Getting Your Employees' Attention Back to Work by Michael Christian

Getting Your Employees’ Attention Back to Work

By Michael Christian

It is 9:00 am on a Monday morning. Do you know where your employees’ attention is? Is it on work?

Picture this. You are at work. The phone rings. It is your aging father’s neighbor calling to say that Dad is walking around outside in his pajamas and seems confused. You have a full day of meetings and deadlines. Your heart sinks as you try to figure out how to care for your dad and keep your job.

The phone rings again. This time it is the school nurse saying that your asthmatic child is having trouble breathing.

According to the American Productivity Audit, one-third of respondents said dependent health concerns were a top reason employees were not able to focus on their job while at work.

What you may not know is that the situations above can just as likely happen to a working woman as to a working man. However if a woman gets the troubling phone call, she is more likely to talk about it at work while the man will not (2003 National Alliance for Caregiving national survey).

Millions of working adults - men and women - are juggling the competing demands of caring for a chronically ill or disabled parent, raising a family, and managing a career.

Working caregivers sacrifice leisure time, and often suffer stress-related illnesses. Negative effects on working caregivers include time lost from work, lower productivity, quitting a job to provide care, lost career opportunities and lower future earnings. Eventually, some 16 percent quit their jobs to provide care full-time. Work disruptions due to employee caregiving responsibilities result in productivity losses of $1,142 per year per employee. According to the Washington Post, researchers estimate that the cost of informal caregiving in terms of lost productivity to U.S. businesses is $29 billion annually.

Caregiving Takes Work-Life Toll

A recent MetLife study dubbed "Juggling Act" revealed some of the productivity-killing adjustments that caregivers choose to make to their work schedules:

-84% make phone calls

-69% arrive late or leave early

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BIO:

Michael Christian is the President of Patient Advocate Solutions (PAS). PAS provides healthcare navigation and insurance resolution for consumers, employers and healthcare providers. Contact him at (732) 564-9800 or www.pas-now.com

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