Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees

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

• Selma Archer & Zack Demopoulos • Season 1 • Episode 6

Share episode

In this episode of Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees, we welcome Julian Hayes, a writer and advocate for working caregivers, to discuss the often-overlooked challenges faced by this silent workforce. From navigating the emotional, financial, and mental strains of caregiving to offering practical strategies for employers, Julian shares insights rooted in personal experience and professional expertise. This conversation highlights why organizations must address caregiving as a critical workplace issue and how doing so benefits both employees and businesses.

 

Episode Highlights:
[0:00] - Opening thoughts and an introduction to Julian Hayes and his Forbes article, "Employee Caregiving: A Silent Pandemic CEOs Must Pay Attention To."
[3:00] - Julian shares personal insights from his own caregiving journey and its lasting impact on his life and career.
[8:44] - Discussing the concept of caregiver guilt and its emotional toll on individuals.
[13:23] - Julian explains the "business case" for supporting employee caregivers, including talent retention and reducing presenteeism.
[17:28] - The role of long-term thinking in building sustainable workplace policies that truly support caregivers.
[21:53] - Tips for employers to better understand and support working caregivers, from financial assistance to mental health resources.
[25:44] - Julian’s advice to caregivers: “Get off the island” and build a support system to combat isolation and burnout.
[27:17] - Closing remarks and a heartfelt message on the importance of addressing caregiving as a collective responsibility.

 

Links & Resources:

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the podcast and leave a review. Remember to check out our website at invisibleemployeeadvocates.com for more resources, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates! We’ll catch you in the next episode.

Julian Hayes:

Caregiving hits some people financially, really hard. Some is physical as well. Some it's mental, emotional, spiritual. So if we know some of the typical areas of how caregivers are affected, then what can we do to kind of offer a buffer for that to in a sense, we're going to be ready, just in case this comes

Unknown:

Did you know that in 2020 there were 53 million caregivers in the United States, and by 2025 this number is expected to grow to 62 point 5,000,073% of these caregivers also have a job. They are called Working caregivers, and they are invisible because they don't talk about their caregiving challenges. Working caregivers, the invisible employees is a podcast that will show you how to support working caregivers. Join Selma Archer and Zach Dimopoulos on the working caregivers the invisible employees podcast as they show you how to support working caregivers.

Zack Demopoulos:

Hey everybody, welcome back to our working caregivers, the invisible employees podcast. This is Zach demopoulos,

Selma Archer:

and I'm Selma Archer.

Zack Demopoulos:

How you doing? Selma?

Selma Archer:

I'm great, great.

Zack Demopoulos:

I'm excited. Today we have another great guest. Yes,

Selma Archer:

we do. We have today. Julian Hayes, who has written a fabulous article in Forbes magazine about employee caregiving, a silent pandemic CEOs must pay attention to. So this article has so much insight and so much information for both the employer side as well as the actual working caregivers. So before we get into that, though, Julian, we like to start out with just an icebreaker. Can you give us a something very interesting about where you're from? Maybe, well,

Julian Hayes:

I'm from Nashville, Tennessee, and it's the country music it's the country music capital of the world. And I would get on here and say, I don't like country music, but I would be lying. I like country music a little bit. I like, I like the old country, the old country, not the not the new country. Is a little more pop. If you're gonna go country, you gotta go country all the way out. But I guess something interesting is, um, I like salsa dancing, so just something related to Nashville, but it's just something that just had a left field for me. And I like, I like doing those things, so I like salsa dancing. I don't like hot chicken. We're known for hot chicken here. I don't, I don't really like a lot of the Southern foods. So they took that card away, but I think I still have it a little bit, because I at least like country music and promote it with people. And I think I did. I think I do a good job of of being a good steward of Tennessee, wanting people to come here. It's a great state. It's a growing state, so hopefully some of the people on the government, the What's it, the governor committee or something, here's it, and they can make me like a representative or ambassador.

Selma Archer:

Well, guess what? I'm from Nashville as well. Awesome.

