This company is trying to build sustainable solutions for post-pandemic caregiving

Laura Zagar, energy law attorney at Perkins Coie, has spent her whole life witnessing the impact and challenges that come with caregiving.

When she was young, her mother acted as her older sister’s caregiver, after an aneurysm left her unable to care for herself. As an adult, it was Zagar’s turn to step into the caregiving role for both her parents — for her mother in the wake of a devastating cancer diagnosis until her recent passing, and now for her aging father.

Balancing these responsibilities with a full-time job became especially challenging during the pandemic, as her mother’s health worsened and they found themselves on opposite ends of the country, Zagar says.

“With COVID in particular, [I was] trying to manage her care from California when I couldn't fly back and I couldn't get in the hospitals,” she says. “[My mom] was bouncing between hospitals and care facilities and trying to navigate that was really overwhelming, while also trying to be a lawyer for a large law firm plus managing an office.”

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Zagar is far from alone: 48 million individuals provide unpaid care to an adult family member or friend, and half of these caregivers say they have taken on new or expanded caregiving responsibilities during the pandemic, according to data from Northwestern Mutual. And although the majority of caregivers report receiving help of some kind with their caregiving responsibilities — most often from family and friends — over a quarter still report not receiving any additional help.

The result is that 43% report feeling distracted, worried or focused on caregiving instead of their job five or more hours per week, while 20% are distracted at work more than nine hours per week, according to a recent survey by healthcare service company HomeThrive.

HomeThrive offers a caregiving support platform, providing an easy user-interface to find resources. The app also connects users with designated case workers who can make calls and schedule appointments while the caregiver is at work or otherwise unavailable.

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“The research, the coaching, the navigation — there's a lot of focus on healthcare and on more medical things,” says David Jacobs, co-founder and CEO of HomeThrive. “Sometimes it's somebody to do research for you and give you advice, and sometimes it's to give people the permission to take care of themselves so that they can have the energy for their professional life and their family life.”

Zagar used the platform after her law firm added it as an employee benefit, and says the app helped her navigate caregiving and work responsibilities with more ease. The support they provided helped her move her mom back home so they could be together during her mother’s last days.

“They were hugely helpful in navigating a lot of the issues [we faced] in the last six months of my mom’s life,” she says. “Unfortunately, we did lose her. But without HomeThrive I wouldn’t have gotten her home in time to pass at home.”

Jacobs himself has been a caregiver to his father and understands the emotional toll it demands. He wants HomeThrive to ease the burden and lessen the guilt, allowing employees to bring their full selves to each role.

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“There's a lot of guilt associated with not spending as much time supporting others, when they do need to take care of themselves,” he says. “[Caregiving] is making it more challenging for employees to continue to bring their whole selves to work and to be there for their family and for organizations. They don't want to choose. They want to be able to do both.”

Zagar says that while she has not considered leaving the workforce to focus solely on caregiving, that guilt is ever-present. Her experience with HomeThrive helps her get through the tough days so she can focus on caring for her family — and supporting herself, too.

“I never thought about leaving the workforce,” Zagar says. “But I did think ‘should I take a different job that's not as time demanding.’ That's always on the forefront. But [HomeThrive] made it more manageable. It was the light at the end of the tunnel.”