The Power of Small Acts of Care

The Power of Small Acts of Care?

TLDR: We know and remember when someone extended a hand to us without our asking. For the rising numbers of unpaid caregivers who work full time, this can be a life line. But how does a business leader make this happen? What is the right way? This article goes beyond benefits conversations and makes the values of supporting employees practical and real.

My story

Reflecting on my journey as a caregiver for my father, I recall how the smallest gestures—like a warm cup of tea or a few minutes of heartfelt conversation—had the most profound impact on his well-being. These experiences taught me that care does not always require grand gestures; sometimes, the simplest acts make the biggest difference. This insight is crucial for employers striving to support their caregiving employees effectively.

As an advocate for working caregivers, I think about how to show other executives and leaders - particularly those who run businesses where every employee's name, and likely their spouse and children's names, are known to them - how they can, confidentially but equitably, support those who are also caregiving.

As the Founder and Director of Caregiven , I often pitch and present our product's value proposition, how we touch lives and have designed a platform and mobile app that uses empathy innovatively, with the intent that our technologies help humans be more human while doing one of the most human acts, caring.??

Even if you are not a Caregiven customer, I want to help you do right by these employees. I want to show you how to create a culture of empathy and openness, and what you can do without affecting your bottom line. This article is about how to integrate small acts of care within a comprehensive well-being strategy. The goal is to present pragmatic ways to see the needs of employees who are caregivers, not contribute to potential burnout, and model behaviors as a leader who prioritizes his/her employees well-being. In time the result will achieve measurable improvements in employee engagement, retention, and productivity, but in short-order will underscore the importance you’ve placed on creating a culture and a company that cares.

Bridging the Gap

In my mother’s generation she didn’t want to disclose her pregnancy until it was unavoidably obvious because she loved the purpose and connection she found in her work. In my generation I didn’t want to give my employer any reason to think that I’d even consider not returning from maternity leave because I felt that it was my decision to make when I had the facts about whether I found purpose and connection while staying home full-time. While the struggle of managing work and caring for children remains real, the taboo about discussing that struggle has diminished. That is not the case when caring for another adult.

I can count on one-hand the number of stories I’ve heard where an individual felt confident that their supervisor would be receptive and empathetic to their new caregiving responsibilities. Because of the sensitivity of the human issues around caregiving, many employers also struggle with navigating conversations and managing the needs of their caregiving employees. This gap often leads to the loss of valuable team members who feel their needs are unseen and therefore feel unsupported.?

It doesn't have to be this way.?

Imagine a workplace where every employee feels seen, heard, and supported. Many employers think they’ve created that culture as evidenced by their employee benefits. True, this is vital, but I encourage you to also incorporate the small acts of care, such as checking in with employees “human to human”? or suggesting they are free to use your office if they ever need to be behind a closed door, if even for a few minutes. These simply acts can go a long way in demonstrating genuine concern for their well-being. The key to understand is one-size does not fit all.

The financial implications of not supporting caregiving employees are significant. According to Harvard Business School, U.S. businesses lose an estimated $33.6 billion annually due to lost productivity from caregiving responsibility. I wrote about this in my article here and while that big number doesn’t seem like it has any relevancy for your small business, it does. Use Caregiven’s free Caregiver Impact Number calculator for your unsupported caregivers’ affect on the bottom line.

Practical and Easy Steps

When I speak I often share that outside of school teachers, the first individuals who don’t live with you, to know that something is going on in your personal life are your co-workers. You know when someone is having a hard day, even if you don’t know exactly why. Empathy doesn’t ask you to know why in order to care. Empathy asks you to be open, observant, and willing to draw on your own personal experiences to connect.