Julian Hayes:

I did not see that a lot. That's I did not expect that. Yeah,

Selma Archer:

you ever been to a little suburb called Murfreesboro?

Julian Hayes:

Absolutely, one of my uncles lives in Murfreesboro,

Selma Archer:

my hometown. So we got something in common there. We do great place to be from.

Julian Hayes:

Exactly I'm

Zack Demopoulos:

going to I'm going to jump in there. Two years ago, next month, we had my son's wedding in Nashville. They picked Nashville as their destination wedding, and it was the four best days I've ever spent. It was awesome. Well, first

Julian Hayes:

time I will tell you there's a Nashville is it's a destination place for weddings, bachelorette parties and bachelor parties. It's a huge industry here, especially with the bachelorette parties. You have all those ones where you're, you're paddling, and stuff on the bus and stuff going through downtown and stuff. So it's a, we saw, it's a huge industry here. I don't know how that happened, but it's, it's a, it's, I guess it's like Vegas, but it's Vegas on this on the east side of the state.

Zack Demopoulos:

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing. Yes,

Selma Archer:

if we can get into a little bit of what we want to talk about now, as we mentioned, you wrote such a great article in Forbes that we had to loop back and chat with you about it on caregivers and how it relates to the business. So if you could share with us just what inspired you to write this article and what inspires you to write in this area?

Julian Hayes:

Yeah, well, it, it's a personal, personal experiences. And just the a lot of times I think about writing, and I think about, what are topics that we we talk a lot of times when it comes to, I write Forbes in the CEO network. So you're often times going to think about things that are about productivity. And my core, my core topic is wellness and health. But I like to think about wellness and health from the angle of a business perspective, of a leadership perspective, and and I think about other issues that are not as talked about as a lot. And if you think about the current demographics that are changing. Now millennials and Gen zeros are becoming increasingly more of the dominant workforce population. By 2030 I believe there's going to be 73 million people that are age 65 or older, and that's a lot of people that are going to need to be cared for. Some of those people are going to be healthy good conditions, but you're just going by the law of averages, there's going to be a lot of people who are lot of people who are not, and so you're going to have this dual role. And bringing it back to myself, years ago, before my father passed, I was in this position of taking helping take care of my father along with my mother. And during that time, you got to see that caregiving is something you don't even know. You're really doing it in the moment. It's just something that you don't that you don't even think about. You're just doing it. But if you think about it, it can be emotionally taxing. It can be physically taxing to some, mentally taxing, spiritually taxing, and even financially taxing to some. Each of those is going to hit us differently. For me, it really hit me, probably emotionally and mentally, you know, from a mother as physically as well, because she was still working at the time as well, and just to see someone like that. And I just thought about it for myself, and I thought that no one's written on it that much, and this is a part of the workforce when, when you're a leader, and I put myself in this position and thinking about in the future, if I had, if I had team members as well, we're going to have these opportunities to where someone's going to be coming to work trying to put their best foot forward, like my mom was, but she might have just the previous night. Had to go to the ER again, just like I did, and then you have to put on a good face. And those are silent things. We don't see those things. It's not physical. And a lot of times, as caregivers, we are people who are very giving. And a lot of times, at least with me, what happened was over time, and I'm just even realizing this now, and it's been a little over four years, that a lot of times you don't even, you don't even know how to express your own emotions anymore. You marginalize how you feel. You marginalize a lot of things, because, in the grand scheme of things, well, I didn't have this ailment I was dealing with. Some people have dementia. My father had amputations and was on dialysis, and all those things you're not going through that you know. So I You almost feel bad for even complaining or even stating that you're struggling anything, because the people that you see, that you're taking care of and that you know about are going through something much more, and that has residual effects. It's hard to, at times, be happy, because you're pretty heavy. It's a pretty heavy thing. Even if it's over, it's something that takes a while to get over. And I thought with myself, it took a while before I felt like writing again to even try to work. I make the mistake of just like, I'm just going to power through it, I'm just going to go run and work out some more. And exercise solves a lot of things, but there were still a lot of other things I had to attend to, and I thought about, I have this position, let's just write about it. And so I did my best to just research and learn more about it, just because I think it's something that needs to be brought to the light. And these are topics that are not as exciting, not as shiny, but this is a reality with the aging workforce, more baby boomers, somebody has to help them, even if it's not in a caregiving role, you still have to attend to them. We also have parents, aunts, brothers, etc, that are going to hit that and so you're going to have this duality of working and then personal needs, and we have to keep this in mind, you had

