Caregivers are a vital part of your workforce. Here’s how you can help them thrive.
Key Takeaways
- Caregiving is already part of your workplace. Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. adults provides unpaid care, and 7 in 10 family caregivers are employed.
- Caregivers aren’t less committed; they’re managing competing demands. Without the right support, caregiving can affect employees’ focus, attendance, and ability to remain in their roles.
- Flexibility alone isn’t enough. Employees also need inclusive leave policies, supportive managers, care navigation, and practical help that works for on-site and frontline teams.
- The best benefits reduce work, not add to it. Support should give employees clear next steps and real assistance — not another resource list to navigate.
- A proactive approach benefits everyone. When you help caregivers protect their time and attention, you strengthen engagement, retention, and the everyday capacity your organization depends on.
The workday starts, but caregiving doesn’t stop. Appointments still need to be scheduled. Prescriptions still need to be picked up. A parent, partner, child, or friend still needs help. And the employees carrying it all are still keeping up with emails, meetings, and deadlines in between
They’re not dropping the ball. They’re carrying too many of them. And for your organization, that strain isn’t neatly contained outside the workday. It shows up in focus, attendance, retention, and the everyday capacity your business depends on.
That strain affects focus, attendance, and retention. But organizations that take a proactive rather than reactive approach to caregiver support can help — leading to higher employee engagement (71% versus 48%) and stronger recruitment outcomes (72% versus 53%), according to research from the Society for Human Resource Management(opens in new tab).
Who are the caregivers in your workplace?
A caregiver is an employee who provides unpaid, ongoing support to someone who is ill, aging, disabled, or unable to manage independently. They may be helping a parent get to appointments, supporting a spouse after surgery, advocating for a child with complex needs, or caring for more than one person at once.
There’s no tidy caregiver profile. Caregiving reaches every generation, gender, job level, and work arrangement. It can unfold slowly over years or arrive overnight with a diagnosis, accident, or hospital discharge. Your new hire may be a caregiver. So may your most experienced leader.
Many employees won’t use the word caregiver at all. They’re simply the one who manages Mom’s appointments, checks Dad’s medication, or answers whenever a family member calls. If your survey only asks, “Are you a caregiver?” you may miss the people you most need to understand.
The employee caregiver crisis is already here
63 million Americans are family caregivers — nearly 1 in 4 adults and almost 50% more than in 2015. Seven in 10 family caregivers are employed, according to the2025 Caregiving in the U.S. report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving(opens in new tab).
Translation: caregiving is already part of your workplace, whether employees talk about it or not. In fact, they’re the fastest-growing group in the workforce(opens in new tab).
Many keep it quiet because they worry they’ll be seen as distracted, unreliable, or less committed. That silence can leave you making benefits decisions with only half the picture.
The problem isn’t simply that more people are providing care. It’s that they’re doing it while trying to protect their income, career, health, and family stability. When the systems around them become hard to navigate, work becomes the pressure-release valve: a late start, a missed meeting, an unplanned absence, or eventually, a resignation.
Savvy business leaders will see that not simply as a challenge, but as an opportunity to build a workplace that works better for everyone.
Why you can’t afford to ignore working caregivers
Caregiving competes with focus
Caregiving rarely arrives at work with a flashing sign. It shows up in fragments: a call from a physician, a transportation problem, or a search for care that eats an afternoon. Harvard Business School research(opens in new tab) found that more than 80% of working caregivers said their additional responsibilities reduced their productivity.
That doesn’t make caregivers less capable or committed. It makes them human. Attention is finite, and many employees have a second operating system humming in the background: Who can take Dad to his appointment? Did the home health agency call back? What happens if school closes early? Those open mental tabs compete with the concentration complex work requires.
The impact reaches attendance and retention
The strain doesn’t stay in the margins. Half of working caregivers said caregiving had taken a toll on their careers, according to the John A. Hartford Foundation’s summary of the 2025 national caregiving research(opens in new tab).
The effects can include shifting schedules, reducing hours, turning down opportunities, or leaving a role altogether. You see the other side of that decision: unplanned absences, continuity gaps, delayed work, and the loss of experienced people whose knowledge isn’t easily replaced.
That’s why caregiver support doesn’t belong in the “nice-to-have” pile. It belongs in your workforce planning, retention, and operational resilience strategies. When a valued employee leaves because work and care have become impossible to reconcile, replacing them is rarely the simpler or cheaper option.
Caregiver support is a benefits-equity issue
Many traditional benefits are built around predictable milestones: a birth, a scheduled leave, or an annual enrollment decision. Caregiving is messier. Needs change quickly. Family structures vary. And not every employee can solve the problem by opening a laptop from home.
Your hourly, frontline, and on-site employees may have the least flexibility even when their caregiving demands are every bit as intense. If your strategy begins and ends with remote work, you may end up helping the people who already have the most control over their schedules. Real equity requires support that works for employees who must be physically present.
