The deciding factor in Susan Palijan’s career decisions has been how her jobs would impact her ability to care for her parents.
She has juggled her academic and career goals with family caregiving duties for more than 20 years.
“I kept having to sort of reassess every time there was a crisis or something happened,” she said. “I always took the family caregiving role.”
She spent 12 years caring for her mother through multiple health problems until her mother’s death from colon cancer in 2013. To do this, Palijan stopped her PhD studies in psychology.
Now, she cares for her father, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2021. Palijan and her sister lived with him for several years; he struggled with depression after his wife died and they wanted to support him emotionally. He is now at a retirement home until a long-term care space becomes available.
This also impacts Palijan’s career. When her mother died, she worked for the Ontario government, commuting each day from Guelph to Toronto. She left that job in 2017 to take a position in regional government.
“I would kind of step back, take on lateral roles, or switch organizations,” she said, describing how caregiving impacted her career. She used all her sick days and vacation days to support her parents and was always exhausted.
When she moved to new jobs, she had to start over with the minimum amount of time off available. “I felt like it was always restarting,” she said.
Many caregivers have similar stories. A new report from the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence says many caregivers spend more than 30 hours each week in unpaid caregiving duties — in addition to full-time jobs.
The centre surveyed more than 3,000 caregivers and care providers across Canada. Most respondents — 62 per cent — were working caregivers, who work as well as take care of relatives or friends. Forty-six per cent had full-time jobs. Caregiving responsibilities led 10 per cent to put off another job, and six per cent to take on another job.
Nearly all working caregivers want more support at work, including flexible work hours, days off and paid leaves specifically for caregiving.
In last month’s budget, the federal government announced it would begin consultations on a national caregiving strategy, something the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence and others have long sought.
“Canada is really quite far behind with respect to accommodating care employees,” said Allison Williams, a professor at McMaster University who researches the experiences of working caregivers. Williams is the principal researcher at the university’s Gender Health & Caregiver Friendly Workplaces project, which researches how workplaces can better support employees who care for adults.
There are workplace supports when employees care for children, like parental leaves or, in some cases, on-site daycare, says Williams. “But when we look at the other end of the trajectory, which is caring for adults, or elderly folks, we really have not addressed this issue.”
Working caregivers “often don’t see their career trajectory realized,” said Williams. They often take part-time jobs, unpaid leaves or do not consider promotions, she says.
‘What makes the difference’
In 2017, the Canadian Standards Association Group, which develops voluntary guidelines for various industries, published the Carer-inclusive and accommodating standard. The standard helps employers develop best practices for supporting caregiving employees. It includes having workplaces identify gaps in their accommodation practices for working caregivers and develop plans to remove the barriers employees face in accessing proper supports.
The standard, like all of the group’s standards, is voluntary. Governments can choose to incorporate them into law.
Williams’ research has found implementing the standard saves workplaces thousands of dollars. Workplace absences decrease and productivity increases.
The standard says workplaces can accommodate working caregivers by “promoting an environment that ensures that workers talk freely about work-life balance issues and not being penalized and excluded because of their carer role.”
Communication is key, says Addie Greco-Sanchez, founder and president of AGS Rehab Solutions Inc., a company that supports employers in helping ill and injured workers return to work.
Working caregivers need to say what could help them, such as time off or changes in schedules. Employers need to explain the company’s needs too, so they can find a solution that benefits everyone, she says. For example, if an employee does not know how long they will need to be away to care for someone who is dying, an employer can arrange for them to work flexible hours or be available for a few hours a day.
“A lot of people are afraid of that level of communication,” Greco-Sanchez said. “But it really is what makes the difference.”
Employers cannot give employees indefinite leaves for caregiving responsibilities, she says. But they need to respond to workers’ requests with compassion and generosity.
For example, if an employee is caring for a dying relative, “what’s going to be remembered is how you supported that person in that time,” she said. “But what they’ll remember as well, on the flip side of that, is if you didn’t allow [a leave] to happen, and that person passed, and they weren’t there.”
Some workers may hesitate to ask for help, says Williams. Many caregivers are men, but because caregiving is seen as a women’s role, they may not talk about it. “They don’t talk about it, because it’s something that they hold as a shameful experience,” said Williams.
Employment Insurance includes job-protected leaves for caregiving. Employers need to know about these benefits, and leaves that may be in provincial and territorial law.
But they are not limited by these laws, says Greco-Sanchez. Employers can give employees more than the minimum time off. At her company, employees get five personal days off a year, instead of the three mandated by Ontario law. And employees begin with three weeks of annual vacation, instead of the starting minimum of two.
Remiss to not have strategies
Everyone interviewed for this article mentioned the benefits of flexible work hours for caregivers. Workplaces can also create regular practices that support working caregivers.
SE Health, a national not-for-profit health social enterprise, has weekly group meditation on Wednesdays. Anyone can attend, but the organization has been developing supports specifically for its working caregivers in the last year. A survey of the organization’s 8,500 employees found that 39 per cent were caregivers, says Farah Ismail, SE Health’s senior vice-president, chief legal, privacy and compliance officer.
The organization has created a coaching program where employees who have social work backgrounds help their colleagues who are caregivers. It is creating an internal discussion board where employees who are caregivers can ask each other for advice.
The organization is also trying to create designated meeting-free times. Right now, there are no meetings Friday afternoon at company headquarters.
“Caregiving is a really challenging position to be put into,” said Ismail. “[Employers] would be remiss if [they] didn’t try to come up with strategies to help them.”
When Palijan’s mother was sick, she did not ask anyone at work for help, she says. She is getting better at that now. She is working on a PhD again — this time as a part-time student in the University of Toronto’s Health Systems Research program. Her studies focus on caregivers’ wellness. She also works part-time as a research and evaluation consultant.
Caregivers need more mental-health supports from their workplaces, she says, especially for long-term caregivers. More than anything, they need emotional support.
“I think I just would have wanted understanding,” she said, thinking about what she would have needed from her employers. “I don’t expect anyone’s pity or sympathy, just understanding and a little bit of empathy.”
Employers need to remember employees have a life outside of their job, says Greco-Sanchez.
“Life is much more than just work,” she said. “People have to go home at the end of the day, and feel good about themselves and what they’ve done and not feel completely exhausted.”
When working caregivers are supported, everyone benefits.
“The more [employers] give, the more they get,” said Greco-Sanchez.
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