Navigating the Caregiving Landscape: April 2025 EN:Insights Forum

The April EN:Insights Forum explored how organizations can support employees with caregiving responsibilities while still driving engagement, productivity, and business success. In addition to SHRM’s new research on Caregivers in the Workplace, EN members heard from Elizabeth Field, chief operating officer at the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, and Sally Windisch, researcher at SHRM. 

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 30.6% of employed people aged 18 and over provide care on any given day in the United States,” Windisch said.

SHRM surveyed 5,834 U.S. workers and caregivers, as well as 1,470 HR professionals, to explore the realities and challenges of caregiving. 

Here are five critical insights from the research.

Research Insight 1: Nearly one-third of employed adults in the U.S. have caregiving responsibilities. 

Breakdown of caregiving responsibilities from survey respondents:

• 36% care for children only.
• 17% care for adults with disabilities or health impediments only.
• 24% care for elders (adults ages 65 and older) only.
• 23% manage multiple caregiving responsibilities.

“While these are the current numbers from our latest research, it’s also important to note that the caregiver profile will continue to evolve over the next five years. Many working caregivers anticipate that they will take on new or additional caregiving responsibilities beyond the ones that they have now,” Windisch said. “Also, 1 in 4 workers who currently don’t provide care but anticipate that they will in the next five years say that it will be because of necessity.”

Research Insight 2: Only 35% of HR professionals believe their organization effectively addresses the long-term caregiving needs of employees. The realities of caregiving reveal significant challenges for working caregivers, including long-term care commitments, lack of shared caregiving responsibilities, and insufficient organizational support to meet their long-term, enduring care needs. These challenges often impact both employee well-being and workplace performance.

Caregiving realities:

• Roughly 1 in 2 working caregivers do not share their caregiving responsibilities with anyone else on a consistent basis.
• At least 80% of working caregivers anticipate their caregiving responsibilities to be long-term (lasting more than one year). 

Research Insight 3: Caregiving responsibilities create significant challenges for employees, which often result in reduced productivity, career stagnation, and increased absenteeism.

Windisch further noted, “Forty-two percent of working caregivers report that caregiving responsibilities hinder their career advancement.”

Top three challenges working caregivers face:

• 32% experience work interruptions due to unpredictable care needs.
• 26% struggle to balance caregiving and job responsibilities.
• 20% have difficulty focusing or performing well at work due to caregiving-related stress.

“For working caregivers who have career gaps, 54% said the gap was due to their caregiving responsibilities,” Windisch said. “However, despite over half sharing that the gaps were due to caregiving, only 11% of HR professionals say that the first assumption that they make on career gaps was caregiving.”

Research Insight 4: Inadequate support for working caregivers has significant financial and operational consequences for both employees and organizations. Caregivers who lack sufficient support report struggling with workplace performance, including 2.3 days per month of reduced performance, 1.6 days per month of arriving late or leaving early unexpectedly, and 1.2 days per month of unplanned absences. 

Caregivers surveyed reported the following actions:

• 48% used vacation or personal days for caregiving.
• 28% reduced their work hours.
• 14% changed jobs for more flexibility.

“If we take into consideration the national average hourly pay, an average eight-hour workday, the civilian working population size, and the 30.6% of workers being caregivers on an average day, this translates to an average of $17.5 billion lost every month in wages due to insufficient caregiving support,” Windisch said.

Research Insight 5: More than 1 in 5 working caregivers choose not to disclose their caregiver status to their employer. Building a workplace culture that emphasizes openness and empathy is critical to supporting caregivers. This approach helps reduce stigma, encourages employees to disclose their caregiving responsibilities, and enables them to access available resources without fear of judgment or professional repercussions.

“One in 5 said that they have been treated poorly at work because of their caregiving responsibilities,” Windisch said.

Meanwhile, 22% of caregivers who disclosed their status had their ability to balance work and caregiving responsibilities questioned, while 16% were given fewer opportunities after disclosure.

The study further uncovered that when it comes to benefit utilization, 35% of working caregivers feel discomfort seeking caregiver resources at work.

Working caregivers’ top fears when using the benefits available to them:

• 46% of caregivers fear jeopardizing their chances of promotion when using caregiving benefits.
• 43% worry that it would create an extra burden for their team.
• 42% feared being trusted with fewer responsibilities.

“One of the most helpful things that organizations can do [to alleviate some of these concerns] is to publicly reinforce leadership’s commitment to supporting caregivers through things like messaging and policy reinforcement,” Windisch said. “Regular assessments of workplace culture through anonymous surveys can also help evaluate whether the messaging is working.”

Elizabeth Field: Proactive Organizational Policies for Caregiver Support

Elizabeth Field is COO of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which supports veterans, service members, caregivers, and their families. Prior to joining the foundation, Field served as a career senior executive service director in the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s defense capabilities and management team. From 2014 to 2017, she served as senior advisor/chief of staff to the undersecretary of State for civilian security, democracy, and human rights.  

“Caregivers who are providing care to someone age 60 or younger are really struggling the most,” Field said. “They have an extraordinarily high percentage of living at or below 130% of the federal poverty line. ... They have a frighteningly high incidence of suicide ideation at a 22% rate; 44% of them meet the criteria for depression.” 

EDITOR’S NOTE — In the U.S., the national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org. 

Here are a few excerpts from Field’s Q&A during the April 2025 EN:Insights Forum. 

From Sally’s research findings, what really resonated with you? 

