The January Wrap Up

Hello and happy Friday junior (??),?

When you hear “leave” your mind may immediately go to parental leave (or even just maternity leave), but we think it should be more inclusive than that. People can take leave for so many different life events—recovering from a surgery, caring for an aging parent or a child with an illness, pregnancy loss, bereavement, and safe leave just to name a few. If you’re not familiar with some of the ones we just named, we encourage you to do a little more research (The National Partnership for Women and Families and Bereave are good places to start). Today, we’re going to dig into supporting caregivers in the workplace.

3 of 4 workers have caregiving responsibilities

75% of US workers have some kind of caregiving responsibilities, which means we need to broaden our scope to ensure caregivers of all types are supported. The consequences of not doing so have real financial and professional impacts for employees and their employers. Our co-founder, Lauren Dai , sat down with Carolyn Frey , Hungryroot ’s Chief People Officer, to better understand these consequences and offer some tips for companies to work towards a more inclusive culture of caregiving.?

Why we care (and why you should too)

When you dig in, you find that everyone has a connection to caregiving. As Lauren was founding Cocoon, her mother confessed that when her own mother (Lauren’s grandmother) was diagnosed with cancer, she didn’t take a caregiver leave, afraid of the stigma and unaware of her rights—something she deeply regretted. Meanwhile, Carolyn shared that her mother is completely blind and requires around-the-clock care.?

Caregiving is a vulnerable topic for a lot of people, and each person’s situation is different—leading Lauren to ask the guiding question:

The cost of not supporting caregivers

Two million women left the workforce during the pandemic to care for children or to care for ill family members—a gap we’re still feeling into 2024. Companies who don’t have a caregiver leave policy see higher attrition and lower engagement. And these don’t just impact the leave takers themselves, but other teammates not being properly supported or compensated for extra work taken on, or simply being turned off by how their company handled a teammate’s situation.

• US businesses lose $35 billion every year from failing to attract, support, and retain employees with caregiving responsibilities?
• 80% of employees say that caregiving responsibilities affect their productivity
• The costs rack up: high turnover, lost institutional knowledge, temporary hiring and overtime, absenteeism, presenteeism, and replacement costs?

Tips for supporting caregivers

1. Start with “charitable assumptions.” If something seems off or performance isn’t up to par, instead of assuming bad intentions on the employee’s part, assume they’re trying to give their best but something is getting in the way of that—then find out what that is. Start with a check in—but make it comfortable, not an accusation. Maybe you’ll learn they’re not sleeping well or are under a lot of stress. From here you can work towards a solution.
2. Model the company culture you want to have. When leaders can be role models that speak up, share their experiences, and learn and listen to others doing the same, this can be the difference between having a good caregiver leave policy and caregiving culture on paper versus truly creating an environment where they thrive and come to life.
3. Offer flexibility in how work gets done. Are there changes that can be made around scheduling, both in terms of the hours worked and even when and how meetings are scheduled? Do you need to reconsider your “video always on” culture?
4. Support with other benefits. Benefits like mental health support or wellness stipends not only benefit caregivers, but also the average employee. You can even extend support through existing benefits—it might just be how you message and package them.?
5. Get leadership buy-in. Everything starts from the top, and the core ethos and values of the company are reflected in the actions and attitudes of those leading the way.

Important reminder: you don’t have to go from 0 to 100 right away–sometimes just taking a step from zero to one is a meaningful start. For companies already working towards an inclusive company culture of caregiving, it’s helpful to share any data, policy language, and benchmarks so we can all start setting a standard for the industry and bring it into professional conversations.

Interested in learning more? You can watch the full conversation here ??

From the community

The Cocoon community is filled with super smart People leaders, so instead of us telling you what to do, we're asking them for their advice.?

Q: What is something you learned while taking your own parental leave that helps you better support your employees?

A: You never know what someone is going through outside their workday. “You always think of going home to your kids. I didn’t realize until having a baby that they wake up at 6 am and you’ve had three hours of work before you even start your official work hours—and sometimes that’s the only three hours you get to spend with your baby.” —Sara Long, Controller @ Honeybook

What we’re reading

• 84% of adults in the US support federal funding for paid leave but 73% of private sector employees don’t have access to it. Bobbie and Naomi Osaka are teaming up to try to change that (Parents push harder)?
• “We’re seeing a trend towards both organizations and states recognizing that in order for employees to be fully effective when they return to work, they need more time to handle both the logistics and emotions of loss” (Worklife)
• New York Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed expanding paid parental leave to allow workers to attend prenatal care and appointments (USA Today)
• The House Bipartisan Paid Family Leave Working Group released a policy framework that outlines their consensus for paid leave legislative options right now (Chrissy Houlahan Press Release)

Until next time,

Team Cocoon