Small-businesses, grassroots startups, non-profits, and corporate organizations all share one major commonality. 73% of the employees at these businesses are also caregivers. 

Nearly three-quarters of the modern workforce are managing more than just their professional roles. They’re tending to the needs of children, aging parents, spouses, and friends. The person delivering quarterly projections, launching products, and leading team meetings is also struggling to get their child to a doctor's appointment on time, or making sure that their spouse has the medications they need.

This isn’t just a statistic. It is a personal journey that many have shared. I’ve spent many moments throughout my career struggling to find the balance between furthering my career and personal responsibility.

Employee and Caregiver

For nearly two decades, I held leadership roles in the senior living industry. My work focused on sales, marketing, and customer experience. Throughout my professional career, it wasn’t the data or the spreadsheets that stuck with me, but the lived-experiences of each employee, parent, or adult child that I spoke to.

I sat across from hundreds of adult children who were also professionals. Their titles ranged from part time employees to C-suite executives, and yet, one thing bound them together: the emotional weight of caring for aging parents while navigating their careers. 

At the same time, I was navigating my own chaos. Leading teams and building strategic campaigns while raising four young boys at home. I know the battle of toggling between back-to-back Zoom calls while packing school lunches. As a mom, the weight of leadership is often layered with guilt. The internal war between “I need to be present at home” and “I can’t let my team down.”

What Organizations Need to Understand

When 73% of your workforce is also caring for someone outside of work, supporting caregivers isn’t a “nice to have” perk, it’s a critical part of business success.

We cannot expect peak performance from individuals who are emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. However, we can build better systems, cultures, and conversations that acknowledge this difficult balance.

Here’s what companies can start doing:

Normalize the Conversation:

Create an environment where employees feel safe to share their personal challenges without fear of judgement or professional consequences. This doesn't mean oversharing, it means making space for your employees to be their authentic selves. Normalize asking employees, “How are you really doing?” and listening to the answer. Psychological safety is a hot topic over the past decade, but it's exactly what is needed in order to have honest conversations.

Flexible Doesn’t Mean Less Committed:

Too often, flexibility is equated with a lack of dedication. Caregivers are some of the most efficient, empathetic, and resourceful individuals in the workforce. When you offer remote work options, compressed workweeks, or flexible hours, you’re not losing productivity, you’re gaining loyalty and trust.

Practical, Human-Centered Benefits:

Consider providing mental health days, access to resources for elder care or family support services, and caregiver stipends. These benefits won’t just improve work-life balance, they’ll improve employee retention. 

Train Your Leaders to Lead with Empathy:

Middle managers often bear the brunt of enforcing policy without the tools or training to lead compassionately. Equip your leaders with the language to support the caregivers on your team. Having empathy is a competitive edge as the workplace shifts toward the prioritization of mental health and strong company culture.

Rewriting Success

Success isn’t about how much we can juggle without breaking. It’s about how we show up, for our work, our people and ourselves. Burnout will occur if we don’t do this in an honest and sustainable way. 

For caregivers, this might mean redefining what achievement looks like in different seasons of life. It might mean letting go of perfectionism and embracing support. It might mean saying “not now” to some things so you can say “yes” to what truly matters. 

For organizations, success means building cultures that value people and output. When we take care of the people behind the productivity of our organizations, we unlock greater creativity, commitment, and collaboration.

When we build workplaces that honor the experiences of our caregivers, we don’t just help individuals thrive, we help our companies thrive too. To every founder, CEO, HR leader, and team manager reading this: You have the power to make caregiving compatibility part of your company’s DNA.

Let’s build something better, together.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my recent podcast episode on the Invisible Workforce.