Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees

How to Create a Caregiver-Friendly Workplace with Amy Goyer

• Selma Archer & Zack Demopoulos • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this episode, we welcome Amy Goyer, a nationally renowned caregiving advocate, author, and consultant. Amy shares her journey from music therapy to becoming a voice for caregivers everywhere. We’ll explore the invisible challenges working caregivers face and how employers can create meaningful change. 

Tune in to hear Amy’s insights on advocacy, the power of storytelling, and how employers can foster flexibility and support for working caregivers. This is a conversation filled with wisdom, humor, and actionable advice that you won’t want to miss!

Episode Highlights

[3:05] - Fun Fact Spotlight: Amy shares her childhood story and her journey into music therapy.

[6:00] - Music & Caregiving: How Amy used music therapy to support her grandmother and father.

[8:11] - Becoming a Caregiving Advocate: Amy’s path from music therapist to leading caregiving advocate.

[10:00] - Family Caregiving Roles: Amy explains how her role as a caregiver shifted over time within her family.

[16:35] - Paid Family Leave: Why paid leave matters and how AARP is pushing for better policies.

[20:00] - Policy Challenges: The obstacles in making paid family leave a reality nationwide.

[23:09] - Flexible Work for Caregivers: How workplace flexibility benefits employees and employers alike.

[27:29] - HR & Workplace Culture: How companies can support caregivers through better workplace culture.

[30:00] - Employer Tips: Amy’s best advice for employers to support caregiving employees.

[35:00] - Caregiver Tips & Advice: Actionable tips for caregivers to balance work, family, and self-care.

[40:00] - Resources & How to Connect: Where to find Amy’s book, articles, and caregiving support resources.

[44:22] - Closing Remarks: Selma and Zack thank Amy and challenge listeners to explore caregiving resources.

Links & Resources

Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a review. Together, we can raise awareness and create a more supportive workplace for working caregivers. Be sure to check out our website, Invisible Employee Advocates, to subscribe to our newsletter, purchase our book, and stay connected. See you in the next episode!

Amy Goyer:

Looking at your employees, understanding who are caregivers. First of all, just understanding what is a family caregiver, understanding that two caregivers don't fit into one neat category, and for an employer to have paid caregiving leave is absolutely a big goal, because to have that timing, you know that you can take off just for that purpose. Is really, really helpful, you know, separate from FMLA or anything like that. You know, to have that paid leave, that's a huge step for an employer to take it, and many employers see, oh, well, their ratings on best employers, you know, goes up because they're offering things like that. 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%

Unknown:

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 demopoulos on the working caregivers the invisible employees podcast as they show you how to support working caregivers.

Zack Demopoulos:

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Working caregivers, the invisible employees podcast. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you. Hello, Selma, hi. Zach, how you doing? Always good with now that I see you and our guest that's coming on in just a second. Oh yeah, so exciting to have our guest today. Oh yeah, yeah. Now we're, we're almost wrapping up for the year. We're, this will be aired like the third week of December, but it for us, it's just the beginning of December, and we just came off an amazing November. Selma, Tell us. Tell us a little bit about what we went and did. It was awesome. Oh, it was fantastic. We just attended the caregiver nation Summit in Washington, DC. We did some advocacy work on the hill. We met all kinds of interesting and fantastic individuals in various aspects of the care space, and it was just a wonderful time. And if you get a chance, please take a look at our newsletter, because we kind of recapture that whole experience to the extent possible. But we just had a blast. Yeah, and shout out to Jason Reza, who's the leader, CEO, President of the National Alliance for Caregiving. He's amazing. He's actually going to be on our podcast, and we'll be wrapping up the year for this year, so he'll we'll talk more about that. But thanks. But yeah, that was a lot of fun. Someone's and speaking of fascinating and interesting people that we met, that's our guest for today. Amy Goyer, Hey, Amy, hi. How are you? Oh, man, hi. Amy, it's good to see both of you.

Selma Archer:

You as well. You look great in that red.

Amy Goyer:

Oh, thank you.

Selma Archer:

And that's for my mom. My mom wore red a lot, so I often wear it in memory.

