It’s really tough being a carer. I know because for six years I looked after my late father after he was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia and came to live with me, my husband and two young sons. At the time, I had just started a new job and was trying to establish myself whilst at the same time coming to terms with the fact that I had to learn how to give my father personal care, learn not feel hurt when my father forgot who I was and learn not feel a bit resentful when I wanted to pop out but knew he couldn’t be left unattended. Although my husband and siblings were great and our local social services were supportive, it was really tough being a carer.
What got me through was being able to carry on working. Luckily for me in 2011, my employer allowed me to work flexibly. However, recent research by CIPD in collaboration with Sheffield University found that in 2020 only two fifths of employers are ‘carer friendly’. We need more employers offering more support.
Six things you probably don’t know about carers
- Carers provide unpaid care by looking after an ill, older or disabled family member, friends or partners. For some people it could be a few hours per week, for others it is pretty much round the clock.
- There are around 5 million people in the UK juggling caring responsibilities with work. That is 1 in 7 of the workforce. (Carer UK)
- It is estimated that there are almost 6 million carers in England and Wales struggling to combine work and care. (CIPD).
- 600 people give up work every day to care for an older or disabled relative. (Carer uk)
- Carers (working and those not working) save the economy £132 billion per year. (CIPD)
- 3 in 5 people will be carers at some point in their lives (Carer UK)
Allowing working carers to work flexibly helps them to take better care of themselves
If you’re a working carer, it’s very difficult to carve out time for yourself to go to seek medical attention for minor ailments. Symptoms can then get worse. Even though my employer allowed me to work flexibly, I felt guilty if I wasn’t either carrying out a caring activity which included taking my dad to his medical appointments or doing my work.
Whilst some employers are aware informally that their employees might be carers, this hasn’t often been taken into account, even though Carers who are looking after someone who is elderly or disabled are protected under the Equality Act 2010 against discrimination or harassment because of caring responsibilities. My employer didn’t discuss my caring responsibilities with me, there was no formal record of it, and I didn’t want to draw too much attention to it. I was just grateful to be able to work flexibly and left it at that. Having a policy in place that allowed me to make a ‘legitimate’ request for time off (paid or unpaid) would have been helpful, as would having a flexi-time agreement in place.
Having a compassionate employer makes all the difference
Well-being has been high on everybody’s radar since the Pandemic and lockdown as employers have been more aware of people’s home environment and learned so much more about the lives of their employees and colleagues. Many staff have been worried about their mental health and working carers have most likely had increased levels of anxiety both about their own well-being and the well-being of the vulnerable people they have been looking after. Employers have been encouraged to check-in regularly to make sure that staff are ok. People that I have spoken to have welcomed this and if staff are become better engaged with their managers and workplace this will be reflected in their overall work performance. I think it would be a pity if the increased levels of compassion shown by some employers over recent months is reduced or lost when everyone returns to work.
Working flexibly works
I remember a time when we didn’t allow anyone to work from home unless they could devote their full time to their job and not be distracted by matters such as childcare or other types of caring activity. Even up until very recently many employers didn’t trust employees to be working unsupervised at home and worried about them going out shopping, watching tv and doing everything except focusing exclusively on work. Life in lockdown has changed all that. We have all seen that working flexibly can work. We’ve also seen that there are different types of flexibility that can be agreed depending on the individual circumstances. In my case for example when I was a carer, I worked occasional days from home and I reduced my on-site hours so that I could rush home to collect dad from the day centre, settle him in and then pull out my laptop and carry on working. It was exhausting at times, but also rewarding. I would have hated to have given up work had my employer insisted that I stay in the office to work core hours. Being able to balance my work and caring responsibilities meant that I got both job done and done well.
If you need any help introducing flexible working policies and practices to support carers in your workplace, please get in touch. I would be delighted to help. You can call me, Erica on 01212178038 or send an email to Erica.Burke@hrdept.co.uk
