Caregiving and efficiency at work: not mutually exclusive
Space Your Place has identified four key areas that are important for leaders and decision-makers at organizations to consider in order to manage the unique and challenging needs of the sandwich generation.
The sandwich generation defines the age group, typically thirties and forties, who have a parent aged 65 or older, and are raising at least 1 child younger than 18 or providing financial support to an adult child. If you’re a millennial family, add to that the pressures of buying a house or saving for a child’s education whilst still recovering from the economic blows of the pandemic. The odds are stacked against you, and we believe it’s the responsibility of organizations (where we spend more than half of our lives) to support employees. By doing so you create value for the business by taking care of your most-important asset, your people, whilst creating the opportunity to foster the benefits that multi-generational responsibilities can offer (cross-pollination of happy children and healthy grandparents).
How can leaders and decision-makers at organizations support the sandwich generation? We’ve rounded up four key areas:
1. Create safe spaces for open sharing
You won’t always know what is exactly going on with your employees in their personal lives. Creating intentional spaces and moments to facilitate dialogue around the subject is powerful. You’re signaling to your team that you care, and by doing that you’ll be better equipped to react and deliver what it is they need. Openness on your challenges as a leader balancing home and work life builds a trusting environment as well, so don’t forget to bring your whole self to work.
2. Consider flexible working arrangements
The pandemic brought remote work to the fore, and the definition of flexible work arrangements includes allowances for employees to look after their wellbeing (fitness programs, healthy food, mental health support and more...the more customized to suit the needs of your employees, the better!). Neil Carberry, chief executive of the UK’s Recruitment & Employment Confederation, says: “firms are thinking very flexibly about meeting employees’ concerns...hybrid working reduces commuting costs and in this environment is more attractive.”. If your father who suffers from Alzheimers’ health aide doesn’t show up, you’re not going to present that pitch to the board members, you’re going to go home and look after him. If you’ve watched Love Actually, you’ll remember Sarah who is the caretaker for her sick brother and how it affected not only her work but love life too. You’re not going to lose out if you allow employees to decide their work arrangements, because at the end of the day employee physical and mental health matters to the business.
3. Adjust your structure to promote interconnectivity
A team that is integrated and understands each others’ roles well will be better positioned to fill in if a team member if off for family reasons (and any other for that matter). As desirable as it is to set-up a team that is highly specialized in each of their functions, building some cushioning and breaking down those silos is a more realistic approach. You want to be well-equipped to deal with the day-to-day running of the business, and not be unprepared in the face of inevitable disruptions.
4. Survey your employees
Above all, the most important step is to survey your employees on what they need or what they are dealing with. You can then offer specialized seminars for any caregiving topics that are particularly present for your employees. Gauge sentiment on the priorities of your community based on attendance and interest in seminars of different subjects. Move forward with resource and referral programs or on-site support groups based on this. Take yourself as an example, imagine you were to find out today that your parent has been diagnosed with a debilitating illness and you now have to take the role of carer. Who do you turn to next? With integrated senior care planning in an organization, there would be an agent that you can connect to to help you process emotionally and mentally, to help advise on home care, transportation needs, and arrange and offer any other support you may need. Being available in those first steps is so much more powerful than we know unless we’ve gone through the experience personally. So, get to know the experience of your employees so you can make informed decisions.
If you are an executive and you are interested in support to optimize the workplace experience for your sandwich generation employees, please get in touch. Space Your Place offers highly customized consultation services and programs (including specialized workshops) designed to fast-track integration of wellbeing, connection, productivity and efficiency in both virtual and physical spaces.