Who cares? Employer and employee responses to employee ... Care - Employer a… · Workplace...
Transcript of Who cares? Employer and employee responses to employee ... Care - Employer a… · Workplace...
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
Who cares? Employer and employee
responses to employee eldercare
responsibilities
Alexandra HeronWomen & Work Research Group University of Sydney Business School
Keynote Address to NSW Carers Association Conference on 22 May 2015
The presentation will cover
1. The extent of informal eldercare
2. Why it is a growing issue
3. What work rights employee-eldercarers have &
what they may need
4. Research on eldercare – Women & Work
Research Group, University of Sydney
5. Some few ideas about change.
Work + adult care: some statistics
2012 ABS - Disability, Ageing and Carers Survey (ABS
2013)
› 12% of entire population involved in caring for adults
45-64 age group – those caring
› 23% of women + 16% men involved in caring
2014 Australian Work and Life Index: employees (Skinner
& Pocock 2014)
45-64 age group – support help or care to older person
› 30% of women & 26%
2012-2015 Two large employers: 18-28% employee-eldercarers
3
Public policy dilemmas
› Women’s increasing labour force participation esp in older age groups
(ABS 2015)
AND
› Ageing of the population
A need for more informal care
A need for more workers (Page et al 2009)
4
Age Group 1990 2015
45-54 43% 63%
55-64 23% 56%
Workplace arrangements which have been found to be useful for employee-eldercarers
› Counselling provided through workplace EAP schemes
› Eldercare resource and referral systems
› Help with eldercare planning
› Financial assistance with care costs, workplace e’care facility
› Flexible work arrangements, leave programs (US: Dembe et
al 2011)
› Access to better & cheaper support services
› More flexible working, ability to reduce hours, to take blocks of
leave, working from home
› Increased employer awareness of the issue (Australia: TOCC
2007)
5
Carers’ statutory workplace entitlements
A right to request flexible work – to provide personal care, support and
assistance to someone who is frail and aged or has a disability
› 12 months service/regular casuals
› Request to be in writing
› Can be turned down on reasonable business grounds w/in 21 days
› No external appeal possible in most cases
Carers’ leave
› 10 days pa paid personal leave: accumulates (with same employer) and
available as carer’s leave
› To provide care or support to family/household member who needed that
due to illness, injury or an emergency
(Fair Work Act 2009)
6
Exploratory research with 2 large employers on employee eldercare needs (Baird & Heron 2013)
1 private employer (Co1), 1 public employer (PS1)
8 employees from each organisation & 1 HRM in each, 2 nine managers in one
› 11 women, 5 men eldercarers (or recently so)
› 3 were NESB
› Aged 23-60: in Co1 mainly in 40s, in PS 1 in 50s
› Varied educational background but largely in professional/managerial/supervisory roles
› Nearly all viewed themselves as primary carers
› CRs lived in their own home (8), in aged care (6), or with CG (2)
What care was provided?
› Main types of care: administrative; management of health care issues; emotional and social support; occasional household tasks
› None provided personal care such as washing and dressing, even where care giver (CG) & care recipient (CR) lived together (2/3)
› ‘Remote’ care: 4 (had) cared from a distance (PS 1)
› Most spent up to 10 hours pw, often less but involvement felt high to CGs
› Transition from independent living from the point of high stress/time commitment
What accommodations were used?
› Telephone calls: either use of worktime &/or work
phone – monitoring and admin
› Paid carer’s leave
› Informal hours adjustments for more senior staff,
work made up later
› Blocks of unpaid/paid leave of up to 6 months (2
each in Co1 & PS1 )
› PS 1: formal flexitime for less senior staff
9
Employees’ responses to employer assistance
Most employees were positive/reasonably so; a few
were lukewarm/critical – but a lot of guilt as these
quotes form interviews show:
› ‘didn’t want to take time off because I felt like [I] was
letting my job down as well. So of course you try to
do everything you possibly can, you try to fit
everybody in’
› ’the most, traumatic day for me ever... I probably
should have taken time off, but I didn't because the
nature of my job doesn't allow that. There is no, I
mean [work commitments] don't wait’
What would have helped?