Selma Archer:

all the great points that involved, you know, with caring for a loved one, especially an aging loved one who's going through some really serious issues and and basically, you're talking about what we know as caregiver guilt. You know, you feel guilty about doing fun things because your parent, or whoever you're caring for is is not able to do and you see the suffering that they're going through. So it's a hard it's very emotional, as you said, a very emotional and thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah,

Zack Demopoulos:

and you said silent that that is a huge that's a huge challenge, and that Selma and I've been trying to really help people become more visible about you said silent you spot on. That makes it harder to relate to people. I can imagine your mother when she was like you said that quite a great example. You don't know what your mom went through the night before, yet she shows up for work. Has to show up, or at least looks like she's showing or yourself as a son, can you relate to other people that are going through that? Yeah, unless you talk about

Julian Hayes:

it, right? Yeah? Because for me, I was in my I was just early 30s, and I didn't think about this at that point. But there's a lot of things I put off. I was writing, doing certain stuff with business, and I paused that to do that. Don't regret it at all. Missed out on lot of traveling because I just came back from. Portugal at that time, and I was, I had these aspirations to just traveling all the galvanizing around the world. You can still do that now, but at that point, I was just, you know, I had plans for myself. This is what I'm going to do. And then this happens, one issue becomes the second one, and then it keeps multiplying, multiplying. Next thing you know, it's been three to four years, and you're like, Wow, where did time go? And it's a gift, because, like I said with my father, I got to, I think there's like, stages. You know, we idolize our parents when we're very young, and then teenagers, sometimes we rebel, but then sometimes we the later stage, if we get lucky, we get to humanize them. So I got to have a lot of things, and that changed the whole direction of my life, but it still was tough and and I think with younger millennials and Gen Z, it's hard because at that area stage of life, there's certain things that you want to do and everything, and sometimes you can think that you're getting robbed. So having some of those experiences and to even say those things, to even vocalize those things, you almost feel selfish and guilty for doing that, because, after all, if it's a parent, they took care of you, it helps you get to school and all these things. So how could you say something like that? So you don't even want to vocalize those things, because you think it's a sign that you don't love this person more. I had to learn, I think probably other caregivers as well. There's a difference. Just because you say something, acknowledge something, doesn't mean that your love is going to lessen for that individual or anything. You're just you're just attuning to your needs more. And so those are things that I had to learn, that I didn't realize, I totally didn't realize. And it was hard, as you know, honestly, as a man, to even like to get into your emotions and things like that. And so because it just, you gotta have this, have this reputation of being strong and being able to conquer anything and to just have something like that. It's a very tough position to be in. You gotta realize that not a lot of people are going through that, or at least you don't think they are. So where's your community at? Who you going to talk to. These are very unique problems to have, very unique problems to have. It's a very niche subject. It's a thing that I really hope gets attention to, because I look at things very holistically in a big picture. And this is, this is a big part of it.

Zack Demopoulos:

I mean, thank you for sharing all that. Julian, I mean, Selma and I were very impressed with the work, the article that you wrote, because it had so much good information in it. Work that I mean research that Selma and I have come across from some very credible sources, like the Roslyn Carter Institute, the National Alliance for Caregiving, Harvard Business Review. These are the folks that are really trying to talk about this topic someone I have created this podcast, and hope our listeners out there right now are listening and leaning in, because we've got to now take this information and act on it. And so question for you, Julian, if an employer does listen to us right now, is listening to what you have to say, and I really appreciate your personal story that you're sharing, or an HR leader or C suite, and you deal with a lot of executives in your business, in executive health, care, fitness, which, by the way, I imagine that when you pick up a client, you're sharing with them, what's in it for them, right? So, so you know, so what would you say? What's in it for employers, if they were going to be paying more attention to this? Yeah,

