Why do so many people with caring responsibilities feel forced to give up work?
“When the call came in to say mum had had another emergency episode, my employer was concerned all wasn’t well. It had been another episode in short succession and I had already spent some time away from the office. Of course I rushed to her bedside, but in the back of my mind I knew that I had responsibilities and commitments in the workplace and a contract of employment to adhere to.”
Apprentice training coordinator and functional English tutor Nicki Haywood is just one of three million people in the UK who combine unpaid care responsibilities with paid work. With an ageing population, a dwindling pension pot, and more and more workers tasked with supporting elderly parents, often alongside their own childcare needs, this rapidly growing army is feeling the strain.
“The sheer diversity of their caring responsibilities – what they do, how they do it, who they care for, how many hours are involved and how they feel about it – mean carers come in all shapes and sizes and often feel uncomfortable talking about their private lives at work,” says Ben Black, director of My Family Care.
For Haywood, when her mum was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, looking after her was “just something she did,” but it wasn’t until her responsibilities at home began to impose on her professional life that she knew she had to have an awkward conversation with her manager.
“There is a lot of emotional turmoil when your mum is very poorly but you still want to manage the demands of your job,” she says. “I have a fantastic, close working relationship with my manager, and he has responded with empathy and understanding, but I have a role in keeping him in the loop.”
An online poll from Carers UK found that over two million people have given up work to care for a loved one, and yet just 38 per cent of employers are said to monitor the caring responsibilities of their workforce, according to a joint report from My Family Care and the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (enei).
“At the moment, the legal requirements on employers to provide support for carers is quite limited,” says Annabel Mackay, managing associate at law firm Addleshaw Goddard. The right to request flexible working, open to any employee with 26 weeks’ service, could go some way to helping those with long-term commitments, “but it would mean a permanent change to working conditions,” she says.
That may not be appropriate for the thousands of people who are thrust into emergency caring situations for a short period. “Every employee is entitled to a reasonable amount of unpaid leave to deal with an emergency involving a dependant, but it is meant to deal with an immediate crisis, so it is not something that you could use on a regular basis,” she adds.
An area that is likely to cause confusion and most likely where employers will fall foul with the increase of flexible working requests, is ‘discrimination by association’ where an employee is treated less favourably because of their association with another person with a protected characteristic. “You shouldn’t make judgments as to which request is more worthy,” says Mackay. “The employer needs to consider: is what the employee proposing that disruptive? Can it easily be accommodated?”
Katherine Wilson, strategic manager for Employers for Carers, a membership forum for businesses, says while there has been increasing awareness of caring issues from policy-makers and government, there is still much to be done to support working carers. With one in nine of the UK’s workforce currently providing care, and experts predicting numbers to rise significantly, “this is a reality that employers have to face now, rather than waiting until it’s too late and losing talented and productive staff as a result,” she says.
The challenge for employers and managers in particular is to respond to staff in a “fair, flexible and equable” way, and still meet the “organisation’s deliverables,” Maria Ayaz, equality and inclusion manager at Leeds University explains. “Support services help to improve productivity, reduce the level of sickness absence and also help promote our brand as an inclusive employer,” she says. As part of its equality and diversity monitoring, the university asks if employees have caring responsibilities when they first join the organisation, a response that staff are then able to update throughout their employment via a self-service system.
“All information is confidential, we only get data, no personal information,” says Ayaz. But by asking the question, the university is better able to put the right practical support in place. Alongside its flexible working policy, Leeds has implemented a dedicated policy around time off for carers. “Confidence is growing,” says Ayaz. “More people feel happy to declare, safe in the knowledge that their responsibilities at home won’t undermine their career progression.”
From an HR point of view, giving staff access to services and raising awareness around the support all employees have access to, “can do wonders for your recruitment, retention and staff resilience efforts,” Wilson says. And with a 2013 government report predicting that providing better support for working carers would save businesses and the UK economy up to £1.3 billion a year, “it makes business sense to look out for these people.”
At equipment dealer Finning, Haywood is making the most of existing policies to help balance work and home life. She has purchased five extra days annual leave this year to spend with her mum and take a respite from day-to-day activities. A counselling service that her employer has partnered with has provided practical, emotional support.
“I need to work, not just for monetary reasons but it helps my well-being and allows me time out from my caring responsibilities,” she says. “Just knowing that I’ve got people who are supportive within the workplace really helps.”