Zack Demopoulos:

Wonderful. That's that's absolutely awesome. Amy, we can't thank you enough for being here. Selma and I have talked about you. We've been on this journey for a few years, and your name has come up quite a few times. You also really honored us with comments on our book. So it's just an honor and a pleasure to have you here, really is we've been talking about you for a year. Amy, yeah,

Amy Goyer:

conversation,

Zack Demopoulos:

but we before we get started, though, we kind of like to have a little fun fact from our guests. So is there something you'd like to kind of share with us about, maybe where you live or your upbringing? Just give us something that maybe most people may not know about, Amy that we'd like to just share it right here?

Amy Goyer:

Well, I was born in Indiana, so I'm technically a Hoosier, but I grew up in southeastern Ohio, in Athens Ohio, down in Athens County, which is very close to West Virginia. It's the foothills of the Appalachians. And I had a really great childhood. And we had, my dad was a professor at Ohio University, where I went to school and graduated Go Bobcats, and we had farm, and so I grew up riding horses, and we had cows. It would always break down the fences and get on the road, you know. I had sort of, like this ideal life of Town and Country, I guess you'd say, and, and it's still, I still consider that home, you know, and, and I'm still very close friends with many of my friends that I grew up with, and it was just a really great place to be and, and to go to school and, and I was a music therapist. That's what my degree is, in music therapy. So many people don't know. I started my career out that way, working in direct service, and I work. To an adult daycare centers and nursing homes before I went to work for the Ohio Department of Aging and then later for AARP.

Unknown:

I didn't know that that's pretty Yeah. Usually my thing, my first love, yeah. Oh my goodness. When I ran a home care business for 13 years, music therapy, whenever we were bringing we could provide a resource to some of the communities that we'd go into were probably the most fascinating things I've ever witnessed. Where you'd see somebody practically comatose and they start tapping their foot. I mean, it's just incredible. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was sometimes my my music therapy goals were as simple as eye contact, or, you know, just conversation. So many different types of goals, but you use music as a tool to achieve non musical goals. So, and I used it a great deal with my grandmother, who had dementia, and my later, my dad, as you know, and my caregiving for him at home, we use music throughout the day, every day,

Amy Goyer:

to, you know, whether it was to help him wake up or to help him calm down, or to get him to exercise, or, um, you know, so many different ways I could use different types of music, you know, to do that. And he loved music, so that was especially nice. And we wouldn't sing and deal with the the anxiety of of Alzheimer's. And so, yeah, it's really and, and I, since my mom and my dad and my sister passed away, and I finally moved back to Virginia to be with my boyfriend, I started singing again, because I used to sing in a choir and I used to teach. And so I was singing again. So that's my big fun thing. Hello. No, I I'm a musician at heart.

Zack Demopoulos:

Think we get her to sing for a Selma.

Amy Goyer:

Well, question about Dad, did you ever take a class under him? I did not, but my and my mom did, both my sister and my mom, was he tough? Oh yes, he was really tough. And, and his graduate students, and they all loved him, but would say he was tough and, and one of the funniest stories of my cousin's wife did because he later taught at Arizona State University, and she had him in class there, and she met my cousin was is a golf pro, and he was out in Arizona working, and they met working at a golf course or something, and they were dating, and he said, Well, we're gonna go have dinner with my aunt and uncle this Sunday. And she's like, Oh, okay, good. So they went to my parents house, and she walked and she said, your uncle is Dr Goyer. And she was like, oh, and she's ready. He was tough, but good, like every you know how sometimes you have that professor who's really challenging and doesn't put up with anything but and knows his stuff, but also has a good sense of humor and is warm and, you know, kind and all that stuff. So yeah, we had several both my mom and my sister also studied in the field of communication, which was his field, so they also both took classes from him. Thank you for sharing all that. I know we're going to talk about Dad Mom in just a