Julian Hayes:

there's a lot of different angles in that you could think about. And I think for any business person, they're pretty competitive. And so the first thing is, you're going to think about your company's growth and surviving it, as I mentioned earlier, with the workforce changing toward millennials and Gen Z becoming dominant force. The philosophies and what's important to them is also changing. I even think about it with myself. Salary alone is not the primary driver. It's more of a work life integration. It's more of a lifestyle thing as well. It's more of having feeling value, feeling like you're doing something, having purpose with that. And so I bring that up because just from a purely business perspective, this is the ultimate talent advantage that you can have in terms of recruiting and even retaining employees. A lot of times we give you hear places give lip service that we value our people and all this stuff will give you some of these perks. But this is an actual, substantial, real perk, right? It's not a ping pong table, it's not Friday craft beers, it's not none of that stuff. This is actually something tangible and substantial and and so that's an easy one, because if you think about it, more than half of the employee caregivers work full time. 70% of them suffer work related difficulties due to their dual roles. 49% of the caregivers feel that they have no choice in taking on their caregiver roles, right? So if we know some of those stats already, we know that stress is a big driver of a lot of times having productivity reduced, and we know that the five. Financial implications as well for these for these caregivers as well. And so talent management, retention is a huge one. Performance and productivity is a huge one. I would include loyalty as well. But loyalty can also go into talent category as well. And I think also it's a, this one's more of a maybe an esoteric one, but I think feel like you're doing good. You feel like you're doing what's necessary, and putting yourself in the shoes of that person, because most likely, we all will have to go through something like that. And so I think of those big ones right there, you're helping the bottom line, but you're also setting yourself up for a greater future in terms of making yourself more sustainable in terms of your competition, because a lot of times your competitors, we're all doing the same thing. We all have access to AI. We all have access a lot of these tools now. So it's these little nuance things, these little more humanizing things, that is really going to help someone stand out in a very in a very competitive industry, where technology has leveled the playing field and money is not the pure determinant now, and if you're a smaller business, this is something even better to do, because you cannot compete with the big boys on on money, because they have so much more money, you can compete with them with fancy perks, but you can compete with them on being an actual human and thinking about the smaller things that people truly and really care about, which is their well being. And this is an aspect of their well being. This is more the emotional well being. Well being is not just physical. Give me a gym membership. It's thinking about things that affect my mental health, is thinking about things that affect my emotional health, and this is one of the big ones, because a lot of times people are working for one reason, to provide for their families, and it's a very basic thing, but it's overlooked. Join

Zack Demopoulos:

thank you for sharing that those are all great reasons for organizations to act. And I hope, I hope the I hope they're listening in and I love in the article yourself, you said it, what it what you just said, it's a war for talent out there. And this is a, this is a different shader. In fact, you use the term, long term differentiator, which I love, because we are hearing more and more like in interviews. You know, you shouldn't just talk about your benefits today. You should be talking about what benefits you can offer down the road. Yeah, right. I mean, somebody doesn't even know that they're on a caregiver, caregiver journey yet.

Julian Hayes:

Yeah, I look at everything as as in long term. And I had to learn this through for various reasons, and because, if you think about it, not to get too woo, woo and metaphysical out there. But if you think about it, this very present moment right now is a culmination of things that we did in the past that ultimately led to this moment. But we know a future and certain things that may have a probability, so we probably need to go ahead and start planning and doing habits right now that's going to give us the best chance of having a future that's that's more to our liking. It's the same concept. If you think about investing, financial education. You think about, okay, I'm putting in $5 today, but there's a good likelihood that $5 is going to be, I don't know, maybe in 20 years, $100 it'll be more than that. But there's an easy example. But you're what you do today is planting seeds for tomorrow and beyond. And that's kind of how I think about this. It's hard to quantify. I mean, there's another stat I would like to share. Is absenteeism is a huge one. We talk about that. So absenteeism for caregiving, cost the US economy an estimated 25 point 2 billion in lost productivity with that absenteeism. I think there's even a bigger stat there, and that one is going to be presenteeism. And I think presenteeism isn't even a bigger one, because that's where someone shows up to work, but they're not nearly at their full capacity. Kind of going back to the example of my mom, she'll show up Monday through Friday, but she ain't there, not even remotely close to there. And so how's that? How's that performance output going to be? And then, if you think about it, then if this, if this employee, team members not performing to their capability. And if this is a customer centric industry, the first face that a customer is going to see is not C suite leader. They're going to see one of the team members. And so that team member is not giving their best performance, and that's going to affect the whole customer experience, and then that's going to affect, potentially, how they do business with the company, because this person might not be their best performing self, their happiest self, giving the best service. So it's a cascade like effect that everything is connected. And a lot of times we look at stuff and we think it's, it's, it's in silos, but all this stuff is really connected and with each other.

Zack Demopoulos:

Yeah, and there's so many negative implications of presenteeism. I love that you brought that up because not, most people don't even know what that term is, but yet, we all do it. You know, we're at work in a conference call or in a meeting, and we got other like, like, I do it all the time because I. A long distance caregiver with my mom, and she's in a nursing home. You know, I'll put a phone call in the morning because she complained about something. I'm waiting for that call all day. So every time the phone rings, or every time I'm trying to work on something, I'm worried, like, what is that nurse going to call me back? I mean, that's presenteeism too, right? So there's, there's a that's some great points. Julian, thank you. Yeah,

Julian Hayes:

because you're always, you have this thing of being on high alert. It's just like, you're just waiting for something like, so you're like, you're always in this, if you think about fight or flight, you're always just, like, just tensed up, ready for emergency. Like, I remember, for me, one of the things I had to realize was, like, when it ended, was that I can, I can relax. I didn't really know how to relax. Or just like, I was always just, I was always just on alert, of, like, I'm ready for something to happen, I'm ready for emergency, I'm ready for a crisis. I'm ready for something right? I'm ready to go into action. Like, just sitting and being was something that's very difficult for me, because I was so used to it, like, even, like holidays, I remember it was a streak of maybe probably three or four years where Christmas was even spent at home. We had different emergencies that we had to do and so and so for me, the days Monday through Sunday are the same. Holidays are the same. It's just whatever, because this is, this is our objective. So a lot of those different things didn't mean anything to me. Yeah, that's

Selma Archer:

some those are some wonderful some wonderful points. And keeping on the other side of the coin, I guess if you talking to the employer, the employer in the audience, what can you offer as a way for them to get started? I know in the article in Forbes, you make two great suggestions in terms of solutions or strategies. So what can you share with them about a couple of ways they could get started and being more supportive and just more aware of the caregivers in their workforce?

Julian Hayes:

Yeah, the first thing, I think, is the easy step, and it's all about it's you can pretty much summarize it as shifting your mindset and perspective and thinking about that. I mean, the first thing is, there's a there's a stigma attached to it. I forgot the number and everything. But a lot of times your employees, especially if they're vying to grow within a company, or they need the job, they don't want to do anything to really jeopardize that, and so they're going to be scared to even bring this up, that, hey, I'm dealing with this. I'm struggling with this. Can I get some adjustments around this? Dealing because I have to take my my mom or mom to the doctor, doing his time and everything, and they're worried that you can get passed over a promotion just because you have this personal life issue. So I think the first thing is to just shift your perspective, take that stigma out. And I think that's the very first step. Then I think as you go about that, then you can think about the different areas as we talked about, like caregiving hits some people financially really hard. Some is physical as well. Some it's mental, emotional, spiritual. So if we know some of the typical areas of how caregivers are affected, then what can we do to kind of offer a buffer for that to to in a sense, we're going to be ready, just in case this comes so financial support for the caregivers, so maybe that's through, you know, ensuring that people can still get paid, still by even if they're not there. And I think I've seen sometimes benefits last maybe a couple of weeks, and then after that you don't get paid. And I think different companies are different with that, but you gotta find a way to ensure that people, you know, whole life, doesn't just go down just because of this unforeseen circumstance. So I think that's one thing. I think make it easier to also get the care that you need to get the leave of absences and all that. I remember my mom had to go through, like, all these papers and signing and doctors and stuff. I'm like, my goodness, like, what is this? You know, so reduce the friction, there's already enough stress and things you got to deal with already. So the easier you can make life for someone during this situation, the greater loyalty you're going to have with someone, and the more they're going to do for the organization and be there for you and the organization. So I think it's a win win for both people in that situation. And so you're thinking, and then there's mental health stuff, right? And so having access to that because different insurance plans don't cover therapists, or don't cover them for a long time, or it doesn't take, or it doesn't cover that much. So there's a lot of things there as well that how can you get people access to specific mental health for that same thing in the I mentioned finances already, and then, of course, encouraging people to still take care of their physical health and all that. And so maybe even finding having resources ready, like, here's a community of people and here's here's some things that you can do for that. So just really having resources for people and not having them, you. Have to be so quiet about it, and actually just seeing being there for and and not just having them feel like they're the black sheep and that they're that they're weakling of the organization or anything, because this is happening. And so I think those are very basic ones, and then you can figure out a way. And that's kind of always been my philosophy. Good

Zack Demopoulos:

stuff for employers to be here, to be listening right now, managers, how about a tip for a working caregiver? Oh, those were all great tips for employers. In other words, the younger Julian, if you were to talk to him right now, you know how we all say, if you went back to high school, what would you say to your high school? Julian, what would you say to the pre caregiver journey? Julian, as advice,

Julian Hayes:

you gotta get off the island. You gotta get off the island, the island of isolation. You gotta get off the island of isolation. Like for me, I tried to just, I kept it a secret, you know, I just said, Yeah, my dad's not doing well. And he just left it at that, and I would get help and build my, build my team of support, you know, and we all have different needs. So for me, in that instance, I just, I needed, like, someone just probably talked to because there's things where you want to do stuff with your career. You want to prove that and and you had so many other issues going on. So for me, I would have found someone to talk to, to to kind of help make sense and to keep me mentally and emotionally good, because physically I that's never really been a problem. I always, always would do that. But that can only do so much to like the soul and having to see you know your parent start to kind of wither away and struggle and can't do a lot of things they do, and then you're in hospitals a lot. I

Zack Demopoulos:

love that. I love the way you put that. Get off the island. Yeah. My hairs were up on my arm, on that. How is it great? That's, that's, yeah, that's great.

Selma Archer:

Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much, Julian, for your insights in this issue of working caregivers and for sharing your experiences with us. We so appreciate it. Thank you so very much, and we look forward to our next conversation, which I know will be soon.

Zack Demopoulos:

Thank you, Julian, that really does paint a quite a visual getting off the island, picturing somebody just alone on an island, that's what it feels like sometimes, being a caregiver and on a caregiver journey. So your advice is is, well, put go out and build a team, get some help. You might be physically fit, like you shared Julian, but there's an emotional state and a mental state that you need to be also concerned with, and we also know that financially, it can make an impact too, while you're on this caregiving journey. So again, thank you, Julian. You can learn more about Julian on executive health.io we'll have links to his website and to the article that he wrote in our show notes. Want to thank everybody, uh, for tuning in. We really appreciate you following our show. If you can also take a moment and give us a review, we would appreciate that as well. And if you have any feedback, uh, requests comments, go to our website. You can reach out to us there. We would love to hear from you until, next time. We hope you're having a good day and a good journey.

Unknown:

Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to catch new episodes of working caregivers the invisible employees podcast every other Tuesday. Please also visit our website, invisible employee advocates.com to subscribe to our newsletter, purchase our book and learn more about how we can help you strengthen your workplace to become more supportive of working caregivers you.