Start creating your more
caregiver-friendly workplace now
Throughout all of our work helping companies to support employee caregivers, we advocate taking a number of first steps toward strengthening the employee caregiver support offerings in your company – but the most important thing is to GET STARTED!
The basic steps you will want to take are:
- Identify currently-offered EAP programs that can be easily repurposed for employee caregivers (i.e., programs for working Moms, burnout avoidance, financial planning, etc); add modules to these programs to address the specific concerns of employee caregivers; over time, add new programs to fill gaps not yet met
- This typically entails identifying the gaps in what is currently offered for “all employees” versus “employee caregivers” and setting a course for filling those gaps over a 1-, 2-, and 3-year period.
- Set KPIs for measuring your caregiver-related costs
- Wherever possible, existing KPIs (such as absentee-ism and turnover) can be repurposed to yield metrics related specific to caregivers; other KPIs can be added throughout multiple points in the employee journey.
- Explore needs and attitudes among employee caregivers via employee surveys – pulse-style, quarterly, bi-annual, annual
- Even pre-pandemic, many companies conducted multiple employee surveys annually to stay on top of employee sentiments; survey frequency increased over the past two years, with the tumultuous situation.
- When employee survey(s) already exist, caregiver-relevant questions can and should be added.
- Utilize your employee touchpoints and communications channels to build awareness about employee caregivers and their challenges, to emphasize the importance of planning, and inform all of company-offered supports
- Good communications ensures better utilization of services offered, as well as reducing the stigma associated with caregiving.
- This in turn encourages more open and earlier dialog and avoidance of potential problems, as well as creating an environment in which planning ahead is encouraged.
- Taking a leadership role with not only your employees, but also your stakeholder universe
- As you experiment and strengthen the caregiver supports for your own employees, share what you're learning throughout your stakeholder universe.
- You can even partner with local non-profits in the aging and caregiving space to sponsor programs to help communities where your company operates.
AMI’s specific offerings for companies support their employee caregivers across the spectrum of the virtuous cycle:
- Keynotes, ERG Speeches and Workshops with Debbie Howard (Live and Online) … I will consult with you to zero in on the most relevant topic or topics for your group, agree on a theme, and set the timing with key milestones leading up to a productive event
- Moderation of Deep-dive Sessions (i.e., Corporate Strategy Planning and/or Leadership Optimization Session (1/2- or full-day) … Workshops led by an objective “outsider” can help to open exploration of new possibilities and viable ways forward. Let me help you and your team move the dial forward in creating a more caregiver-friendly workplace. These workshops are highly customized to meet you/your team’s specific needs.
- Content Strategy, Development, and Delivery … Together, we’ll develop a content strategy and execution plan that works seamlessly within your existing employee communications, HR, and workplace ecosystem. Everything from foundational collections of caregiver-friendly information (i.e., self-care, emergency planning, balancing work and caregiving, etc.) to ongoing, regular streams of content (i.e., blogs, tips, checklists, evergreen video content, etc.) for use in corporate employee communications channels.
- Employee Research Strategy, Development and Delivery … Together, we’ll develop a research strategy and execution plan that helps you create benchmarks for your employee caregivers; these will be the basis for metrics to help you in supporting this employee segment going forward. I will help you add questions to existing surveys in your organization, or create an entirely new survey.
- Large-scale Customized Training and Education for Both Managers and Employees (variety of formats, depending upon clien needs: 1x/week over 6-8 weeks, ½ day, 1-day, 2-day, etc.) … Fast-track your journey as a caregiver-friendly workplace by demonstrating your true commitment with a visible training experience that addresses skills-building at an organizational level. Utilize as a kick-off to super-charge improvements that are underway, or use as a centerpiece for special promotions such as National Family Caregivers Month (November).
- Delivered via Corporate Caregiver Camps, co-founded by Debbie Howard, Jonathan Brody, and Tanya Krim
- https:www.caregivercamps.com
NOTE: Whenever possible, our preference is for "in person" workshops and large-scale training experiences, since there is no substitute for in-person facilitation - especially with matters of the heart. However, adaptations have been made to accommodate "live virtual" meetings via Zoom and other platforms, so this is also an option. At this point in time, it is assumed that most deliverables will be in “live, virtual” formats.