1. Increased access to reduced hours incl temporarily ‘That would have been fantastic, now that I look back on it… It would have just been really good to have found an extra day a week [for three months]’
2. More access to accumulated paid carer’s leave
3. Blocks of unpaid leave
4. Workload adjustments
5. Provision of information about finding aged care
6. Counselling/employee interest groups
7. Positive organisational culture
8. Colleagues’ attitudes
Employees’ views of their line managers
›All viewed line managers’ attitudes as critical
to accessing accommodations, one said:
‘I think it’s just the types of managers that I’ve
worked through while this has happened. Like, I
had managers previously where I don’t think I
would have been confronted with the amount of
pushback that I have been, recently, on this.’
The role of line managers: issues emerging from the above & other research
›Managerial discretion (Kelly & Kalev 2006)
› Is accommodating care a reward to the
‘deserving’ employee? (Yeandle et al 2003)
›Are demands on line managers when
facilitating eldercare recognised? (Earl and
Taylor 2015)
›How do the other demands on a line manager
interact with their response to an employee’s
eldercare duties? (Todd & Binns 2013)
Conclusions
› Elder care needs differ from childcare needs in a
number of respects
› Access to flexible working and various forms of leave
is very important for employees undertaking
eldercare
› Being able to access well understood & publicised
entitlements appears to assist employees
› Line managers are at the ‘frontier of control’ over
flexibility
› Erratic application of policies can undermine their
value esp with regard to keeping careers on track
Further policy responses needed?
› A right to flexible/part-time work except in exceptional
circumstances AND a cheap speedy way of resolving
employer/employee disagreements
› New rights for eldercarers? (HREOC 2008)
Right to unpaid leave similar to unpaid parental leave
Dedicated carers leave
› Implications of consumer directed care & HACC changes for
informal carers
› Should there be more Government financial assistance for
employers of carers?
References
› Australian Bureau of Statistics 2013, Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia 2012, Cat. No. 4430.0.
› Australian Bureau of Statistics 2015, Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery, Cat. No. 6291.0.
› Baird, M & Heron, A 2013, ‘Women, Work and Eldercare’, in P Smyth & J Buchanan (eds.), Inclusive Growth in Australia:
Social policy as economic investment, Crows Nest, NSW.
› Dembe, AE, Partridge, JS, Dugan, E & Piktialis, DS 2011, ‘Employees’ satisfaction with the employer-sponsored elder-care
programs’, International Journal of Workplace Health Management,vol.4, no. 3, pp.216-227.
› Earl, C & Taylor, P 2015, ‘Is Workplace Flexibility Good Policy? Evaluating the Efficacy of Age Management Strategies for
Older Women Workers,’ Work, Aging and Retirement, online publication 6 January 2015.
› Kelly, E & Kalev, A 2006, ‘Managing flexible work arrangements in US organizations: formalized discretion or ‘a right to ask’,’
Socio-Economic Review , vol. 4, no.3, pp. 379-416.
› Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission 2008, It’s About Time: Women, Men, Work and Family, Human Rights
and Equal Opportunities Commission, Sydney.
› Page, A, Baird, M, Heron, A & Whelan, J 2009, Taking Care: Mature Age Workers with Eldercare Responsibilities, NSW
Industrial Relations/University of Sydney, Sydney, viewed 9 November 2013,
http://sydney.edu.au/business/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/107967/Mature_Aged_Carers_Report_Oct09.pdf
› Skinner, N & Pocock, B 2014, The Australian Work and Life Index 2014: The Persistent Challenge - Living, Working and
Caring in Australia in 2014, Centre for Work + Life, UNISA, Adelaide.
› Taskforce on Care Costs (TOCC) 2007, The hidden face of care: Combining work and caring responsibilities for the aged
and people with a disability, viewed on 20 September 2013, http://tinyurl.com/nc4lt5w
› Todd, P & Binns, J 2013, ‘Work–life balance: Is it now a problem for management?,’ Gender, Work and Organization, vol.
20, no. 3, pp. 219–231.
› Yeandle, S, Phillips, J, Scheibl, F, Wigfield, A & Wise, S 2003, Line managers and family-friendly employment, Joseph
Rowntree Foundation, York, UK. 16