The hidden absence driver employers are still missing: Adult caregiving
When employers look at absence, they often focus on familiar causes: stress, burnout, workload, mental health or long-term sickness.
But one major driver is still often hidden in plain sight, and that’s adult caregiving. Employees may be supporting an ageing parent, helping a partner after hospital discharge, caring for a disabled relative, or managing appointments, medication and funding applications around the working day.
These pressures sit behind absence, stress and reduced capacity at work, even when employees do not identify themselves as carers. This pressure does not always appear clearly in absence data. It may show up instead as stress, fatigue, sickness, emergency leave or reduced performance. Because many employees do not identify as carers, the impact is often missed until problems escalate.
Here are five ways employers can better spot and respond to it:
1. Look beneath the absence reason
Absence records rarely tell the full story. An employee may be off sick because they are exhausted from caring overnight, or request emergency leave because a parent has fallen.
Employers should look for patterns rather than isolated events. Repeated short-notice leave, sudden flexibility requests, regular personal calls, fatigue or reduced concentration may all point to caring responsibilities behind the scenes.
The aim is not to interrogate employees, but to create earlier, more supportive conversations.
2. Train managers to ask better questions
Many employees do not talk about caring responsibilities because they worry colleagues will not understand, or fear it may affect career progression. Others do not see themselves as carers at all.
Managers need confidence to open conversations without making assumptions. Simple questions can help, such as: “Is anything outside work affecting your capacity?” or “Would flexibility or practical support help with what you’re managing?”
Caring should be recognised as a normal workforce issue, not a personal problem employees must solve alone.
3. Tackle presenteeism as well as absence
Adult caregiving does not always result in time off. Many employees keep working while sleep-deprived, anxious, distracted or dealing with care-related calls between meetings.
Over time, this can affect performance, wellbeing and retention.
KareHero found that 82% of carers working more than 50 hours a week experience a physical health effect, while 27% have visited a doctor because of the health impacts of caring.
Employers should include caregiving questions in employee surveys, wellbeing assessments and manager check-ins.
4. Make leave and flexibility usable
Policies can look good on paper but still be hard to use. If support is unpaid, unclear or culturally difficult to access, employees may avoid using it until they are at breaking point.
Employers should review whether carer’s leave, emergency leave and flexible working policies are genuinely usable. Paid carer’s leave, temporary adjusted hours, compressed working, workload adjustments and flexibility around appointments can all help.
The key is to make flexibility feel safe and normal, not something employees have to repeatedly justify.
5. Provide practical care navigation
Flexibility helps with time, but it does not solve the complexity of care.
One Glenmorangie employee supported by KareHero was caring for both parents while working full time. KareHero helped unlock £37,884 in funding, increase care from 4 to 35 hours a week, and arrange specialist home care and respite.
Employees may need help with hospital discharge, assessments, funding, benefits, power of attorney, respite and care sourcing. Adult caregiving is not a niche issue.
Stephanie Leung, founder and CEO of KareHero, says: “The bulk of the workforce is going to be aged over 40 in the next couple of decades.”
Employers that recognise caring pressures earlier will be better placed to reduce avoidable absence, retain experienced people and support employees before caring becomes a crisis.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, KareHero
The #1 adult caregiving support service. Helping employees understand, find and fund their care journey.
