Many employees are engaged in a challenging “juggling act,” with about one in four Canadians aged 15 and older providing ongoing care to a family member or friend and about one in five caregivers spending 20 or more hours a week in that role, according to Sherry Hnatyshyn, managing director of Carepath. During a Benefits […]
Shopify Inc. was awarded for its digital-first employee health and wellness strategy at Benefits Canada‘s 2021 Workplace Benefits Awards on Oct. 14. The technology company won the award in the Coronavirus and Benefits category for an employer with more than 5,000 employees. Although the organization already had a few remote workers, it swiftly transitioned all of its employees […]
With the coronavirus pandemic exposing gaps in sickness and caregiving leave provisions across Canada, the Institute for Research on Public Policy is calling for permanent reforms to provide access to short-term paid and protected leaves for all employees. In the study, co-authors Eric Tucker, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, and Leah Vosko, a […]
Nola Miller remembers the day she received 19 calls from her mother at work. As a group home co-ordinator for Winnipeg Child and Family Services, she’d mastered the demands of her job, but the stress of caring for her aging mother was weighing on her. “When you’re at work, and you’re getting calls like that, […]
In 2018, 25 per cent of Canadians, or 7.8 million people, aged 15 and older provided care to a family member or friend with a long-term health condition, a physical or mental disability or problems related to aging, according to data published this week by Statistics Canada. This compares to 8.1 million people, or 28 […]
An evaluation of a federal benefit to help parents take time off work to care for critically ill children says fewer people have used it than expected because they didn’t know about it or didn’t understand how it worked. Annual applications for the benefit, delivered through the employment insurance system, have been well below the […]
The Pensions Policy Institute and U.K. consumer advocacy group Which? are teaming up to recommend to the U.K. government that working mothers should receive a top-up to their pensions in an effort to close the pension gender gap. The groups’ analysis found a woman in the U.K. who took time off for childcare responsibilities would put an average […]
Forty-three million Americans are currently acting as an unpaid caregiver for a family member, according to a report by the U.S.-based business research organization LIMRA. It also suggested half of these unpaid caregivers work full time outside the home, with the demands of taking care of a loved one impacting their career. Indeed, it found […]
American companies are facing a caregiving crisis they refuse to acknowledge, according to a report by the Managing the Future of Work project at Harvard Business School. According to the report, rising health-care and professional caregiving costs, along with changing demographics over the past few decades, have “put great pressure on American employees as they try […]
In the first year since the federal government made changes to employment insurance benefits aimed at helping caregivers and new parents, it has received more than 8,300 caregiving benefits claims. The government expects that number to grow, estimating about 22,000 claims for caregiving benefits by fall 2019. It also found that, as of September 2018, more […]