Many North American employers are leading the way with creative strategies that are often low cost and easy to implement. Here are some examples that benefit family caregivers.
Alberta Treasury Branches
Workplace 2.0 allows team members to work from home or the office in order to accomodate family schedules or commuting.
Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals
Provides employees six free hours a year of eldercare services, either in person or via the phone, by a nationwide network of nurse practitioners specializing in geriatrics.
McKinsey & Co
The Take Time program gives the option to take extra time off between projects. This time can be used for whatever the employee chooses be it travel or family care.
Workers' Compensation Board
Flexible work options to balance home and work life. 24 hour access to an Employee & Family Assistance Program.
Ivanhoe Cambridge
Full-time employees receive compassionate leave top-up payments when called upon to care for a loved one (to 80% of salary for 8 weeks).
HP Advanced Solutions
Employees have 10 paid personal days and start with 3 weeks paid vacation.
PricewaterhouseCoopers
“Sick days” can be used not just for one’s own illness, but also to care for a sick child, parent or spouse. Also provides a “Special Needs Caregivers Circle” to help employees find the resources they need to balance work/life responsibilities.
Sas Institute North Carolina
Credits its low employee turnover rate (less than 4 percent) to its work/life programming and support.
Aetna Insurance
Cut attrition in half after implementing a part-time return-to-work program after family leave, saving more than $1 million annually.
McGraw-Hill Education
Allows employees to enroll one other adult family member, such as a parent, in their health insurance plan at regular family rates.
Chicago Children's Memorial Hospital
Offers employees 20 days of back-up care annually for each elderly dependent.
First Tennessee Bank
Found that implementing workplace flexibility created a 50% higher retention rate. Bank determined that as “employee satisfaction increased, customer retention increased by 7%.”
Ernst & Young
Reported a significant decrease in turnover rates after adopting family-friendly policies and benefits and estimate their savings in turnover costs at $17 million.
KPMG LLP
Offers a "Personal Care" program that provides employees with up to 50 hours of paid time-off annually to help with a range of personal matters, such as family emergencies and personal appointments.
Baptist Health South Florida
Offers back-up care for employees caring for family members. In the first nine months of the program, the company realized $65,000 in savings related to reduced absenteeism.
Supports for employees do not have to solely be for caregivers - numerous organizations will allow employees to use sick-leave donations for additional time off. This works by letting employees donate sick-leave time to general accounts that employees can access as needed.
Some employers will also rovide a range of alternative work arrangements to their employees which can include working from home, flex hours, shortened work weeks, earned days off, job sharing and more.