Paramount supports its employees through the various stages of life. The media and entertainment company has been offering eldercare benefits for about 15 years, making it an early adopter of a perk that more employers are considering offering as more employees manage the needs of their older relatives. In 2010, only 3% of employers provided any kind of subsidized eldercare benefits, according to a 2014 survey by SHRM.
Michelle Martin, SVP of total rewards at Paramount, said the company previously only offered backup care, which is typically used if an older relative’s primary caregiver becomes unavailable, or they need a temporary aide for a finite period. She said very few employees used the program in the early days, though it has become much more popular in the last five to 10 years. Paramount expanded its coverage about five years ago to offer an eldercare management program through Bright Horizons that offers employees help arranging a safety assessment of a loved one’s home, coaching about different care options, and more.
“We really look at and listen to the feedback that we get from employees, and we were hearing a lot about the struggles with eldercare,” said Martin.
Still, Martin added the programs aren’t widely used. Martin shared that people tend to associate eldercare with tending to older parents, but employees can also use it for their partners. “It comes up more than people might imagine,” she said.
The need for eldercare is growing as people live longer, although the benefits aren’t common. Some 40% of people belong to the “sandwich generation,” a cohort of individuals who work and care for children and older relatives, a survey by Mercer found. And yet, 40% of US companies don’t plan to offer eldercare benefits next year, according to a survey of nearly 540 organizations with 500 or more employees. The most common eldercare benefits are eldercare referral services and grief counseling/coaching, which are each offered by about a third of companies, Mercer said.
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Bright Horizons has seen interest in eldercare grow since the pandemic, said Priya Krishnan, the company’s chief digital and transformation officer. For example, the number of clients using its backup eldercare services has increased by 40% since then.
“During the pandemic, there was a lot more vulnerability around the elders. Elders are not at home with their family, and they tend to be in a different place,” Krishan said. “I feel the pandemic acted as an inflection point for employers to think through what kind of support they want to provide their employees.”
Martin said that Paramount offers other benefits that aren’t specifically targeted at caring for older people but can be used for that purpose, giving employees even more resources. For example, it offers 15 paid days of compassionate care leave that can be used to help an elderly relative. Medical advocates can help elderly relatives understand Medicare bills and arrange rides to health providers. Later this year, it will be offering a bereavement program to help with the emotional aspects of losing a loved one, as well as address mundane tasks such as canceling the deceased’s subscriptions.
With “eldercare, you may not have as much notice. You're not planning for it,” Martin said. “So you really [have to] look at it from different ways.”