Another Type of Caregiver Support: Helping Employees Experience the Moments That Matter Most
When organizations talk about supporting working caregivers, the conversation often centers on strategies to reduce absenteeism and preserve productivity, employee engagement, and retention. Those are important business considerations. But there is another question that deserves equal attention:
What if caregiver support is also about helping employees experience moments they can never get back?
Arguably, the most limited resource a caregiver has is time. Caregivers are often trying to make the most of a limited number of years, months, or days with a loved one. Simultaneously, many invest decades of time in their organizations. When those realities collide, employers have an opportunity to make a meaningful difference.
The Hidden Cost of Constant Care Coordination
Working caregivers often find themselves living two full-time lives. At work, they are employees, managers, team members, and leaders. At home, they are advocates, schedulers, transportation coordinators, medication managers, financial planners, and emotional support systems. Many spend hours each week coordinating appointments, researching care options, navigating insurance issues, and managing crises.
These responsibilities are exhausting, but they also consume something even more valuable: time and emotional bandwidth. When every spare moment is spent arranging care, caregivers have less opportunity to simply enjoy the person they are caring for. The result is a painful reality many caregivers only recognize in hindsight. They spent too much time managing the illness and too little time nurturing the relationship.
Why Employers Should Care - A Closer Look At Time
A full-time employee working 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year works approximately 2000 hours per year. Over a 45-year career (usually starting at age 20 and retiring at 65), that’s 90,000 hours spent working over a lifetime. (Harvard Business Review, February 20, 2025). The reality is that an employee can easily spend: 1) more waking hours with colleagues than with family members during many stages of life, 2) decades contributing their skills, creativity, knowledge, and energy to an organization, and 3) a substantial portion of their healthiest and most productive years helping the company succeed.
When a caregiver crisis arises, it is reasonable to expect the employer to provide a similar level of respect and loyalty to that employee as they navigate through the collision of their work responsibilities and caring for their loved one. Work calendars can be rescheduled but missed time with a dying loved one can never be recovered.
Anticipatory Grief Happens While Employees Are Still Working
One of the most overlooked workplace realities is anticipatory grief. Employees caring for aging parents, spouses, or loved ones with progressive illnesses often begin grieving long before a death occurs.
In sharing his care story, a recent guest on our show described his experience caring for his mother with Alzheimer’s as “watching her die in slow motion.” But employees facing this journey are expected to continue functioning as though nothing has changed.
Most organizations understand bereavement after a death. Far fewer recognize the emotional impact of watching someone decline over months or years. Employees experiencing anticipatory grief are often carrying significant emotional burdens while still meeting deadlines, attending meetings, and trying to maintain performance expectations.
Supporting these employees is not simply a matter of compassion. It is a matter of understanding and addressing the realities of today's workforce.
Helping Employees Focus on What Matters Most
Employers cannot eliminate grief or change the course of a disease. But they can reduce unnecessary burdens that compete for employees' attention and emotional energy.
Employers can:
Help facilitate conversations about caregiving.
Train managers to recognize caregiving challenges.
Offer flexible scheduling options.
Provide caregiver resource navigation services.
Promote Employee Assistance Programs and emotional health resources.
Create caregiver employee resource groups.
Review leave policies through a caregiver lens.
Encourage leaders to model empathy and flexibility.
These actions may seem small. But collectively, they can create space for employees to focus less on logistics and more on relationships.
A Question Worth Asking
Years from now, when today's employees look back on their caregiving journeys, what will they remember? Will they remember spending every available moment coordinating care and juggling workplace demands?
Or will they remember meaningful conversations, shared laughter, quiet afternoons, and moments of connection with someone they loved? Employers cannot make that choice for their employees. But they can create a workplace culture that makes those moments more possible. And sometimes, this may be one of the most valuable forms of support a company can provide.
Reflection Questions for Employers and HR Leaders
Do our benefits and policies give caregivers time, or simply resources?
Are managers trained to recognize signs of caregiver stress and anticipatory grief?
Do our caregiver programs address emotional well-being, not just logistics?
Are we measuring the success of caregiver support solely through business outcomes, or also through employee experience?
What barriers in our workplace prevent caregivers from being present with loved ones during critical life moments?
If one of our employees looked back on their caregiving journey five years from now, would our workplace have helped them focus on what mattered most?