Life’s daily distractions and major life events are impacting your employees every day. Whether they’re trying to find the best care options for their aging parent, moving across the country, or wondering how they might pay for their child’s college expenses, Care Specialists can help. This means employees will spend less time (often on the clock) researching, reviewing, pricing, and choosing options.
According to a report from Harvard Business Review, work/life employee benefit programs increase productivity, reduce turnover, and help increase diversity. There is a lot of eye-opening data in the report. This includes the fact that single mothers head 41% of Black families and as a result, Black women are almost twice as likely as white women to have quit a job, refused a job offer, or changed jobs due to child care challenges.
One way to support not only single mothers, but anyone in need of assistance with work/life balance, is by offering access to a service like Care Specialists. Our trained specialists help support your diverse workforce with solutions for each employee’s unique life stages and needs by providing 24/7 expert advice and coaching. Care Specialists can save your employees time and reduce stress by taking on a lot of tasks that might otherwise consume several hours of their time.
What are Care Specialists?
They’re highly trained and have a wide range of expertise, including master’s level social workers, senior care experts, paralegals, former teachers and nannies, autism experts, relocation professionals, and more. Each Care Specialist has a bachelor’s degree or higher, and six and a half years of experience on average.
So much more than your standard EAP referral service, Care Specialists work with employees and their families to provide advice and vetted recommendations for a variety of needs including:
- Parenting: Adoption, pre/postnatal resources, and special needs programs
- Child care: In-home care, child care centers, temporary care, before/after school care, and summer programs
- Senior care: Provider referrals, independent housing, in-home care, transportation, and hospice care
- Pet care: Walkers and sitters, groomers, boarding, obedience, veterinary care, and adoption
- House & home: Locating temporary and permanent housing, moving services, residential cleaning, organizing, and disaster assistance
- Emotional health & wellness: Stress management, preventative care, weight management programs, and smoking cessation
- Education: Tutoring, special needs, college applications, scholarships, and financial aid
- Legal & financial: Attorney search, budgeting, estate planning, elder law, and credit & debt assistance
- Career: Career development, organization, communication skills, leadership, and time management
How does it work?
When an employee contacts our team of experts via the Care app, web, or phone, our team reviews their request and then assigns a specialist who’s experienced and trained in the employee’s area of need. The employee and their family will work with that same Care Specialist throughout their care journey.
- Assessment: During this initial step, the Care Specialist asks questions to identify the unique needs of the employee and, if relevant, their family. For example, if the employee needs assistance with finding care, they’ll ask questions to determine details such as the requested care type (child, adult, pet, etc.), location, budget, and other preferences (like in-home care vs. in-center care).
- Consultation and action plan: After the assessment, the employee and the Care Specialist confirm together what specific resources, information, and research are needed, and the Care Specialist creates an action plan.
- Research and matching: At this point, the Care Specialist dives into the research phase. This includes reaching out to and vetting potential providers for that unique case. They also conduct detailed interviews to make sure anyone they might recommend will be able to meet the needs of the employee, has availability, etc.
- Next-step guidance: The Care Specialist presents the employee with their findings and provides detailed recommendations and instructions on next steps.
- Follow up: The Care Specialist will contact the employee at least one more time (and more if necessary) to check in on their progress, and make sure they received the help they needed. If not, they will continue to work with the employee to get their needs met.
Care Specialists are true partners to your employees. They’re applying their expertise to build a recommendation and action plan that will meet employees’ specific needs. Each time an employee opens a case with our team it saves, on average, 13 hours of work-disruptive time of researching, pricing, vetting, and building a plan to solve their need.
What kind of support do Care Specialists provide?
It would almost be easier to tell you what kind of support they DON’T provide! The list of what our trained specialists can help your employees with is long. We already told you they can help find care options for children and senior loved ones. But they can also help find a dog groomer or cat boarding facility for an employee’s furry friends. Is an employee struggling with their sleep habits? A Care Specialist can help. Is your best salesperson crushing it at work but struggling to plan a family vacation? You guessed it, Care Specialists can help.
For life events and situations that require more knowledge, expertise, and support, Care Specialists have your employees’ backs. Some examples include:
- Senior care: Employees will work with a dedicated social worker who holds, at minimum, a master’s degree and has a deep understanding of the different types of challenges (financial, physical, emotional, etc.) associated with senior care.
- College planning: For families with college-bound kids, the Care College Advisor program helps provide additional end-to-end support. Employees can utilize this resource during the application process, financing, transitioning into college, and even managing work or academic needs.
- Support for children and adults with disabilities: For employees with a loved one who has a disability, specialists can provide assistance with condition-specific resources, early intervention programs, individualized education programs, learning disabilities, respite care, schools, care options, specialized therapeutic programs, support groups, residential care programs, and more.
How do my employees access the program?
If you already have Care benefits that include the Care Specialist program, employees and their families can access a specialist through the mobile app, your company’s dedicated portal, or a toll-free phone number. If your Care benefits don’t include access to Care Specialists, contact your sales representative to add this benefit for your employees.
If you don’t currently offer this level of support to your employees, connect with a member of our team to get started.
