Work-Life for a Diverse Population
Companies world-wide are dealing with the issues of diversity and work-life balance. The dictionary defines diversity as difference. Many companies define it as women and people of color. What about an employee who has a disability or an employee who has a child or other dependent with special needs? These individuals are part of the largest minority market in the U.S., the special needs community. Just how many employees are we talking about? Approximately 9% of every company's workforce has a child or other dependent with special needs. For a large company with 20,000 employees there would be approximately 1800 employees caring for a child or other dependent with special needs.
All parents love their children but caring for a disabled child can wear down even the most stoic among us. Due to the physical and emotional demands of caring for these children, it is difficult at best to maintain a "normal" schedule and lifestyle especially long term. These people can be very devoted employees, but can be continuously interrupted by trying to coordinate care, seek expert advice, and handle emergencies as they arise. This contributes to the fact that 30% of parents caring for a child with special needs are often forced to quit work altogether. Found in a 2001 survey by Maternal and Child Health (a division of HHS, Health and Human Services), this can be attributed to the lack of ability to juggle time and work. This places a huge strain on families especially since almost 32% of parents spend more than 40 hours a week attending to children with special needs, usually in addition to working their full or part-time job. While this schedule seems maddening it is often what people have to resort to in order to incur the high cost of attending to children with special needs. This is hard enough when there are two parents equally sharing these responsibilities but keep in mind the single parent who is caring for this child, furthering an already stressful situation. In fact, it's been estimated that the divorce rate among couples who have children with special needs is a staggering 80%.
Families caring for children with special needs have specified what a supportive workplace would consist of. A few include:
Information about resources in the community.
On-site activities and materials targeted at their needs.
Clear and accessible information about workplace benefits and how they can be used to meet their families' needs.
Supportive supervisors and managers
Flexibility in work hours, location, and scheduling.
There are many benefits which could come from these few suggestions. Employees that had supportive work-life policies and practices have been found to be more:
Satisfied with their jobs
Committed and loyal to their employers
Willing to work hard to help their employers succeed
Likely to stay with their employers
Many of the opportunities to meet the needs of these employees can be accomplished with little to no cost yet the cost to replace an employee averages 30 to 150 percent of his/her annual salary depending on skill level. Most employers prefer the former over the latter.
SPRINGBOARD CONSULTING CAN HELP YOU MEET THE NEEDS OF THIS SPECIAL POOL OF EMPLOYEES. Contact us to find out how.