Zack Demopoulos:

sec. So So let, let's get into a little bit more about you and your caregiver advocacy. I mean, there's a reason why Selma and I have been really singing your praises and talking about you is because of all the work that you've done. When I think a caregiver advocate, I think you're the poster child for it, I really do the work that you've done, the book you wrote, juggling life, work and caregiving. And by the way, listeners and viewers will post all this for you so that you can check out Amy's background and all her resources, but she's also has a consulting company. You, I mean, you'll have a consulting company, and you've been on so many, so much media to really try to spread the word, like, you know, NBC Today show, Good Morning America, the CBS, I mean, they all want you there to talk about this, and then the work that you've done with AARP. I mean, first of all, thank you. On behalf of all the millions and millions of caregivers out there the work that you're doing. But how did you get started on this? How'd you go from music therapy into becoming a such a huge caregiver advocate, author consultant? Tell us a little bit about that, please. Well, as I mentioned, I I've been working in the field of aging now for almost four years, and so I started out my career there, and I continued to work in this field. So I had that perspective of the local level, direct service. How do you take care of someone? How do you do that? And then looking at from the state level, I learned a lot about the area agencies on aging and how you know they work, and I had that also from the local level, but just having those different perspectives was extremely helpful. And giving me that solid background, I did a lot of work in intergenerational programming, and when I went to work for AARP, originally, I.

Amy Goyer:

I focused more on that, so then I got that intergenerational and multi generational living and all of those perspectives grandparents, so various kind of caregiving relationships, including grandparents raising grandchildren. And I have just been so fortunate to continue to work with AARP when I did leave so that I could have more flexibility to take care of my parents across the country, and AARP has is, is why I've been on all those media interviews, and why I I've been out there and we it just was one of those things. It's like my work is this fusion of my personal life and my professional life, because I then have also been a family caregiver my whole adult life, for my grandparents, starting in college, when my my parents moved to Arizona, and my grandparents were in Indiana, I was in Ohio. I'm the youngest of four girls, but I'm the one working in the field of aging, and I'm was not married, didn't have children, so some of that role was natural for me. And then when caring for both my parents, my mom, who'd had a stroke 25 years before, and my dad, who had Alzheimer's. And then my sister, I was her primary caregiver. She was in Maryland, and she had Cushing disease, so she had a good local support network did most of that kind of support, but I was her power of attorney, and when she had surgeries and various things, and so it was a lot. I've, I've had a variety of caregiving roles too, you know, from from being more on the support respite team for my one grandmother, to arranging services and doing more. But my dad managed my grandparents finances to hands on, caring for every personal need, bathing, toileting everything you can think of for my parents and then other kinds of roles too, because caregivers are not, you know, sometimes people think caregivers are only if you're doing that hands on, they're living with you personal care. There's a whole range of caregiving roles, and I've had roles that were more supportive, you know. And you know, either just providing respite, running errands, doing research, giving a friend a break, giving a family member a break, doing, you know, so very different perspectives. And I think that's, you know, I just kind of fell into this. It's like, you know, when you start your career and you study in college, you don't, you think this is who I'm going to be, and then life happens, and life has just put me in this direction. And so I just feel very, very fortunate to be able to take what I've learned, uh, professionally and personally, and try to make the lives of family caregivers easy, easier and in practical ways and actionable ways. You know, I know caregivers don't have time for fluff, so I really try to write things very concise and actionable and practical, along with the personal stories, because that's what connects us. That's what helps us all know that, oh yeah, she, she kind of gets it, you know, no, no two caregivers have exactly the same experience, but we do have similarities, and we have things. I'm really impressed that stories are being told more now than maybe 10 years ago, because and you're getting senior leaders in companies that are actually sharing stories. And I'm really happy to hear that. So you know, kudos to you for really pushing that. By the way, I have three kids, one's a daughter, so I thank God that I have a daughter, because I know that she's gonna come and help me out. She said, So when it's time your parents had four daughters, how was it that you kind of that you were the one I'm assuming, that maybe you weren't, maybe you all chipped in. But how did that work with the dynamics and you being the caregiver? We all had different roles at different times, and for my parents in particular, you know, my my oldest sister had was ill. She had Cushing disease. She was financially challenged because she couldn't work. She had, you know, felt awful all the time, but she still, like I asked her to call my parents every day. And my gosh, she did that even when she felt horrible. And that was a really, that was what she could contribute, and it was consistent, and it was wonderful. My other my next oldest sister was living on our farm in Ohio and moved out to Arizona to help take care of my dad, and she was actually one of his paid caregivers, and lived with us for a while, and then lived next door with her family. And then my other next oldest sister had a daughter with special needs, and she had bipolar illness, and we lost her to suicide the year before my mom died, and that was, you know, obviously. Really, very, very hard life for her parenting a child who was, you know, she from time she was 10 or 12 years old, you know, had a lot of challenges, and so she helped out a lot before I moved out to Arizona, she eventually moved to California, and would come and she had the type of energy to help clean out a closet, organize the garage, and just bring us some energy and that type of thing, you know. And so everybody has different roles at different times, you know, where before she was going to doctor's appointments with them, then her role shifted. My role was long distance, managing the finances, checking on them, traveling there frequently. And then that shifted to where they lived in a senior community for a few years, and I moved into their house down the road, and then they moved back in with me. So each of those roles is kind of different. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Amy, I just want to go back to one of the comments that you, that you made, and thanks for sharing all this with us. This is just such a great insight into your story. But you, you stated that one of your goals is to make a life of a caregiver giver easier, which certainly we've Zach and I both have been in the in those roles, and are in those roles as as caregivers, and anything that can be done to make that easier with balancing life and and caring would certainly be appreciated. And I know that