1. Be Observant: If there’s a change in behavior, such as seeing an employee who normally leaves their phone face down during a meeting but has begun leaving it face up with an ever-watchful eye on the alerts, take note, let them know that you, too, have had times in your life when you felt that you couldn’t step away from your phone, even for a minute. Trust them; encourage them to acknowledge non-work circumstances may intrude into the meeting. Who hasn’t been in a meeting when someone is trying to get Taylor Swift tickets and is constantly refreshing their browser. If colleagues can excuse that, they’ll excuse waiting for a call-back from Mom’s physician or a check-in text from the neighbor letting you know all is well at Dad’s house.
2. Be Vulnerable: A casual remark about your own caregiving experiences can go a long way to opening the door for better communication with an employee or coworker who you worry may be facing their own care journey. It’s as simple as mentioning that you spent time at Mom’s house on the weekend, helping her weatherize her home or contemplating if you’ll be as lonely as your Dad seems to be now that he’s no longer working. These innocuous comments are red-flags of shared experience to fellow caregivers.?
3. Be Flexible: Flexibility can significantly reduce stress and improve overall productivity and contentment of employees, particularly when it feels like everyone is demanding of their time. Have the conversation about working together to achieve balance so that they can continue to be the employee that you appreciate while also having the ability to be available for the unpredictability of caregiving.
4. Be Trustful: Communicate your belief in your employee that they know what’s best for them and that you trust them to take care of all their obligations appropriately - including those to take care of themselves. This need not be a formal conversation, it can simply be a nod of shared understanding when you see them leaving a bit early, or a tap on their shoulder as you leave for the night and they are still at their desk working late.?
5. Model Behavior for Others: It’s easy for me to model the type of supervisor I wish I’d had when caring for my Dad because of my lived experience. If you haven’t been a caregiver, you can draw on other personal hardships and life lessons that found their way into your workday and made you sensitive to how you were showing up. No, a break-up isn’t akin to the death of a loved-one. But if you’d wished people would have stopped asking you how you were doing or telling you “this too shall pass” while you were working through the end of a relationship, you can draw on that experience and model giving your employee the space they need. You get to be the lighthouse and demonstrate the behavior you want to see while keeping in mind the personality and preferences of the individual out there in the storm. This goes beyond training, although there are free programs to help you infuse more empathy into your management style, and more like the Golden Rule/Ethics of Reciprocity where you treat others the way you believe you should be treated.
6. Focus on Mental Health: Don’t make assumptions about their caregiving obligations beyond it being challenging. For individuals who find great meaning as caregivers the balance they seek is still hard to find. The same is true for the reluctant caregiver, but the types of challenges may be different. Keeping your focus more broad allows them to fill in the blanks of what type of challenge they are facing. Do not underestimate how important such acknowledgement brings to the mental health of the individual. Permission to struggle, and the normalization of how hard balancing multiple family priorities is is transformative to the individual and results in a more caring company culture.?
7. Connect the Dots: ?When someone is going through a complex, emotionally draining experience they may not see the breadcrumbs that could lead them to additional help. Be overt, offer to help them navigate their existing benefits and local resources in order to enable them to build the support system that addresses their emotional well-being. This can be as simple as having handy a one-page Caregiver Benefits Map (insert a plug here for me to help them build their individualized map) that shows them how their existing benefits (health, dental, retirement) have information specifically available to them in their caregiving roles.
8. Acta Non Verba: Deeds not words. This is the motto of my Dad’s school and it fuels how I hope we all will live our lives. It’s one thing to talk about creating a culture of care, it’s another to do it. When choosing a local charity to support during the holidays, pick one that has a personal connection to an employee who is caregiving. When organizing a wellness walk, combine it with a walk for a cure for the illness that an employee’s care recipient has. Give employees the opportunity to nominate the organizations that have made a huge impact in their lives as they care for another. Offer company events that are inclusive to care recipients so that your employee not only doesn’t have to miss the company picnic, but can also comfortably and easily include those they care for.?

Small acts of care may seem insignificant in isolation, but collectively, they can transform the workplace. Moreover, while the impact to an employee might not be visible in the moment, the benefits of their loyalty and commitment to your business and you as a result of that moment will pay off exponentially.

Contact me. I would love to hear how I can be useful to you.