How to Care for our Carers in the Workplace?

Proudly co-written by Sa’diyya Nesar & Lo?c André

Before we explore this topic, let’s start with a little contextualisation to get our minds into gear. It is said that people living with disabilities constitute the largest minority group in the world with an estimated 15% of our fellow humans currently living with a disability (that is more than 1 billion people). In Hong Kong – where we wrote this article – the government reports that 7.1% of the population are living with a disability. The portion of people living with a disability is increasing due to chronic conditions, calamities, population aging, and even the health implications brought forth by the recent pandemic.

These numbers suggests that there are many families directly having to navigate disability – and/or chronic illnesses – and care for their loved ones. Primary carers are said to be those responsible for the day-to-day well-being of an individual living with a disability. A person living with a more severe disability might require multiple carers to help with their daily or punctual needs. In many cases, carers also bear the responsibility of being the breadwinners of their household – this includes the cost of living as well as cost of caring for potential medical needs of their loved ones living with a disability.

there are many families directly having to navigate disability – and/or chronic illnesses

Carers are, therefore, very much present within our society, and due to aging, we may one day require carers ourselves.

Now, imagine the portion of our overall population that people living with disability and carers represents.

The sheer size of this group – our fellow citizens, friends, and colleagues – means that we need to ensure we’re equally including them in all aspects of our society, including the workplace. This article focuses on our carers and specifically, how we can care for them in the workplace?

If you, as an organisation, get this right – the benefits are significant. We’re talking increases in performance, job satisfaction, retention, commitment, employer brand image, and so much more.

Let’s start at the beginning – who are your carers? It is unlikely that, as an organisation, you know most of the carers that are in your employment. You’ve probably never encouraged sharing, and even if you did, you still may not know all the carers in your workplace. It requires trust and the understanding of the purpose of sharing for carers to share their personal roles with their employer. They need to trust that this information is safe and will not be used to discriminate against them. Also, carers are more likely to share information with an organisation if they understand the purpose and the accommodating benefit that this would have for their careers.

Some tips to get to know your carers:

• Nominate a key contact in the workplace
• Set up an internal carers group or forum
• Host internal company-wide webinars on the topic
• Make known the available support (see further on workplace adjustments)

You’d be surprised how many carers there are around you and how incredible it is once sharing happens around this important topic.

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Next, how can you make adjustments to care for your carers? Start by understanding the legal environment you are operating in. In Hong Kong for example, it is the employer’s legal obligation – under Hong Kong’s Disability Discrimination Ordinance – to not discriminate against carers on the grounds of disability. Then look at some of the practical ways you can accommodate your employees that are carers.

Flex those policies

Carers might have planned or unplanned caring commitments that mean they are not physically in the workplace. They may for example need to transport and/or accompany their loved ones to a medical appointment. It could also be that they need to suddenly leave work to tend to an emergency. This potentially happens to all of us, maybe just not as frequently.

Creating and honouring a flexible policy will go a very long way in making employees/carers feel they can safely foster a career whilst tending to their loved ones. It will potentially reduce stress levels of all parties, increase productivity and performance, and make for a loyal and committed workforce in return. It additionally can potentially strengthen teamwork, especially when teams working together see how to work together around flexible schedules.

When putting this flex policy together, try to keep in mind a few aspects. Firstly, a carer may not need to be physically absent from the office for the whole day and can still fulfil career responsibilities remotely. Create space for anticipative planning in teams. Ensure the policy does not take away the carers annual leave days which they need (arguably more than others) to rest and recharge. You may also consider fixed remote working days to allow carers to create healthy routines that will ultimately increase their carer “performance” and have more focused at work time. ?

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Phones on please

Carers may need to keep their phones on (not on silent) to receive calls and/or have access to a phone to make calls for medical, support, or emergency purposes. Create acceptability and inclusion around this. It will certainly put a carer at ease to know they are reachable and allow them to focus at work without worry.

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Make flourish

We know that developing a career is an active effort that is additional to simply doing our jobs well. It may require, extra-curricular learning, networking, participating in committees, delivering on additional projects, or simply taking the time for (accompanied or not) introspection.

Because of their dual hats, carers may not have adequate time to both perform in their jobs and actively develop their careers. Therefore, providing them with a bit more support can go a long way in ensuring they are not only retained but also constantly grown to their full potential – this would promote growth satisfaction and ultimately be more beneficial for your organisation.

Aside from discussing career growth, regularly and actively with your carers, consider some tools that include mentorship, internal/external career coaching, training and development programmes, or even just clear and accessible organisational charts and skill-track roadmaps.

ERGs

It is easy for carers to feel alone at work, especially when it is not known that there are other carers like them. This is why, Employee Resource Groups, whether focused on disability and carers or just carers, are a must. The support group allows to centralize and disseminate useful information around available services and assets available. For example, you could empower your ERG to promote your accommodating work policies and provide carers with information on what is available (internal and external support). Sometimes, something as simple as medical coverage and how it can benefit a carer’s loved ones (or just themselves) is not known – this could help.

An ERG can also be approached by a manager seeking to learn how to create accommodations for their team.

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Carers are Allies

Carers are potentially natural allies for your employees living with a disability. This makes carers natural promoters of inclusion in the workplace (and if you get it right – your employer brand). Whilst carers can be fantastic people to help you promote and achieve even higher levels of inclusion and equity – remember that it is not their responsibility, it is yours. Work with your allies and ensure you yourself are keeping up to high standards and regular reviews of efforts when it comes to continuous growth of your DE&I vision.

We hope the above can help employers to care for their carers as well as employ more people living with a disability and their carers.

It is our testimonial that disability pushes one to navigate uncertainty, and anyone exposed to the world of disability would have the acquired ability to adjust to high-pressure situations. Carers exposed to disability for a longer time would have developed the skill of how to delegate tasks to achieve desired end-goals effectively. Time management is also a skill that is developed when exposed to a disability, and the recognition of which task may not be that urgent to fulfill. An employee that is a carer—or even a person with a disability—might naturally develop leadership capabilities due to their life experience.

It is, therefore, an asset for any organisation to work towards accommodating care for people with disabilities and their carers at the workplace.

Sa’diyya Nesar is the author of 'Strength from Within,' TEDx speaker, RESOLVE’s 2020 Disability & Empowerment fellow, and poet that lives life with a physical disability. Download chapter 1 of her book here .

Lo?c André is a social entrepreneur with a passion for disability inclusion. He leads a team of recruiters, all of them living with a disability, with the mission of supporting the careers of those living with a disability.