Unknown:

AARP has has always been a strong supporter of paid family leave efforts at both the state and the federal level. So I wonder if you could just share a little bit about that with us. Yes, AARP has been a strong advocate for paid family leave, because, as you know, FMLA is not paid, and family members may get time off, but not get, you know, get any pay. And when we take time off work, we lose a huge amount. You know, one study was $300,000

Amy Goyer:

in lifetime benefits and wages. I'm sure it's more than that now, because that's numbers getting a little outdated if we leave work for caregiving. So, and we know that about a poll, AARP did a poll last year in 2023 and found one in five Americans as a family caregiver. 40% spend around 20 hours a week, and a staggering 42% said they quit their job or cut back on their hours because of their caring responsibilities. That's a huge amount of people out of the workforce, and I think it's three, three of five caregivers are working. So we know this is a big issue for family caregivers, and I certainly have been a family caregiver, and I can tell you many of the pros and cons of the way I chose to do it and become a consultant, but we know that paid family leave is one thing that could make a big difference for a lot of care. So ARP has advocated for a national paid family and medical leave policy, and has supported with letters. You can go on the ARP website and find out, you know, the things that they've pushed, but we've also pushed for paid leave in many states. And as of I know a couple months ago, the last numbers I saw, I think it was nine states and District of Columbia have mandatory paid family leave laws in effect. That's amazing. Four states have programs that will roll out by 2026 next two years from now, and New Hampshire Vermont and seven other states have voluntary programs in place. So there's a variety of options out there. Now, we hear from some that some of these state policies people aren't using them necessarily, because they don't understand that it's for a family caregiver, not just for a new parent. So that's something that we need to do. We need to continue to educate people. If people are interested in finding out if their state has a leave policy, what the status is, what the laws are, AARP has a website that tracks, has a map, and it tracks all the states and their pay these policies, and it lists the states, and it has, you know, links for you to go and see the legislation if there is some that type of thing. You know the easiest thing, because I don't know a short URL, but I'll give you the URL to put in your program notes is just to do a search for AARP state paid family leave policies, and you'll be able to find that and track that there. And what do you think has been maybe one of the biggest challenges at the national level? What's the biggest pushback? Oh, you know, a lot of times it's funding and.

Zack Demopoulos:

There are various options for how the funding can could fall into place. AARP has explored, has urged Congress to explore the very various options and see what's going to be the best one. You know there is, in general, a lot of legislators understand that caregiving is top more and more of them have experienced it as the population is aging, yeah, and so they get that, but we know that. You know, it has to be paid for somehow, and so that's like, what needs to be figured out, what's the best thing? And it is in the states, like you heard, there's a variety of policies they have and ways that they do them. So you know, you can learn from the states and look at how it might work at a at a national level, and what you say is true. Because when we were we were advocating on the Hill, a lot of the people that we sat down and spoke with in Congress told us their caregiving story, so they are quite familiar with the issues. Yeah, absolutely. You know the event that you and I were both at last week, the National Alliance for Caregiving, caregiver nation summit, the governor of New Mexico is both and she shared her caregiving story. So yes, it's really important to connect with our legislators on those real life stories and make sure they know that that they are not the only ones, because they could still kind of think it in isolated terms. They need to understand everybody's story. They need to hear from all caregivers. We, you know, we need to not just complain about not having something. We need to reach out and write to them, call and email and do all of those things and tell our story. I just looked up the stat that I read. I wanted to make sure I got it right. But I read recently HR brew, which shout out to HR brew. I love their daily recap of good news. We are only one of six countries in the whole world that don't offer a national paid program. Can you believe that? I know it's, I mean, hard to fathom, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. And I know it's not just going to fall on the government shoulders. It needs to fall on employers shoulders. It needs to fall on society's shoulders. It needs to fall on our family's shoulders. I get it. It's all shared strengths, is the way I like to say it. But my son just had his third child, so I'm a I have my third grandchild. So he just had his third child, and he started it with his company. Shout out to Google, but he started with them six years ago, and and I could tell you, child birth wasn't his benefit, the benefit he was looking for at the time, right? But two years later, after he had his first child, and they're giving him a huge number of days, paid, weeks, paid as a father, I guarantee you that has a lot to do with his why he's still with him for six years, and the contributor and so it so, you know, I know it's costly, makes sense. We'll get off our soapbox here, but, but it's something that we really need to look at nationally, but also as employers,

