leadership matters
most of us think of who we would turn to
for support. We don’t want to miss work,
to leave work incomplete, to show what we
may perceive as “weakness,” or to even just
ask for help.
Yet the workplace has come a long way
when it comes to playing a supportive role
when health issues arise. Legislation –
particularly human rights legislation – has
evolved dramatically over the past two de-cades
to ensure that employers and their
leaders are required to accommodate em-ployees
with medical issues.
However, one of the emerging chal-lenges
we are facing is that of supporting
not only employees with health issues,
but also employees who are caregivers. As
this month’s cover story details, an aging
workforce coupled with longer lifespans
means more health issues impacting the
parents, partners, spouses and dependents
of employees.
Despite its importance, accommodat-ing
caregivers is a conversation that has
only entered the mainstream relative-ly
recently. And it’s not just a nice thing
for employers to do – in many cases, it’s
a legal obligation. Caregiving responsi-bilities
often fall under the category of
family status – which means employers
have legal duties toward employees in
these situations.
In Ontario, family status is a protect-ed
ground under the Human Rights Code
– meaning that employers have a duty to
refrain from discrimination and to provide
reasonable accommodations for the em-ployee,
so long as those accommodations
do not cause undue hardship. This protec-tion
has been in the Human Rights Code
since 1982.
It falls to HR practitioners to spark in-novation
and create flexibility to generate
solutions to support caregiving employees.
One-size solutions are not likely to work
for every employee and every workplace,
so it’s a challenging task that needs to ac-count
for individual circumstances.
HR PROFESSIONALS
HAVE THE ABILITY
TO SUPPORT VIABLE
SOLUTIONS THAT
SUPPORT BOTH
THE NEEDS OF
THE CAREGIVING
EMPLOYEE AND
THE NEEDS OF
THE BUSINESS.
But as challenging as it is, it is vital that
we create effective supports for caregivers
in the workplace. HR professionals have
the ability to support viable solutions that
support both the needs of the caregiving
employee and the needs of the business.
We have the opportunity to create stra-tegic,
supportive solutions. As a starting
point, our cover story offers several points
of consideration for designing a great
caregiver or eldercare program. There are
many more invaluable resources out there
for supporting caregivers.
There is a lot of work to be done when
it comes to creating a caring workplace for
caregivers, while still supporting business
needs. While we will always strive for fur-ther
improvement in this area, we have
already achieved a great deal toward the
pursuit of weaving care and compassion
into the legal fabric of the workplace. n
Karen Stone, CHRE, is chair of the Human
Resources Professionals Association.
Tyler Olson / Shutterstock.com
8 ❚ SEPTEMBER 2017 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL