Written by Jennifer Kean

Jennifer Kean is Chief Growth Officer at Umbra Health Advocacy, where she helps connect families with patient advocates who navigate complex healthcare systems and reduce caregiver burden. With more than 20 years of experience scaling consumer startups and developing HR strategies, talent acquisition programs, and retention policies, Jennifer brings both professional expertise and personal insight to the caregiving conversation. She became a passionate advocate for caregiver support after experiencing firsthand the challenges of advocating for her elderly father during his recent health crisis, including an 8-week hospitalization and subsequent transitions to skilled nursing and assisted living care. This personal journey reinforced her belief that every patient needs an advocate — and every caregiver needs support.

Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn.

They arrive early for meetings looking tired. They take calls in the parking lot during lunch. They use vacation days for appointments that aren’t their own. These are your caregivers, and they make up one in five of your workforce.

If you work in HR, you already know that supporting employees means more than just offering health insurance and retirement plans. Today’s workforce faces a growing challenge that affects productivity, retention, and well-being. More than 20% of American workers are caring for aging parents or sick family members while maintaining their careers. They spend an average of 26 hours per week providing care, essentially working a second unpaid job.

The cost of ignoring this reality is steep. Caregiving employees miss more work days, experience higher stress levels, and often leave the workforce entirely when the burden becomes too much. Companies lose experienced talent, face increased recruitment costs, and see productivity drop across teams. But there’s good news. Forward-thinking organizations are discovering that supporting caregivers with employee caregiver benefits isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s smart business.

Understanding the caregiver employee experience

Picture Sarah from Accounting. She’s been with your company for eight years and consistently delivers excellent work. Lately, though, she seems distracted. She’s taking more sick days and declining travel opportunities she once jumped at. What you don’t see is that Sarah spends her evenings coordinating her mother’s medical appointments, reviewing Medicare statements she doesn’t understand, and arguing with insurance companies about coverage denials. She uses her lunch breaks to call doctors’ offices and her vacation days to accompany her mother to specialist visits two hours away.

Sarah represents millions of employees trying to balance caregiving with their careers. They’re making medical decisions they feel unqualified for, navigating complex healthcare systems, and often feeling guilty no matter how much they do. The stress affects their work performance, their health, and their financial stability. Many reduce their work hours or leave their jobs entirely, creating gaps in your workforce that are expensive and difficult to fill.

Building a caregiver support program that works

Supporting caregiver employees doesn’t require reinventing your entire benefits package. Here are practical steps you can implement:

• Offer flexible work arrangements. Remote-work options and flexible scheduling allow employees to manage both responsibilities more effectively. When someone can work from home twice a week, they save commute time that can be used for caregiving tasks.
• Provide paid family leave for caregiving. Your employees are already entitled to unpaid leave under FMLA for caregiving, but why stop there? Consider offering paid family leave for caregiving just as you do for maternity, paternity, and parental leave. Make sure employees know they can use their sick time for caregiving, too. When companies treat caring for aging parents with the same respect as caring for new babies, they send a powerful message about valuing families at every stage of life.
• Add patient advocacy services to your benefits package. Umbra Health Advocacy offers employer programs with which you can provide professional patient advocates as an employee benefit. You can choose to fully pay for the services, subsidize them, or simply contract with Umbra to get your employees a discount. Because Medicare covers these services for elder care, it’s a surprisingly low-cost way to provide high-value support. Patient advocates understand insurance benefits and help families navigate senior care, medical billing issues, and the transition to assisted living or nursing homes. They can also assist employees who need to navigate a new illness, like cancer, or care for a disabled child.
• Provide caregiving stipends for financial support. Through Compt, companies can offer monthly or annual stipends that employees use for caregiving expenses. In addition to the usual childcare needs, this might cover adult daycare costs, patient advocacy costs, respite care services, or a home care aid. Schedule a call with a Compt benefits expert to learn how to support your caregiving employees.

Connecting employees to professional resources

Many employees don’t realize that professional help exists for their caregiving challenges. You can provide a lot of support just by sharing valuable federal and state programs that are often free or low cost.

• Area Agencies on Aging: The first stop for any caregiver is their local Area Agency on Aging. They exist in every state, though they may be called different things. You can find yours by searching this term along with your state or county or city. They are a central resource on all the elder care resources available to you. They provide free consultations, connect families to local services, and help with Medicaid applications. They can arrange respite care, meal delivery, and transportation services.
• Local senior centers: Senior centers are typically for more active people 55+ that do not need supervision. They can be great places for social interaction and they offer all sorts of classes and community events. Their fees are nominal.
• Adult daycare: Adult daycare centers are for seniors that need more supervision or assistance with things during the day like meals or medication. These services cost a fee, which varies widely by geography. Typical rates are around $85-$100/day. Find local options through the National Adult Day Services Association.
• National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP): This federally funded program through the Older Americans Act provides free services through your local Area Agency on Aging, including respite care, counseling, training, support groups, and supplemental services. The program serves caregivers of adults 60 and older, caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s, and grandparents raising grandchildren.
• Lifespan Respite Care Programs: Available in 38 states plus D.C., these programs provide vouchers or reimbursements for respite care services, often up to $750 per year. Many states offer emergency respite vouchers and self-directed options for families to choose their own providers. Visit the ARCH National Respite Network to find your state’s program.
• VA Caregiver Support Program: For families of veterans, this program offers education, training, health insurance (if otherwise uninsured), mental health counseling, monthly stipends, and respite care. Call 1-855-260-3274 for more information.
• National helplines and locators: The Eldercare Locator (1-800-677-1116) connects families to local services nationwide. The ARCH Respite Locator helps families find respite programs in their area.

Remember that many of these programs prioritize families with the greatest economic need, but middle-income families often qualify, too.

Making it easy for employees to access support

The best support programs fail if employees don’t know about them or feel uncomfortable using them. Many caregivers don’t identify themselves as such. They think of themselves as just helping out Mom or doing what families do. Here’s how to ensure your support reaches those who need it:

• Create a Caregiver Resource Guide. Pull together all your caregiving-related benefits and trusted local and national resources into one easy-to-access guide. Make sure employees can view it privately and understand which services are covered by insurance vs. those that require payment. Include practical details for elder care, like the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, what Medicare covers, home healthcare vs. home care services, and guidance on power of attorney and health proxies. Highlight how your EAP and other existing benefits, such as a caregiving stipend or applicable categories in your Lifestyle Spending Account (LSA), can support caregivers, and consider tapping internal or external experts to help ensure accuracy.
• Use inclusive language. Studies show that caregivers may be unaware of benefits or hesitant to use them, often because of stigma or perceived insufficiency. Instead of asking who needs caregiver support, talk about employees who help aging parents, support family members with health conditions, or coordinate medical care for loved ones. This will help your employees see themselves as caregivers and seek needed support accordingly.
• Train managers to recognize signs. When an employee mentions spending weekends at their parent’s house or taking time off for someone else’s medical appointment, that’s an opportunity to share available resources without prying into personal situations.
• Host lunch and learn sessions. Bring in experts to discuss Medicare benefits, long-term care planning, or managing medical paperwork. Record these sessions so employees can watch them privately if they prefer.
• Normalize the conversation. Share statistics about caregiving in your company communications. When employees realize that 20% of their colleagues face similar challenges, they’re more likely to seek help.
• Ensure privacy. Make resources available through self-service portals on which employees can find information without having to disclose their personal situation to HR.

The business case: Why supporting caregivers is smart economics

Supporting your caregiver employees isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s a strategic business investment that directly impacts your bottom line. Consider the stark reality: According to Guardian Life’s 12th Annual Workplace Benefits Study, caregiving responsibilities cost the U.S. economy nearly $44 billion annually due to lost productivity and absenteeism.

But here’s what smart employers know: much of this loss is preventable with the right support systems in place.

The hidden costs of unsupported caregivers

When caregivers lack workplace support, the numbers tell a sobering story. Guardian Life’s research reveals that working caregivers are twice as likely to take disability-related leaves of absence, with 27% missing 30+ days of work compared to just 14% of noncaregivers. Even more concerning, the same study found that 29% of caregivers reduce their work hours, and one in five take demotions or leaves of absence to manage their responsibilities. 

For employers, this translates to constant recruitment costs, knowledge loss, and productivity gaps that ripple across teams.

The ROI of employee caregiver benefits

By contrast, when employers provide flexible work arrangements, caregiver resources, and understanding policies, they see measurable returns. Caregivers who feel supported report better mental health and job satisfaction, and employees with better well-being are inherently more productive.

The math is simple: retaining an experienced employee costs far less than the typical 6-12 months’ salary required to replace them.

Moreover, supported caregivers become your most loyal employees. When you help them navigate their dual responsibilities, they can focus on their work rather than constantly juggling crisis management. They’re present, both physically and mentally, contributing their expertise rather than anxiously watching the clock or fielding emergency calls. 

How to offer support with employee caregiver benefits: Contact Compt or Umbra Health Advocacy

For more information about implementing caregiving stipends, request a Compt demo.

To learn about adding patient advocacy services to your employee benefits package, contact Umbra Health Advocacy at benefits@umbrahealthadvocacy.com or 857-766-8236.