Unknown:

paid leave is one. So I'm glad some asked you that the other benefit that's kind of almost easier to kind of work around is flexible work. I know we did it during the pandemic. I know that is becoming a little bit more challenging now. What are your thoughts, Amy, what are you seeing, either in your consulting work or with ARP or wherever you're going nowadays? What are you seeing in terms of flexible work for caregivers? Because, like I said earlier, we're doing a good job with people raising children. We need to put a little bit more attention to helping care for their elderly, right, right? And we're going to see these numbers are increasing. I mean, baby boomers are aging, and so, you know, it behooves employers to pay attention to this, because they can have a more engaged and productive workforce. You know, like you mentioned, retaining employees like your son, and it's also can be helpful with recruiting employees, you know, being competitive in the workplace, saying, you know, we have these great leave policies. I think also, when caregivers are working and caregiving, it's, it's a lot of stress on them, and it can really help with their health and maybe reduce health care costs, you know, and just to increase that employee loyalty. So I think that's really critical that employers see the benefits of having these policies, because there are very concrete benefits of it in terms of flexibility.

Amy Goyer:

I think you mentioned this with the pandemic. It was like so many employers found out, oh, we can still get the work done, and everybody isn't sitting in at their desk in an office. And so that was really great for many employers. I moderate a Facebook group for AARP, AARP family caregivers discussion group on Facebook, we have over 20,000 families. Of my caregivers there, and it's very interesting, because I get different perspectives, and they're all ages and, you know, all over the place in terms of their situation. But I am hearing from some like, I remember one post not too long ago saying Being able to work from home has made this possible for me. You know, I can't get my deliverables done. I am okay, but I can help mom get out of bed in the morning. I can do, you know, my caregiving and my work that now my employer wants me to come back in the office full time again, and not just a few days a week, full time. And so now this caregiver was saying, I have to look for another job. I can't do that. You know, I don't have the money to pay someone to be with mom for the things that I need to be doing. You know, am I going to be able to find another job that's flexible? You know? It just puts them in a tailspin. So, you know, I think what I've seen more of is employers who have gone from completely working from home to a few days a week in the office, but a little more flexibility in terms of understanding situations and knowing, okay. This is an employee who I know gets their work done, because I have experience with them working from home during the pandemic, and I think that helps too. You know, working from home is probably the most popular request and need, but also just having flexible hours, you know, maybe you start later and come in later. So maybe that that employee who if they didn't have to be at their desk at nine o'clock in the morning, if they could instead work 11 to seven, and maybe that would work better with their caregiving schedule. So so just trying to figure out what works, whether it's a part time work or a compressed work week. I did that when I was first caregiving for my parents long distance and so on Fridays, I was able to make all the phone calls from the bank and the doctors and do all of those things that was really helpful when I was a full time employee. So I think that job sharing is another option where, okay, you cut back to part time and someone else does part time and you share a position. Phase retirement is another flexible option, and then also the work location. You know, in addition to telecommuting, it might be that maybe there's an office that's closer to where your loved ones live, or a shop or a location, or whatever business that you're working for that is closer to where your loved ones are.

Zack Demopoulos:

Yeah, and that will, we're convinced that that will impact that 42% number. That's shocking that you just shared. It's terrible for the employee to have to do that, go look for another job, but it's also terrible for the employer. I mean, some and I both were in HR, and we don't, we know very well what turnover costs look like, and those are both soft and hard numbers. And so why? Why? Why go through all that at least give it a shot, have a conversation about it. And by the way, I'm also part of a big group. Liz O'Donnell, I'm part of the working daughter group, so shout out to Liz. She's going to be a guest in the future, and I'm with you. Amy, I see quite a few venting on there about, why couldn't my boss have done this? Done that, done this. Now, sometimes we're a little bit to blame. Maybe we should have brought it up. Maybe, you know, we're a little stubborn sometimes, as caregivers, you know, we try to do this thing alone. So maybe, maybe we should have had the opportunity. Maybe the culture wasn't friendly. So, you know, yeah, the culture is a big piece. I agree, and maybe that we're afraid to bring it up, you know, not that we're stubborn or whatever. We're afraid to bring it up because we don't want to lose our jobs and we don't know how our employer is going to respond. So that's where the employer can create a culture that is more open to that. And mean, okay, I can be honest with my manager, this is what I'm dealing with. I love my job. I want to do my job. I'm very dedicated, and I love my wife or my parent or whoever, and I need to do that too. Here's how I proposed that I could do them together, and let's work out, you know, away.

Selma Archer:

Yeah, that actually leads to my, what my my next question, which is, you know, Zach and I wrote the book working caregivers, the invisible employees, and they're invisible because of what you just said. We're afraid to lose our jobs. We're afraid we're not going to be named for that promotion, because we can't be dependent on because we have this whole other life over here, you know, as a caregiver. So we're talking about what employers can do to show the support, you know, in the workplace on a day to day basis, outside of the policies and the benefits and the flexible work arrangements. What can they do, you know, kind of at a grassroots level, to show working caregivers that they have that support, that they don't have to fear losing their jobs, that there's a way that they can do good work and be a good caregiver.

Amy Goyer:

Sure, what do you have any suggestions for employers? You know, looking at your employees, real, holistically, understanding who are caregivers? First of all, just understanding what is a family caregiver, understanding that thing that is across the spectrum, not two caregivers are don't fit into one neat category, you know, understanding the wide variety of roles and responsibilities and tasks they may have, and then creating that culture that makes it safe to be open about caregiving. You know, not just it's okay to talk about it, but being responsive. I think one of the great things and your guys, HR folks who know about this is, you know, the the employee resource groups that many organizations have where there's, maybe, you know, working parents, working caregivers. You know, wide variety of topics, but those groups are a place where they can learn a lot about their working caregivers, and they can talk with them, and the caregivers can talk together and propose things and say, This is what we think would really help. So use, use that make, create employee resource groups, and use an employee assistance program that offers a lot of work of support for family caregivers. And clearly, they're not all the same, but sometimes they offer counseling and support groups and legal support and wellness programs and all kinds of things that can help a caregiver. You know, any other benefit. And I think one thing too, is for employees to understand, oh, yeah, we get legal discounts with this company to do our will or whatever. Oh, that's helpful for a caregiver, because I'm taking care of my mom and she doesn't have a will in place. Can we use this legal benefit? So things that you wouldn't always necessarily think of for a caregiver might be really, really helpful. You know, some of them go further, and for an employer to have paid caregiving leave is absolutely, you know, the main big goal, because to have that timing, you know that you can take off just for that purpose, is, is really, really helpful, you know, separate from FMLA or anything like that, you know, to have that paid leave, that's a huge step for an employer to take. And and many employers see, oh, well, their ratings on best employers, you know, goes up because they're offering things like that. So discounted services. They can even, you know, negotiate backup care if you're if your care for your loved one falls through and you need to get to work. Here's a company that you can get a discount at to call right away and come so things like that. I also think and interested in your guys' take on this, that managers are critical in this, really training and preparing managers to understand how to respond if you see something happening with an employee. Could this be a clue that they're caregivers and they're afraid to tell you, you know, if you see someone who's taking off a lot of time, do you jump to the conclusion they don't care about their job? Or do you notice, oh, I think she's caregiving for her mother. So helping managers know that. Know how to talk to employees about it, know how to make decisions. Be aware of the benefits that they can tell their employees about. I think the managers are really critical pivot point in this whole thing.

