A recent email started like this: “I have had a few situations recently where managers are becoming impatient with employees who are parents, feeling that the pandemic is over and the desire to get “back to normal.” The sentiment is very real and understandable, compounded by pressure from the top, but for caregivers, life is not normal, and many of the challenges presented by the pandemic endure. The incidence of serious mental health issues like depression and anxiety remains at crisis levels. Concerns about kids’ learning gaps and mental health, persistent illnesses and sick days, the specter of layoffs, confusing return to office messaging and plans, and economic instability have all impacted retention, advancement and efforts to make organizations more equitable and inclusive.
Caregivers represent an essential portion of your workforce, whether we realize it or not. Many of those who have caregiving responsibilities are invisible in the workplace; researchers estimate that while 73% of the workforce identify as caregivers, only 56% of them say their work supervisor is aware of their caregiving responsibilities—a phenomenon Julia Cohen Sebastien, CEO of caregiver-support platform Grayce, has described as “quiet caregiving.”