Employers - Are you carer aware?

With more than 1 in 7 employees having a caring role outside of work, it is very likely that someone within your workforce is looking after someone.

Carers are employees who are responsible for the care and support of relatives or friends who are older, disabled or seriously ill who are unable to care for themselves. These responsibilities are likely to have an impact on their working lives.

Balancing work with a caring role can be very difficult. Being a carer is like having a whole other job - on top of an employee’s regular job and on top of their other family commitments, hobbies or interests. Working carers are often ‘sandwich carers’ – those caring for children and for elderly parents. There is often a sense of isolation felt by an employee with a caring role as they struggle to ‘keep up’ with colleagues who do not have caring responsibilities and might lack understanding of what challenges a caring role brings with it. Caring can be unpredictable and hard to fit around a paid job. Many carers have to consider reducing their hours, or even giving up work in order to be there for the person they are providing care to.

For employers, the replacement of employees is costly – losing fully trained members of staff and finding the right people can be difficult. The ideal outcome would be for employers to retain an experienced worker, saving on recruitment and training costs and for the worker to remain in the job role they are in and continue with their professional development. Recent research by Carers UK shows that 1 in 3 carers not currently working would work if the right support was available. Many of these carers will have valuable skills and experience which could benefit your organisation.

Research shows that supporting staff to effectively juggle their home and work life, and continue in employment, holds valuable benefits for the business, including:

· Improved staff retention

· Reduced absence

· Increased productivity

· Reduced recruitment costs

· Improved people management

· Reduced stress

· Improved morale

· Attraction of new talent

Given the aging population, it is widely recognised that the number of carers within the working population is increasing year on year. There are Statutory Rights that carers have as employees which you as an employer need to be aware of.

Statutory Rights

The Right to Request Flexible Working

Carers have the right to request flexible working if they are an employee with 26 weeks (six months) continuous employment at the time they make an application.

A request can be made at any time and have up to three months to make a decision. The law gives employees the right to make one application a year for flexible working

Employers must deal with requests in a ‘reasonable manner’.

Examples of handling requests in a reasonable manner include:

· assessing the advantages and disadvantages of the application

· holding a meeting to discuss the request with the employee

· offering an appeal process

An employer can refuse an application if they have a good business reason for doing so. For example:

· extra costs that will damage the business

· the work cannot be reorganised among other staff

· people cannot be recruited to do the work

· flexible working will affect quality and performance

· the business will not be able to meet customer demand

· there’s a lack of work to do during the proposed working times

· the business is planning changes to the workforce

Please click here for further information from ACAS Acas Code of Practice on flexible working requests | Acas

The Right to Time Off in Emergencies

All employees have the right to take a ‘reasonable’ amount of time off work to deal with an emergency or an unforeseen matter involving a dependant.

This may be your partner, child or parent, or someone living with you as part of your family – others who rely on you for help in an emergency may also qualify.

To use this right to time off, employees must inform their employer as soon as possible after the emergency has happened. Employers can use their discretion to determine whether the time off is paid or not.

The law does not say how much time can be taken off, or how many occasions. It simply says the amount should be 'reasonable'.

You can find more information here

The Right to Parental Leave

If employees have worked for the same employer for 12 months and they are responsible for a child aged under 18, they are entitled to 18 weeks’ leave per child, which must be taken by the child’s 18th birthday.

The employee must ask the employer 21 days before the date they want to start parental leave. Employers can postpone an employee’s parental leave if it's going to be disruptive to work. Parental leave can be postponed for up to 6 months after the date the employee originally asked for.

If an employer decides to postpone an employee’s parental leave, they must write to the employee within 7 days of the request to:

· tell the employee why the leave is being postponed

· give other suitable dates

The employer must make sure that the employee can take the leave asked for before the child's 18th birthday. Employers cannot refuse or completely cancel parental leave.

This time off is unpaid unless your employer is willing to give paid time off as a contractual right.

You can find more information here

Contractual Rights

People working at a cafe

Bearing in mind the clear advantages for both employees and employers to be gained from offering a good package of support to employees with a caring role, it is important to consider how your organisation would like to support people who have a caring role outside of statutory requirement alone.

Employers might consider having a policy specifically for those employees with a caring role. Some employers might provide further reaching rights around flexible working, time off for emergencies and parental leave in addition to those rights laid out in law, perhaps offering paid leave in certain circumstances.

What can I do to Support Carers?

Things to consider if you are an employer:

· A visible commitment to recognise and support staff with caring responsibilities by covering caring in relevant policies and provisions.

· Proactive promotion of caring issues and workplace policies to support carers to ensure that staff with caring responsibilities identify themselves as carers and come forward for support

· A Programme of support for carer health and wellbeing in the workplace.

· Accessible public information in the workplace on how and where working carers can get practical help with caring.

· Development of a Carers support network – providing vital emotional and practical support to employees.

· Implementation of a Carers passport which stays with an individual’s profile and means they don’t need to re-identify themselves as a carer if they change roles or managers.

· Encouraging regular and ongoing 1:1 conversations between carers and their managers, including using tools such as Carers Passports

· Regular reviews with carers and former carers to explore and agree any adjustments needed to enable them to work

· Signposting employees to external sources of information on care and support.

· Providing information, education and training to managers about caring issues and the health and wellbeing support needs that carers may have.