Unknown:

Yeah, we talk about that in the book as well. There's, there's a chapter on manager training in terms of empathy, putting your yourself in that person's place, and understanding how that that affects them and how that feels so and it's tricky, because we're taught don't bring your personal life to the office, right? Yeah, this is a personal matter. Very personal matter, yeah. So we have to create that culture where we see how this affects, you know, and even being a parent too affects, you know, who work. How do we work this out? And we all get the work done and get feel good about our jobs.

Zack Demopoulos:

I'm glad you brought up managers. We could talk to you all day. We're gonna have to bring it back down the road. Amy, but I get excited about these things we do too. So,

Unknown:

passion, yes.

Zack Demopoulos:

So I mean, you asked us about managers in our experience. Now I was, I was a sales manager, and then I went into an HR role, and then I was, you know, an executive role. So I totally can empathize that with managers, you know, they do struggle. I mean, if we don't give them the tools, the support to have these conversations, we shouldn't expect them to do it, they're going to be afraid. I'll give you an example. I used to bump into some managers when I was in a regional officer, and I would say, Hey, so, so is on medical leave, right? How's she doing? And they'll look at me like, well, I don't know. I shouldn't talk to them. Isn't that legally, I can't legally speak to them. I'm like, but they're a human being, and, you know, they are kind.

Amy Goyer:

Me back to work. Don't you want to at least say hello? How are you doing? What's going on, you know? And he's like, I never thought of that, you know. So you know, it's responsibility on both sides, the employer and the manager, to give them the tools to support them. Let's leave on this. Amy, you gave us some great advice for employers. How about how about the employee? Just maybe one or two tips that are listening here, especially if they're not on the road yet. So maybe think about Amy when she was in college. You were saying you were starting your caregiver journey. You know? What would you tell the Amy then to kind of get ready for this journey? What would you tell some of our listeners who are listening and maybe don't have a caregiver journey, but probably inevitably will be on one. Well, first of all, when you apply for jobs and look at employers, find out what their policies are, find out what the benefits are, and if, especially if you think someday you might be caregiving. But you know, often caregiving is unexpected, so I think in general, that's something you want to look for and ask about, so they know that that's something that you're considering. Right? I would really advise caregivers to talk with a financial advisor and try to look ahead in terms of the loss of income if you do have to cut back on work, or, you know, future employment options, versus the cost of care, I really work with a financial advisor, as I've been very open, it was financially devastating for me all the years of caregiving, more than a dozen years for my parents and my sister, and much of that was because I didn't have a financial advisor for myself. I worked with my parents on their finances and took good care of that, but I just got into too much debt because I paid for whatever their budget didn't cover, and that was not the best thing for me. So I advise employees to do that, starting at a very young age. Look at the whole thing. And then, you know, Also, consider how stressful is the job going to be? Am I going to be able to manage this along with taking care of others, and then just do the basic things that we know, help all caregivers, getting and staying organized, using technology, communicating with other caregivers and learning from them, you know, knowing how to take care of yourself, develop those good things. When I was working for AARP full time. We had a trainer. We could do sessions with this trainer and up on the roof of the building, and we work out and get exercise. And that, doing that exercise, before I went into this really major caregiving, really did me well. I mean, it helped me get through it. So look at the things you can do to take care of yourself, and how flexible is that job going to

Zack Demopoulos:

be? Oh, my goodness, those are fantastic tips. Selma, share your tip that you always say about self care. Well, I love your

Unknown:

