For example, would you stick to immediate family members? In the more than 80-page report “Caring in Canada” released last year, involving a survey of more than 3,000 caregivers in Canada and care providers, the CCCE noted racialized caregivers are “significantly more likely to be caring for a family member who is not a partner, parent, child or sibling” versus others. In a similar vein, of varying pressures and scenarios, caregivers identifying as LGBTQS2+ were found “significantly more likely than heterosexual caregivers to be caring for someone with a mental health condition, while sibling caregivers most commonly care for someone with an intellectual or developmental disability.”

But notably, of those surveyed for the CCCE, a full 42% of caregivers had never attempted to access paid care for the person receiving care and only 16 per cent said the person receiving care had used home care services in the year prior. There were lower rates for people in rural areas.

“It’s a bit of a provocative statement to say we would love to see employers considering how to work with and support working caregivers in the same way that we support new parents,” Haanstra said.

The trajectory for new parents is viewed as understood, even predictable. She noted there are also general patterns common to some of the care situations. She suggested employers can be actively working now to better understand what their employees may be managing, and help to accommodate those life experiences.

“It isn’t that they work less, it’s that they work differently. So how do we accommodate that working differently?,” she asked.

Back at Caregivers NB, Foreman said the organization is currently on the lookout for examples within the business community in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada more generally of companies connecting with caregivers in their ranks, instituting innovative ideas or clear policies capturing all caregivers.

“If there’s an employer that’s interested or is already doing things, then we want to know. I would love to talk to them. Because it is going to take some championing, like any issue,” she said.

There is an active Caregivers NS organization, in addition to Caregivers NB. Foreman said there have also been “hopeful” talks with individuals in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, seeing potential for greater research and advocacy across the region on behalf of caregivers. Locally, she said New Brunswickers can expect more webinars and other activities in future, with the goal of raising awareness and promoting helpful ideas rising to the forefront in local business. A call for an initial board for Caregivers NB is coming soon.

 

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