Why your current employee benefits may fall short
You may already offer an employee assistance program, paid time off, flexible scheduling, a resource directory, or a referral platform. Good. But a benefit can exist on paper and still disappear when an employee actually needs it.
The gap often isn’t information. It’s capacity. A caregiver managing a hospital discharge doesn’t need another list of websites to research after dinner. A working parent whose backup plan collapsed doesn’t need a 40-page guide. They need a clear next step — and often, another person who can help take it.
Utilization also suffers when employees don’t know what’s available, can’t find it quickly, worry that using it will affect their careers, or face a process that adds even more administrative work.
At that point, the benefit isn’t relief. It’s homework wearing a benefits badge.
5 ways to support caregivers in the workplace
1. Take a Proactive Approach to Caregiver Support
Your employees’ needs change, and your caregiving policies should evolve with them. Regularly review and update your support to ensure it remains useful. Organizations that take this proactive approach see stronger employee engagement and better business performance.
2. Review caregiving leave — not just parental leave
Parental leave is important, but it is only one chapter of caregiving. Review whether your caregiving leave policies recognize eldercare, a spouse’s illness, disability-related needs, and other family care situations. You should also make eligibility, approval steps, and return-to-work expectations easy to understand before employees reach a crisis.
3. Help employees navigate care
Care systems are fragmented. Finding providers, comparing options, understanding coverage, and coordinating appointments can take hours of research and follow-up. Care navigation, expert guidance, and vetted referrals can reduce uncertainty and help employees make decisions faster.
That help matters most during transitions — after a diagnosis, hospital stay, or sudden change in a loved one’s condition. The decisions multiply at the exact moment an employee’s time and attention shrink.
4. Lighten the life-admin load around caregiving
Caregiving isn’t only medical. It comes with transportation research, household errands, appointment coordination, meal planning, returns, and dozens of small jobs that keep a family functioning. Work-life support benefits that handle those tasks can give employees something another resource list can’t: actual time and attention back.
5. Equip people managers to support caregivers
Managers are often the front door to caregiver support, yet many haven’t been trained on what to say, what flexibility they can offer, or where to send an employee for help. Without guidance, the experience relies too heavily on the empathy and judgment of a single supervisor.
Give managers simple conversation guides, clear boundaries, and an obvious path for referrals or escalation. They don’t need to become benefits experts or ask for private medical details. They do need to listen without judgment, explain the options, and quickly connect employees to support.
How to build a caregiver support strategy
Your strategy shouldn’t begin with a vendor demo. It should begin with one practical question: Where are caregiving employees losing time, focus, and access to work?
- Listen beyond the label. Ask about specific responsibilities and work impacts — not only whether someone calls themselves a caregiver. Use surveys, focus groups, leave patterns, and aggregated benefits questions while protecting employees’ privacy.
- Audit what you already offer. Map caregiving leave, paid time off, flexibility, employee assistance program resources, care navigation, backup care, financial support, and practical assistance. Look for gaps, overlaps, and dead ends.
- Design for real moments of need. Could an employee find and use support during a hospital discharge, school closure, or sudden care breakdown? If the process requires spare time and perfect concentration, it needs another pass.
- Equip managers and normalize use. Give managers training and consistent decision rules. Reinforce the message with senior leaders who make it clear that caregiver support is safe to use.
- Measure what matters. Track awareness, utilization, employee feedback, absence patterns, retention, and employees’ ability to stay productive. If utilization is low, ask why. Don’t assume the need is low.
Build a workplace where caregivers can thrive
Caregivers aren’t a workplace problem to solve. They’re a vital part of your workforce — bringing experience, skill, and commitment to their roles while also caring for the people who depend on them.
You can’t remove their caregiving responsibilities. But you can make those responsibilities easier to manage alongside work. Flexible policies, supportive managers, care navigation, and practical assistance can help employees protect their time, stay engaged, and continue growing in their careers.
Start by listening to what your employees need, then build support that works in real life — not just on paper. Because sometimes the most meaningful benefit isn’t another resource to navigate. It’s real help that gives employees their time, attention, and breathing room back.
Frequently asked questions about caregivers in the workplace
Who are caregivers in the workplace?
Caregivers in the workplace are employees who provide unpaid support to a child, aging parent, spouse, relative, or friend while also managing paid work. Their responsibilities may include coordinating care, attending appointments, arranging transportation, managing medications, or handling everyday needs.
How does caregiving affect employee productivity?
Caregiving can affect focus, availability, and energy when employees must coordinate care, respond to emergencies, or manage time-consuming logistics during the workday. It isn’t a commitment problem. It’s two demanding roles competing for the same limited time and attention.
What caregiver benefits can you offer?
You can offer caregiving leave, flexible scheduling, backup care, care navigation, mental health resources, financial support, employee resource groups, and employer-paid concierge services that reduce everyday life admin.
How can you improve caregiver support?
Start by listening to employees and auditing what you already offer. Then simplify access, train managers, communicate support year-round, and measure whether your programs reduce real sources of strain — not simply whether you purchased a benefit.