Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER September 4, 2017 12 NEWS understates the actual cost, ac- cording to the report. Income is also a factor: Cana- dians earning less than $50,000 per year spend, on average, 30 per cent more on costs related to ag- ing parents than people earning more than $100,000, found CIBC. And the likelihood of needing to take time off to care for a parent increases as people move down the income scale. "I'm guessing that low-income Canadians have low-income parents, so therefore the parents don't have enough income to sup- port themselves, therefore they need to supplement, so that's the income gap aspect," said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC and co-author of the report. "Ironically, this is (likely) going to widen the income gap." The labour-related costs of caring for aging parents are sub- stantial, as close to 30 per cent of workers with parents over the age of 65 must take time off from work, said CIBC, sacrificing roughly 450 working hours per year. And that doesn't take into account the reduced potential for job mobility or promotion. "at's clearly going to impact your ability to advance at work," said Tal. "Even if you are able to advance, which requires more hours and commitment, and giv- en your responsibilities with your elderly parents, you probably will skip that, so you probably will stay at your current job, which is less demanding in terms of hours." Combining those direct and indirect costs adds up to an esti- mated cost of $33 billion annually to care for aging parents — and that will only grow over time, said CIBC. "is is just the tip of the ice- berg," said Susan Hyatt, CEO and co-founder of Silver Sherpa, elder planning and support services based in Toronto. "These issues are accelerat- ing and it's really mushrooming now, where people are in trouble. We've got the aging population… and people are living longer be- cause of medical interventions." Factors such as smaller fami- lies — so fewer people to share the load — two-income families with little free time, a dementia "epidemic" and older children staying home also make a differ- ence, she said. "How long can you keep that up and work, and stay relatively sane? Most people can tolerate that for about four weeks before things start to break down in the fam- ily and they get completely over- whelmed and have to take time off work or ask for a leave of absence to get that issue sorted out." And most people don't realize the average length of a caregiving gig with the elderly is more than six years, said Hyatt. "Most people think, 'If I can cope for six weeks or six months, we'll get through this.' at's not the average experience — it's 6.3 years." And it's not just a matter of put- ting someone in a care home. "ere are 26,000 people right now waiting to get into long-term care," said Hyatt. If the publicly funded system is not an option, the private costs can be considerable, she said. For example, putting someone in a dementia care facility can cost $7,000 per month — adding up to $500,000 over five years. "A lot of families aren't prepared for that," said Hyatt. A vast majority of older people are quite independent and can look after themselves or each other, physically, emotionally and financially, said Janet Fast, a pro- fessor in the Department of Hu- man Ecology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. And people are staying healthi- er longer, so they're continuing to work longer while providing care to other seniors and younger fam- ily members. But it's also true care needs are increasing, not just for an aging population but for younger peo- ple and people with disabilities, as more people survive catastrophic illnesses and injuries, she said. "Family members have always provided the vast majority of care to family members — this is not something that's new. One of the conditions that has changed is that the amount of support available from the formal care sector has shrunk for a lot of older people, in particular, because what we've seen is a shifting of home-care services from chronic care needs to what's come to be referred to as post-acute-care needs. So people are being released from hospital sooner, with higher levels of care needs, and family members are expected to pick up the slack." ere's also a gap between em- ployers and workers, said Fast. "Employers are telling us 'We need to know when somebody has this situation so that we can work with them and help them.' And employees are telling us 'I don't trust my employer, I'm afraid to disclose this is going on in my life because I'm worried about getting fired because I've seen it happen to colleagues.'" What should employers do? is is a strategic business prior- ity and it needs to be addressed in the CEO's office, not just the vice- president of HR's, said Hyatt. "We're done talking, we're now in a crisis, and many, many CEOs that I talk to do not recognize that this is their problem, this strikes right at the heart of recruiting em- ployees. And it's only going to get worse so, for me, leadership starts at the top of any organization, and educating leaders and CEOs and senior management teams about the fact that this is a strategic business priority that they have missed is important." It would also make sense to tie management performance and bonuses and pay to the implemen- tation of good eldercare policies, she said, "because a lot of people will pay lip service to this — we see it all the time." And employees should be edu- cated about the nitty-gritty of caregiving, through coping semi- nars or an educational specialist, for example, said Hyatt. "People are not coping. ey're overwhelmed, they're burned out, they're up all night — how do they cope? And they're wracked with guilt because they think… 'I should be able to do this.'" If an employer has a key player who is taking time off for an elder- care issue, it doesn't take long to figure out the ROI if an employer offers support, she said. "ey need to start looking at executive compensation pack- ages — executives aren't immune from this. Rather than looking at special benefits and special club benefits, maybe you'd better start looking at some of these eldercare programs and supports for execu- tives because we're going to need them — we need them now." e largest age group of care- givers are 45 to 65 years old — the ones with the most expertise in a particular job, the most corporate memory, and often are the most productive, said Hyatt. "Employers don't want to lose those people, and yet they're the ones who often find it the most difficult to balance those care and paid work demands, espe- cially if that's their first caregiving experience." Flex hours or satellite offices can be a big help to caregiving employees, said Fast. "Employers also are finding that if they provide leaves, for example, they can retain a valuable worker and yet provide that person with the flexibility to be there for a critical solution or whatever the need is." Corporate Canada hasn't really established a framework or more structured way to deal with it, but flexibility is key, said Tal. "(That means) recognizing maybe the job can be done at dif- ferent times, and taking time from work while you compensate for it later is fine, without penalizing people in terms of money and op- portunities to advance. So I think that we have to look at this situ- ation as being more flexible, and technology allows us to do so… (it's about) all kinds of creative thinking, that's a direction." When it comes to caregiving, employers are going to be in- volved whether they want to or not, said Nora Spinks, CEO of the Vanier Institute of the Family in Ottawa. "Until we're 100 per cent ro- botic in our workplaces, these is- sues are going to, if not obviously be front-of-mind present in the workplace, they will certainly be hidden and be draining and be a reality that employers have to find a way to manage." It's similar to when women started returning to the paid la- bour force in the 1980s, and em- ployers started looking at strate- gies to optimize performance and productivity, such as extended pa- rental care and flex work, she said. "It's no different now… we're talking about a reality that we can either interactively, proactively engage in, or we can be reactive and attempt to respond as things unfold in our individual workplac- es. We can't make it go away," said Spinks. "If we want people who are team players and curious and innovative and problem-solvers, you've got to recognize that peo- ple have lives outside of work and sometimes their attention needs to be there, and you can facilitate that… or add stress and make it difficult or force them to lie or cheat the system or to leave." While caregiving can be com- plicated and challenging, with fi- nancial consequences, it can also be seen as a rich, positive experi- ence — particularly by men — once people come out the other side, she said. "ere's huge positivity if we approach it as a new normal, and not as a dilemma we have to man- age as opposed to a short-term problem that we can fix and will go away once we apply those fixes — this isn't going to go away. Care and caring is really important." Flex hours, remote work help CAREGIVING < pg. 1 "ese issues will certainly be hidden and be draining, and are a reality that employers have to find a way to manage."

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