Employers Need to Address 'Caregiving Crisis,' Study Finds

A Harvard Business School study determined employers underestimate employees' struggle to balance their professional and caregiving responsibilities, reports the Wall Street Journal . Nearly three-quarters of U.S. workers have some kind of caregiving responsibility, and 32 percent of that number say they have left a job because they were unable to balance work and family duties. More than 80 percent say their home responsibilities are limiting their professional productivity, and 28 percent say those obligations were adverse for their careers because they did not get challenging assignments or they had been denied raises or promotions. Employers are too often not aware of these trends. The survey estimated that 80 percent of workers said their productivity had been reduced by their caregiving duties, yet only 24 percent of employers agreed. Employees aged 26 to 35 were more likely to have departed a job due to caregiving responsibilities, and higher-earning employees and those in managerial or executive positions also were more likely to have left. More than 50 percent of polled employers did not track employee responsibilities outside the office, claiming they saw no need to collect data on caregiving or were concerned about worker privacy. Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Fuller recommends companies retain data on employees' caregiving responsibilities to get a better idea of costs from employee turnover and diminished productivity.