Benefits and Beyond: Top Ways to Support Caregivers

When Cynthia Hutchins, director of financial gerontology at Bank of America, asked attendees at a session at SHRM25 in San Diego how many of them were caregivers, nearly every arm shot up.

“If that’s in this room with this population, that’s in your workplaces, as well,” she said. “As HR professionals, you have to think of your employee population as all being caregivers or [they] will be caregivers at some point during their working career. And they’re going to need their employer to be a teammate.” 

Indeed, caregivers are proliferating in the workplace, said panelist Lauren Dunning, director of the Center for the Future of Aging at the Milken Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, citing research that found there are roughly 53 million caregivers in the U.S., with 60% of them currently employed.

Not only is helping caregivers the right thing to do, but it’s also become a business imperative, Hutchins said.  

“Productivity is lost when employers don’t recognize their caregiver workforce. Absenteeism increases, presenteeism decreases, morale goes down,” she said. “All these things, at the end of the day, are going to infect the employers’ bottom line. It’s going to infect, not affect, their bottom line.”

In short, Hutchins said, “If you want to attract and retain the best talent … look at what you do for your working caregivers from a benefits perspective to make their lives easier, to make it better for them to come to work and bring their best selves to the job.”

Some of the best workplaces are making it a priority to help caregivers, said session moderator Carly Chase, vice president of careers business franchise at U.S. News & World Report, citing the publication’s inaugural list of the best companies for family caregivers to work for, powered by data from SHRM and the Center for the Future of Aging.

So how do some of the best companies to work for help caregivers? The panelists discussed some of their best strategies. 

Recognize who is a caregiver. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, The Hanover Insurance Group worried caregivers were going to be among the first to leave the workplace. 

“One of the first things we realized was we didn’t want people to leave,” said Denise Lowsley, CHRO at The Hanover, explaining that as a result, the firm allowed people to switch to working part time while still retaining their full-time benefits. Although The Hanover thought parents were going to be the ones taking advantage of the temporary policy change, it was adopted just as much by those caring for other family members — parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. 

Related Article: Behind the Growing Momentum Around Caregiving Support in the Workplace

“That made us understand we needed to be more broad in our thinking,” Lowsley explained.  

As a result, the company shifted the language and stipulations in its caregiving and bereavement policies so that employees could make the call on what relationships should be included in the policies.

Look at both new parent benefits and elder care. More than a decade ago, Bank of America examined all the benefits it was offering to new parents and “made the conscious decision to make those benefits available to employees who were caring for their parents,” Hutchins said, explaining that it included emergency backup care, time off, and legal services. 

“All the benefits that you would normally think of as being new parents’ benefits are now elder care benefits for us, as well,” she said.

Don’t be afraid to try and fail. The Hanover has rolled out or embraced several different programs, tools, and apps to help caregivers — and it hasn’t always been successful, Lowsley said. 

“There are so many vendors that are getting into the space. There are a lot of niche vendors. It makes it very difficult to identify which vendor would be the right vendor for your population,” she said. “We haven’t always gotten it right. We have deployed some programs that we thought were going to be amazing that nobody used, and so we have a ‘let’s try and fail and fail quickly’ kind of mentality on this.”  

The Hanover usually partners with a vendor for two years, but “if we don’t see the utilization rates we expect, then we move on and we try the next thing.”

Look at policies often. Because of the fast-evolving nature of the workforce, employers would be well served to regularly analyze the programs and benefits they offer employees, including caregivers, Lowsley said.

“Earlier in my career, you would look at your policies every three years, five years. It was sort of a set-it-and-forget-it,” she said. Now, The Hanover looks at policies annually, if not more frequently, given evolving needs and the changes and rules happening at local, state, and national levels. Doing so gives the firm a better opportunity to quickly evolve and meet employee needs while also ensuring compliance.

Related Article: 7 Major Takeaways from SHRM’s 2025 Employee Benefits Survey

Create a culture of care and understanding. Lowsley said The Hanover’s HR team “really encourages our managers to use discretion in understanding the needs of employees.” That means managers can, and should, work with individual employees on how their needs can be best met. That can bridge any gaps that aren’t explicitly spelled out in company policies.

Flexibility for caregivers overall is vital, Hutchins added.

Offer employee resource groups. Both Bank of America and The Hanover have a variety of employee groups, including ones for caregivers in their workplaces. That’s been a boon for both companies, Lowsley and Hutchins said. 

“Not only is it a way for them to share feedback on their benefits and support, but they are a great feedback mechanism for us to say, ‘Here’s what you’re missing, here’s what our community really needs,’ ” Lowsley said. 

Hutchins added that there’s “no better benefit you can provide than these resource groups.”