She works part-time, does the housework and looks after the children. He works full time or at 80%, helps with the household chores and has one day off a week for childcare purposes. This reflects the situation of a family in Switzerland. This is how work and family life can be reconciled. As the children grow up, she gradually increases her workload.
Fully integrated into the work process again... Then the unthinkable happens....
Her mother has been diagnosed with dementia. Now her own mother needs help coping with everyday life, that same mother who was a source of childcare support for many years. There is no one else in the family to take care of her. Therefore, the woman has to take on the caring role. She reduces her hours of work in her job and after some time, she gives up gainful employment completely. Looking after her mother takes up too much time to be able to work besides. In general, it becomes difficult to excuse absences in the office and she feels guilty when she cannot attend business events or has to plan time off because of her mother’s doctor’s appointments. Her superiors regret her resignation because she was doing valuable work and the absences were not significant. However, she herself could no longer reconcile this with her conscience. Looking after her mother has become a time-consuming job and requires her full attention.
Women often find themselves in the role of caring relatives. They take on a wide variety of tasks for their loved ones, such as shopping, doing the laundry, preparing meals and much more. Often the work is unpaid and they have to put up with reductions in their old-age pension later on in life. If the workload is heavy, they may experience risks to their health and can become ill themselves.
No one wishes to experience this. No woman and no man. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to appreciate and recognise the work of family carers. Often this care work takes place on the side, presents a great burden and the individuals concerned can be affected by social isolation over time.
Companies are an important anchor here. Don’t just let your employees go. Today, when skills are in short supply, it is necessary to connect your employees with the company and retain them. Valuable knowledge is lost with every resignation. Employees affected by work & care need the support of the company. They need to feel that they are still welcome, despite their care work and that you stand by them. Offers such as having a conversation about the situation, part-time work, working from home, more internal agreements and reorganisation of work could be helpful in such situations. Counselling centres can highlight possible solutions to concerned employees to relieve the burden in their everyday lives.
Do you find yourself in this situation? As a company or as an employee who is also a carer? You are not alone. There are 600,000 carers in Switzerland. 2/3 of them are gainfully employed. And the trend is rising. This highlights a demographic development.
In order to keep carers in employment, companies should introduce and be aware of flexible working models. For carers, it is advisable to stay in employment for health, social and financial reasons. In return, companies are rewarded with resilient employees who have proven themselves during stress.
With its “care & co” brand, profawo supports companies and affected employees experiencing work & care situations. We provide advice tailored to individual needs. In addition to counselling, profawo also offers exciting in-person and online events on various topics in the field of family care. We also offer various knowledge modules for your company with the care & co modular system. The various modules can be offered and implemented individually, according to the requirements of the company.
A study on the compatibility of informal care and gainful employment is currently being conducted as part of a Master’s thesis in psychology at the University of Vienna. If you are in a work & care situation and find the time, you can participate in the study at the following link https://sosci.univie.ac.at/informelle_Pflege/.
