Responding to a growing challenge for both the public and private sectors, two companies in Westchester County recently named to a best-100 list of employers have expanded their elder-care programs to ease the care-giver burden on their workers.
In Armonk, IBM Corp. for nearly two decades has been a leading provider of elder-care resources for employees. The company last year launched an online support group for workers taking care of elderly parents, one of the family-oriented practices that recently earned the nearly 129,000-employee corporation a top-10 ranking on Working Mother magazine”™s annual “Best 100 Companies” list.
“Given the aging of the baby-boom generation, elder care is one of the fastest-growing concerns of employees,” said IBM spokeswoman Laurie Friedman. “Employees are concerned about their parents and about looming issues regarding their own future.”
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Though IBM”™s elder-care programs are modeled after the company”™s child-care program, elder care is in many ways a more difficult issue, Friedman noted. Older relatives often live far away, have ever-changing medical and housing needs and may require decades of care with mounting costs, exacting too an emotional toll on adult children. Â
IBM officials said about 40 percent of employees have some responsibility for elders ”“ compared to 57 percent for children ”“ and 10 percent care for elders in their own home. IBM was a pioneer in addressing that reality for workers, creating the first elder-care resource and referral service in the nation in 1988. It has since dedicated more than $200 million to dependent-care resources.
In 1992, IBM was instrumental in forming the American Business Collaboration (ABC) for quality dependent care, a collaboration of major corporations that has invested more than $137 million to improve and increase dependent-care programs in the U.S.
IBM”™s elder-care services, among the most comprehensive in the nation, include:
Ӣ Elder-care management services, which give IBM employees access to six hours of elder-care referral services to help with medical and in-home needs, such as home-delivered meals, housing arrangements, community education and enrichment programs, transportation services and in-person assessment of an older relativeӪs situation. It also provides in-person help from professional-care managers, who can assist with everything from family meetings, to understanding bills and insurance, to attending visits at nursing homes, hospitals or with physicians.
Ӣ Powerful tools for care givers, a six-session online course to help improve the self-care skills of family care givers who also work full- or part-time. With a minimum commitment of one to two hours a week, care givers can learn to manage stress and emotions; communicate effectively; make difficult decisions; find resources and bring balance back into their lives.
”¢ Special discounts and services for emergency care for older or physically challenged relatives. At the touch of a button worn by the cared-for person, the Lifeline personal response service is available 24 hours a day.Â
Ӣ A wide range of flex time working options such as part time, job sharing, compressed work week or extended leave of absence.
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Pearson Inc., an international media and education company with U.S. headquarters in Upper Saddle River, N.J., recently was named to the Working Mother best 100 list for the eighth consecutive year for employee benefits that include an expanded elder-care program. The company has 1,618 employees who live in New York state, most in Rockland and Westchester counties. About 150 employees work at Pearson Longman, an English-language teaching division, at 10 Bank St. in White Plains.
Employees have access to Pearson”™s free on-site elder-care seminars and its resource and referral service, in which adult-care specialists by phone can talk employees through care-giving issues and situations. The referral service, which Pearson started more than a decade ago, is designed “really to do all the legwork for accessing elderly services for their loved ones,” said Christine Pfeifer, Pearson WorkLife manager in New Jersey.
The company a few years ago launched its “Prepare to Care” program, which brings licensed geriatric-care managers to larger Pearson offices about once a month for one-on-one meetings with employees. “They have the opportunity to have the time and expertise of a geriatric-care manager without having to pay for it,” Pfeiffer said. She said the meetings of a half-hour to an hour in a low-stress setting “can really help” employees.
At smaller Pearson offices such as in White Plains, employees can use the free Prepare to Care service by phone.
Regarding care for elderly parents or relatives, “A lot of people don”™t think about it until it”™s a crisis,” Pfeiffer said. The Prepare to Care program encourages employees to plan while a relative still is healthy and independent, she said. “It”™s really available to anybody, but we try to get people to use Prepare to Care before the crisis.”
In February, Pearson launched a backup dependent-care program that expanded upon its established child-care support program. When normal backup help is not available for an employee caring for an elderly relative, the company will pay for the services of an in-home care provider or for emergency placement; the employee”™s cost is $10 a day.
“It”™s relatively new, but we”™ve already seen people using the program for adults,” Pfeiffer said. “Given the demographics that we all know, we know that the utilization will continue to rise.”
Pearson officials pointed to this statistic behind the growing need for elder care: Each day 6,000 Americans turn 65.
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