Working Caregivers-The Invisible Employees Newsletter

Brought to you by ieadvocates (invisible employee advocates)

Thank You For Being With Us In 2024!

Thank you for being here!

And thank you for being with us in 2024! We are feeling very grateful for 2024 and very excited about welcoming in 2025!

 Here is a recap of the progress we made this year:

• We launched our book Working Caregivers-The Invisible Employees in the beginning of the year and we were pleasantly overwhelmed with the 51 five star reviews we received. Thank you to all those readers who took the time to read our book and write a review. We highlight a review in every newsletter (scroll to the bottom of this one).

• We launched our website which is always a work in progress. We appreciate any feedback if you can take a few moments and write us. In 2025, we plan to add significantly more resources to our website that employers, HR, managers, and working caregivers can easily browse.

• In September we launched our newsletter. We highlighted people and organizations making a difference in the working caregiver space. We shared real working caregiver stories (see a recap with links below). And we shared resources that you can read, listen to and or watch that can help your organization’s working caregivers ( or you if you are someone who works a job and has family caregiver responsibilities).

• In September we also launched our podcast. The feedback has been tremendously positive, and we will continue to bring you amazing guests. Below you will find a full recap summary of our podcast episodes with links.

• We launched a virtual webinar offering that was specifically tailored to the requests of each employer who secured our services. We are happy to say we have given webinars to organizations adding up to almost 200,000 employees.  Please reach out to us to learn more about this.  

As we reflect on the first year of our newsletter, we are reminded of all the wonderful insights our podcast guests and real working caregivers shared with us during our interviews with them. The conversations with our guests have been generous, honest, and helpful. Sharing working caregiver stories and valuable tips on how to support their working caregivers is something we are very passionate about. We dedicate quite a bit of time to making sure you get the best of the best content. We would like to remind you of some of their valuable contributions as we close out 2024 along with quick easy links to their content. (See below.)  

We are both very excited and optimistic about 2025 and the opportunity to continue making a difference helping employers support the millions of caregivers in our country who hold down a job and take on family caregiving. We know your time is precious and we appreciate it when you take the time to read, listen to or watch our content. We also appreciate it when you share any of our offerings with someone you think may also benefit.

We hope you have enjoyed our newsletter editions for this year. We look forward to providing you with more insights and perspectives from real working caregivers and people making a difference in the working caregiver space in 2025!

 Happy New Year!

Whether you’re an employer, business manager, HR, or a working caregiver, this newsletter offers valuable insights along with win-win-win simple solutions to help implement meaningful change for organizations, employees who are caregivers, and their care recipients.

Table of Contents

• Working Caregivers-The Invisible Employees Newslet …

  • Thank You For Being With Us In 2024!

  • Did you know? (Read our blog):

  • People and Companies In the spotlight:

  • Stories From Real Working Caregivers:

  • Recommended media content:

  • Building a Culture of Care: How To Offer More Mean …

  • With gratitude, we share a book review:

    • Order Our Book Here

Did you know? (Read our blog):

Caregiver Self-care: A Resolution for Every Year and Every Day (Blog 12/31/24)

As we head into the new year, we are reminded of a longstanding tradition. That of making personal resolutions about things we will do or do better this time around. We promise ourselves that we will eat healthier, exercise more, reduce the stress in our lives and things along those lines. Well, for family caregivers, sticking to these promises can be lifesaving.

Facts and Opinions

Did you know that (according to the Center for Disease Control) almost two in five family caregivers develop at least two chronic illnesses themselves? And did you know that 30% of family caregivers pass away before the person they are caring for? That percentage increases to 40% for Alzheimer’s caregivers. (AgingCare.com) These are not scare tactics, just the facts. Self-care is a critical component to the health and well-being of the caregiver as well as the care recipient. Just as we are reminded when we travel on an airplane to put our oxygen mask on first before trying to assist someone else, the same is true for caregiving. Similarly, how can you pull a drowning person out of the water if you can’t stay afloat yourself? Perhaps these examples are oversimplified but the point is that being a family caregiver starts with caring for yourself.

