Don't let caregiving sabotage retirement planning

Caregivers are often stuck dealing with the immediate needs of a loved one. But that can have a long-term impact on their own well-being in their later years. 

Currently, 30 million employees have caregiving responsibilities alongside a paying job, and almost a third say they have stopped saving and have taken on debt, according to a report from the National Alliance for Caregiving. A third of employees will leave their jobs due to caregiving, according to the Rosalynn Carter Institute, stunting their ability to reach their own personal goals in retirement. 

And there's no end in sight: Larry Nisenson, chief growth officer at Assured Allies, an aging innovation company, says this impact will continue to be felt from generation-to-generation, as employees have less opportunity to save for their own care, and will eventually need the support of their children down the line. 

"It's a terrible mess, is the best way to describe it," Nisenson says. "The impact won't be seen for 20 or 30 or 40 years until these people start to retire and realize that what they should have had in savings never materialized." 

Read more: Who cares for caregivers?

Nisenson says employers are realizing how much caregiving impacts their employees, and a variety of innovative tech solutions, paired with compassionate work policies, can help ease the burden — freeing up time, money and energy for employees to refocus on themselves. He chatted with EBN about the current state of caregiving, and new solutions offering support.   

What kind of impact does caregiving today have on someone's retirement picture in the future? 
Most people planning for retirement think that Medicare covers long-term care, which it does not, and they just assume it will be taken care of. From a financial standpoint, caregivers, on average, spend well over $10,000 a year out of their own pocket, and it disproportionately impacts minority communities and women more than it does men. What most caregivers report is that they've turned down promotions, they've turned down job advancements. So the short-term is they're taking time off from work. They're spending this money out of their hard-earned pay. The long-term impact is even greater because it's lost opportunity, lost job promotion, it's lost savings in their 401(k). 

When those caregivers eventually retire themselves, what challenges are they going to face? 
Most people who are doing family unpaid caregiving are doing so because their family members don't have a long-term care policy or they didn't put enough dollars away, and they're relying on family members because it's the only choice they have. But even for those who have the wherewithal to find or to pay for caregivers, there was already a supply and demand issue pre-COVID, with the projection that we're a million paid caregivers short of what the demand is expected to be in 2030.

Read more: As boomers hit retirement, is long-term care insurance a must-have benefit?

The family caregivers who are working and trying to take care of their professional life and their family's personal life, may have to work a few extra years. And that creates this really untenable situation for older caregivers, and has an additional physical and mental impact. Just as an example of that is if older caregivers find themselves assisting their older spouses and get hurt in the process. So now you have a person who needs care, and a person who is injured, now relying on the next generation to care for both of those parents. 

What should employers be doing to address the financial and emotional challenges employee caregivers are dealing with, and are they doing that sufficiently now?

Most family caregivers who are balancing this incredible pressure of keeping and maintaining a job and taking care of their loved ones do so in silence. And then companies don't really talk about it, because they say, "Well, I don't think it's a problem for us, because none of our employees are telling us that caregiving matters." Most employers say they have caregiving services in their EAP, but that's not how caregiving works. What people need as caregivers isn't some static piece of paper that says, "Your mom or your dad needs ambulatory service. Here's the three things to ask." That's not what they need. They actually need help figuring out how to be in two places at once. 

What benefits are actually helpful for caregivers to find that balance and take care of themselves, too? 
Technology is now our friend. When you talk to family caregivers, there's typically one primary caregiver who bears the financial and physical weight of being a caregiver. Fortunately now through technology, you really have the ability to loadshare with siblings or relatives. All of the medical records, all of the financial responsibilities can be brought into one app, so that it can be a better sharing of [these] responsibilities. There are plenty of companies out there that are doing amazing things in that way. 

Read more: At caregiving platform Cleo, 2 CEOs are better than 1

On the employer side, companies are really now understanding the dynamic of caregiving and what they can do, whether it's job sharing, or shift work that allows people to schedule in advance what days they can work. Employers can also bring in outside services as part of their full benefit package that allow emergent caregiving issues to be taken care of. Cariloop, just one of the examples, goes in and says, outsource to us so that whenever your employee finds themselves in a situation where they need help, they don't have to do the work, all they have to do is pick up a phone and call us. There's another company, CareScout, that does the same thing. And certainly Assured Allies is at the forefront of this, to help people save and put money away to pay for care. 

For employers, the reason they should care has everything to do with first of all being empathetic employers, but from the business piece of this, there's efficiency in having a solid plan of being able to help your employees manage these two incredibly pressure-filled situations of wanting to give your best at work, and needing to give your best to your loved ones.