More Companies Offer Help : Elder Care: Latest Service of Workplace
Linda Vahrenkamp knew her ailing father could no longer live alone, but she lived too far away to care for him.
And just when she needed to research nursing homes, her job as a programmer for IBM in Boulder, Colo., required her to run a major business meeting.
The 42-year-old Vahrenkamp turned to her employer. Within hours, IBM’s Elder Care Referral Service provided the names, costs and other information about adult care facilities near her father’s home in the mountains.
“They did the legwork. All I had to do was check these places out when I had time. I didn’t have to find them.”
Baby Boomers’ Needs
That IBM would offer such a service is testament to the needs of the baby boomers who are rising through the business ranks. Just as they are maturing as executives, many find their parents are more needy. “So many of us are going through this same kind of thing,” said Vahrenkamp.
Other companies also are coming to the realization that they have a stake in their employees’ family problems. A study by John Hancock Financial Services found employees with needy parents are more likely to be absent from work and to suffer from job-related stress than others.
“If elder care is a problem now--and it is--we had better find good, humane answers soon. If we don’t, the future . . . will turn into a nightmare for millions of us,” said E. James Morton, chairman of John Hancock.
For a long time, elder care was a “sleeper issue” tucked away behind child care, said Dr. Michael Creedon of the National Council on Aging. Creedon is a pioneer in elder-care services--he’s credited with coining the term--and he points to population statistics to underscore the need.
About 30 million people are over 65 today; that number will jump to 50 million in the early part of the next century. An estimated 2.6 million are 85 or over now; by the year 2000, that number will double. Studies also show that 41% of those responsible for elder care also have children to handle.
“The baby boomers delayed childbearing, so there’s a high proportion of late childbearing,” Creedon said. “People in their 40s are also the most frequent group for parent care.”
At IBM, “30% of our population had some responsibility for an elder relative,” said spokesman Jim Smith. “We wanted to provide more flexibility in dealing with home and family.’
In 1987, IBM turned to Work Family Directions of Boston. Work Family Directions had initially helped IBM establish a network to help the company’s 223,000 nationwide employees find child care in 1984.
The next year, Work Family Directions formed the Elder Care Consultation and Referral Service. Alan LaRue, its director, said it collects information through 175 community-based agencies nationwide to provide to employees.
One of the Largest
For Vahrenkamp, “the worrying never went away,” but the service helped her arrange transportation for her father to his doctors, talk knowledgeably about his condition and deal with Medicare and Medicaid.
There are other elder-care organizations--in New York City, for example, some companies work with the city’s Partnership for Eldercare--but Work Family Directions is one of the largest. Besides IBM, its client list includes Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson and Aetna Life & Casualty.
For Aetna, elder care was an outgrowth of child care as it was for others, but it had to be handled “much more tacitly and quietly. Employees feel they shouldn’t have to verbalize needs on this,” said Sherry Herchenroether, the administrator of its family services program.
“They deny the fact (of needing elder care) for emotional reasons. When they do realize it, it’s with a sense of urgency,” she said. Seminars Aetna had before introducing its program were so popular that more had to be scheduled.
Women have traditionally been care givers, both for children and for elderly parents who needed help. Today, many women work, Herchenroether said, and part of the problem stems from the fact that “there isn’t anybody left at home.”
During the Day
Annie Smith, an Aetna licensing and contracts supervisor in Atlanta, moved her father-in-law in with her family four months ago because she was unhappy with his living arrangement with another family member.
While her son can be company for him now, she worries about what will happen when the boy returns to school. Her call to the company’s Elder Care Referral Service has found places where he can go during the day.
“Sitting around all day sleeping and eating is not good for anyone,” she said. “I’ve got some data and I think I can get him into a senior citizen center for part of the day so he won’t be alone.”
Herchenroether noted that for many of Aetna’s 44,000 workers, “the employee is one place and the relative is far away, making it difficult for the employee to find out what she needs to know.”
While companies won’t disclose the cost of the program, both IBM’s Smith and Aetna’s Herchenroether say the issue is not money, but attracting and keeping employees by offering services they need.