Read blog here

People and Companies In the spotlight:

A recap of all of our 2024 podcast episodes with links:

Episode 1: Building Caregiver-Friendly Workplaces with Donna Thomson

Episode 2: Supporting Working Caregivers: Insights from CareSprint’s Sarah Johal

Episode 3: Caregiver Burnout: Lessons and Insights From Kate Washington

Episode 4: Breaking The Caregiver Stigma With Aisha Adkins

Episode 5: Why Every Workplace Should Host A Senior Shower For Caregivers With Jenn Chan

Episode 6: The Silent Struggles of Working Caregivers: Insights and Solutions with Julian Hayes

Episode 7: Empathy at Work: Supporting Caregivers and Building Trust in the Workplace with Lee Hafner

Episode 8: How to Create a Caregiver-Friendly Workplace with Amy Goyer

Stories From Real Working Caregivers:

A recap of our 2024 Stories From Real Working Caregivers interviews with links:

On the return on investment for employers who support their working caregivers --- “Incredible loyalty! I can tell you that, if you know that your employer is supportive of that and that your employer really just wants to make sure you're doing your work, getting your work done, you're checking off your boxes and stuff, and you're bringing your all to the table when you can, you will have loyal employees that are so grateful for all of that….” --- Renee Fry

 On being a perfect caregiver  --- “… this is a marathon and not a sprint. And that while you want to do every last thing possible for your loved one, you cannot. Perfection is impossible … And I think that's the hard part about our parents or our loved ones that we're caring for is that we want the perfect answer… You've got to come in the middle. You've got to somehow find the non-perfect, perfect answer.” --- Suzanne Blankenship

On why recruiters and managers should be more embracing of working caregivers in their search for talent ---“Well, first of all, I understand they're running a business, and they have to run a business. But if they're looking to do the best for the business, they wanna look for the best candidate. So, they wanna look at those transferable skills, and there are many, many skills that a family caregiver brings to the table. Again, we've got time management skills, we've got research skills, we've got crisis management skills, we've got multitasking skills. We've got all of these things that most jobs are gonna demand.”  --- Christina Keys

On why people often shy away from Alzheimer’s caregivers--- “If my employer knows that my loved one had open heart surgery…People bring me chicken casserole…Now there’s Alzheimer’s, and because people don’t understand this disease, they don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to do, and there is no chicken casserole… the job of a caregiver becomes even that much more lonelier, and at times, even feeling abandoned by friends and employers… because they don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to do. They stay away.” --- Marty Schreiber

 On what advice to give a novice caregiver--- “To be prepared for perhaps a lot of responsibilities. They might come in bits and pieces, or it might come in one big deluge. The cadence may change, but you need to think about how you're going to structure your life to meet the demands of this kind of responsibility, and how you're going to make it work when you are caught between what seems to be two grinding and intractable continents of work and personal responsibilities.” – Dan Schlein

 On pushing back to the care recipient parent--- “Just because as a therapist or you as a daughter or a son can do things, it doesn’t mean you should…have some non-negotiables in your life when you are going into the role… things that you hold dear to that you don’t let caregiving rob you of…” – Consuela Marshall

 On what to say to a care recipient parent who resists help---“…make it not about them. Take the onus off them and make it about you as the child, because most parents still care even when their kids are in their forties and fifties and sixties… they’re caring about them… about peace of mind for the children.” – Elyse Weber-Sacks

 On how a caregiver should respond when people ask you, “Is there anything I can do for you?” --- “First, the asker shouldn’t ask, is there anything I can do for you? They should ask, can I bring you a meal? Can I sit with your mother… So, I think we have to stop asking, how can I help, and offer help.” – Laurette Foggini

Recommended media content:

PODCAST

Building a Culture of Care: How To Offer More Meaningful Caregiver Support

In recent years, many employers have created or updated generous parental leave packages for employees with growing families. It’s an undoubtedly helpful benefit and one that doubles as a powerful recruitment and retention tool. But it only scratches the surface of what today’s caregivers really need. Joining us to discuss how employers can offer more meaningful support to caregivers is Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, CEO of Wellthy. Click here.

VIDEOS

Jess Ronne shares her story as a caregiver, and how others can manage their anxiety and stress with Michelle Dunaway of Fox 17 WXMI Morning Mix . November 25, 2024. She is author of Caregiving with Grit and Grace: 100 Days of Hope and Encouragement – Wisdom and Refreshment for Every Season of Life (see below). She is also an associate producer of an award winning documentary ^{“Unseen: How We Are Failing Parent Caregivers and Why It Matters”} that is streaming on Netflix.

BOOKS

Caring for a loved one can stretch the heartstrings and the soul in equal measure, leaving caregivers to walk a path that is exhausting, isolating, stressful, and seemingly thankless. In Caregiving with Grit and Grace, author Jessica Ronne offers solace for your journey and extends a heartfelt invitation to view your role through the lens of eternity

With gratitude, we share a book review:

We want to thank ED R who took the time to read our book and provide a thoughtful review!

This book is very well written and provides so much insight into the world of caregiving!

Order your copy of Working Caregivers-The Invisible Employees book here. If you want to order a quantity of books for your leadership team and employees, contact us directly about discount pricing.

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