I want to highlight in particular what Sally said at the end about a culture of empathy and openness. I am lucky enough to work in an organization that is focused on helping caregivers and that employs a lot of caregivers. But when I personally found myself caregiving for my mother, who unfortunately now has passed away, I found that sometimes that feeling of guilt, of whether I’m doing enough to help her or I’m doing enough in the office can be and feel overwhelming. But having colleagues around me and my supervisor saying, “This is OK. Caregiving is important. Family comes first,” was enormously helpful for me. 
 
Elizabeth, from your perspective as COO of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, what trends are you seeing, and how is caregiving impacting today’s work? 

We often talk at the foundation about the military and veteran caregiving population as the canary in the coal mine, because we see caregivers who are dealing with particularly difficult situations like the one I just mentioned for post-9/11 veterans who are catastrophically wounded, but also because we see how lack of support in the workplace and in other parts of the community can really take an impact on, as I mentioned before, mental and emotional well-being. For example, around a third of the military meet the criteria for depression, which is problematic, and we even see high percentages of suicide ideation among this population. 

We know also that overall, our population is aging. The United States has an aging population overall, which means that more people are going to be in that caregiving role than they are now. And already we know from the research, and Sally was spot on, that 1 in 3 adults right now [are] caring for somebody, and that’s only going to increase. So, recognizing that not only does that mean there are more people who are going to need a caregiver. It also means that we need to really be thinking about what support structures are in place for the caregivers, not just in terms of workplace benefits and flexibility, which is so important, but also things like making sure they can get the mental health support that they need. 

When you look at companies that really get this right, what kinds of policies and practices are they putting in place to support caregivers while driving performance? 

Establish a caregiver interest group within your company that can advise management about knowing how caregivers might react to a new policy in the workplace or things that they might need that management wouldn’t necessarily know. 

Another one is making sure that you’re tracking data on caregivers in your workforce, especially if you’re a larger organization. And it might be hard to know if someone is in a caregiving situation, [so employers should try] to collect that data and then see how those employees are doing in terms of their feeling of satisfaction in the workplace. 

If you are in a position to be able to contract with a service provider for your company, maybe it’s a health provider or any sort of service, really making sure that the terms of your contract with them include support for caregivers specifically. That is so important because we know that caregivers focus so much on worrying about and supporting their loved one, that they often don’t even realize that they are a caregiver. They’re afraid to or they don’t even know to self-identify. The second is that they feel guilty about getting support and seeking services, and the third is that they just don’t even know that there are services that are perhaps specific to them and designed for them. 

We’ve talked about this tension between flexibility and accountability. How can leaders balance both in building a caregiving-friendly workplace, but ensure that they’re getting their work done?

There is really no way of supporting caregivers that has been either recommended by Sally, or that I just walked through, that should make it harder for your employees to do their jobs. I think there has been and continues to be some concern among employers, that if they give, for example, more flexibility in terms of workplace, or hours of work, or more benefits that the caregiver is going to in essence, take advantage of those resources to the point that they’re not really focusing on their work responsibilities. The data just doesn’t bear that out. 

Companies should not give caregivers a pass. I didn’t want a pass when I was caring for my mom. I just wanted flexibility, and so as long as a caregiver is doing their job, producing the work that they should be producing, maintaining a high-quality level of work, give them what they need to do best both at home and in the workplace. 

One of the concepts here is how do we make it safer for people to be open and talk about those issues and not feel like it’s a stigma or a risk that might affect their career trajectory or their job, for that matter. What role should your leaders play in creating that environment so those conversations can be normalized? 

It’s so important that the tone is set at the top and then cascades all the way down the organization to different levels of management. It’s why I, as COO of the foundation, was very open with my colleagues, with my entire organization, about leaving early, for example, to go take care of my mom, checking in outside of work hours when I would normally not have been working, but sort of normalizing it and personalizing it. I also shared the ways in which it made me feel, which is really important. It’s not just about talking about policies, it’s about acknowledging difficult feelings, difficult emotions. 

I think, as well, it is important to celebrate caregivers in your workforce. This can go a long way toward helping caregivers feel more confident about sharing their caregiver status with their employers. If they see some of their colleagues being profiled in a newsletter, or receiving an award, and making sure that when the story of that person’s achievement is told throughout your company, that part of that acknowledges also their role as a caregiver, it’s not the reason they get the award, of course, but just naming it and acknowledging that this recipient or this person profiled is also a caregiver can be really helpful. 

What are some common cultural or organizational barriers that prevent companies from fully supporting caregivers, and how can we overcome those?

The first, which we’ve talked about, is this notion that if you give caregivers more support, such as flexible work hours or flexible work location, that it will lead to lower productivity or lower performance. And we have to combat that. I think the more data we have, the better. But I can assure people who are watching today that it’s so far really not borne out of that, supporting your caregivers with more flexibility and support translates into worse outcomes for your company or your organization. The second thing that I would note about barriers is it might be that you simply can’t give things like flexible work hours or different workplace options to your employees because of the nature of what they do, and that is a very real thing to acknowledge. 

I don’t want to pretend that everyone who is listening to this call today can just all of a sudden say to all of their employees that you set your own work hours or you can work from home, but we do need to make sure that in those cases, we pay particular attention to the things that we can do to support caregivers aside from those things that may just not be possible for your company. Things like creating a support group, creating an [employee assistance program], providing resources to help them navigate benefits, or hospice are extra important for those organizations where it’s just not feasible to do some of the other things like flexible work hours and paid family leave. 

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