What’s Your Company’s Financial Loss from Employee Caregiving?

by Kevin K. Johnson, Certified Senior Advisor (CSA)®

In previous posts, I’ve documented the fact employers in the United States experience well over $30 billion per year in lost productivity due to employees having to provide caregiving for an elder loved one.

So just how much of that +$30 billion per year does your company lose? MetLife’s Mature Market Institute has developed a method for any business to estimate their likely individual cost.  They use 3 basic parameters to broadly approximate your lost cost.

1. Size of your company or business
2. Average hourly wage, including benefits
3. Number of employed caregivers in your company or business

Let’s take a look at just 2 illustrations.

Illustration 1: Let’s say you have the following company parameters:

Calculated for 250 employees, 5 Employed Caregivers (2% of your workforce), Average Hourly Wage with Benefits of $25.00

Replacement Cost (for employees who quit as a result of caregiving)	$3000.00
Absenteeism Cost	$2,080.00
Partial Absenteeism Cost	$797.50
Costs Due to Workday Interruptions	$2,687.50
Costs Due to Crisis in Care	$1,800.00
Costs Due to Supervision	$742.00
Costs Due to Unpaid Leave	$1,600.00
Costs Due to Reduction of Hours	$1,153.00
Total Cost :	$13,860.50

Illustration 2: Let’s say you have the following company parameters:

Calculated for 750 employees, 15 Employed Caregivers (2% of your workforce), Average Hourly Wage with Benefits of $30.00

Calculated for 15 Employed Caregivers, Average Hourly Wage of $30.00

Replacement Cost: (for employees who quit as a result of caregiving)	$10,800.00
Absenteeism Cost	$7,488.00
Partial Absenteeism Cost	$2,871.00
Costs Due to Workday Interruptions	$9,675.00
Costs Due to Crisis in Care	$6,480.00
Costs Due to Supervision	$2,673.00
Costs Due to Unpaid Leave	$5,760.00
Costs Due to Reduction of Hours	$3,459.00
Total Cost	$49,206.00