It's just like being on an airplane. You got to put your mask on first before you can help that loved one. The same thing with caregiving. You got to care for yourself. And yeah, I took that one step further. When I was caregiving for all these people at once and working and trying to build my business and all of that, I kept thinking of that oxygen mask and that it was like when the plane's going down right, and I had on a daily basis, and I one time went to the gas station and my car was almost on empty, you know, like you dried in on fumes, and you're just hoping and hoping that it doesn't break and it and I filled up my tank with gas, and when I pulled out, and I thought, you know, my car really runs better on a full tank, yes, and we'll duck right, that was my aha moment. So I started thinking of it as, okay, I expect myself to run on empty all the time and be just and my car can't do that. Neither can I. So became very practical. How do I fill my tank on a daily basis? And it might be a little bit at a time, because sometimes that's all we can do. And it may be big things like listening to a podcast or going to Pilates class or yoga or whatever, taking a walk, but also routine maintenance, you know, getting good sleep, eating that fills my tank, and then breaks from caregiving also fill my tank. So that was my philosophy and how I got through it. And so that's just another way to think about self. Yeah, I love that. That's great. So appreciate you sharing that. Amy, thank you, and I love your tips that you gave for employees. I hope you know managers in HR listening, took some notes, because if you think about it, some of the things you're already doing this for your employees, for example, financial literacy. There's companies that do it, but they don't ever really market it as something to help you with caregiving. Some and I were on a phone with a client one day, and we're like, don't you have a great marketing department? She's like, Yeah, we do. Well, are you using them to recruit your benefits? You only use your marketing department to market to your consumers. How about your marketing department? Help you recruit benefits to your employees? She's like, you.

Zack Demopoulos:

That's brilliant. Ever thought about financial literacy is a good one where you know that caregiver could benefit huge like your story. Thank you for sharing that. Amy, thank you. How can people find out more about you? What's the best way for them to find out more about you and connect with you? Well, you can find me on social media. Amy Goyer, not that hard to find. You can join me in the AARP family caregivers discussion group and on Facebook, www dot Facebook, slash group, slash AARP family caregivers. You can find my book at amazon. You can find my articles@aarp.org

Amy Goyer:

slash Amy Goyer, and you can find all of the good AARP content. I write a column there. We have lots of really good authors there, and that's at aarp.org/caregiving Yeah. I mean, I just read a brand new caregiving guide for AARP, and so I'm really proud of that too. So look for that too at aarp.org/prepared care. The English version is the new one. We're getting it translated to Spanish and the others. And then there's also a new veterans and military families version, yeah, and that one's arp.org/preparing,

Zack Demopoulos:

for vets. Because that's a whole nother topic of you know, when you have employees who are caring for veterans, there are some resources that can be helpful. And I'm proud to say, I'm an AARP member, and I'm always on there looking at articles and and everything that you offer is just a great resource, great resource. So glad to hear it. We will have all these resources on our website, on our notes. Thank you so much. Amy, I'm, you know, you know some you know how I like to challenge our listeners and viewers. Every once in a while, I'm going to, I'm going to throw another challenge out. Since we're almost at the end of December when this comes out, I'm going to challenge everybody listening right now to put in their resolution goal, whatever they want to do, to look Amy up, connect with her on LinkedIn, but pull this caregiving guide out and just browse it, whether you're in caregiving or not, whether you're a manager or not. HR, I'm just going to challenge every one of you just take a moment and browse through it and save it somewhere, because you're gonna need it sooner or later if you're not doing it now. Amy, thank you so much. Thank you to all our listeners. You. Amy, thank you. And you know I should add that if you're an employer, check out two websites from Marc, aarp.org/working

Amy Goyer:

caregivers. And then we also have aarp.org/ aarp.org/employer

Zack Demopoulos:

caregiving. So we have a lot of great tool kits, resources, all kinds of great things for employers around caregiving. Wonderful. That's fantastic. You don't have to be the AARP age to do all that and to tap into those. Okay, just Selma and I are there, but the rest of you that are not you, don't you. It's accessible for you too, especially the employer stuff is fantastic. And AARP, again, we can go on and on, so we've got to let you go, Amy, but thank you to AARP. Shout out. The research that they do is incredible. I mean, the data is incredible, and you partner with so many great organizations like the National Alliance for Caregiving to come out with tremendous data that's important to show to employers. This is happening under your roof, just like the 42% quitting. 42% quitting is an important number that we need to discuss. Those are real. Yeah, we just have an amazing team of people at AARP who are focusing on caregiving, and whether it's advocacy or our website or writing our campaigns out of the States, our veterans group. So yeah, check us out. We really, we really want to help. Well again, thank you Amy, so much, and thank you everyone for listening in, tuning in. Please subscribe if you have not. But more importantly, pass this on to somebody that you may know, that might benefit from what we're talking about that would mean the world to us. Have a great rest of the December and we'll see you back in two weeks. All right, thank you. Bye, thank you bye. Bye.

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.