Lincoln Absence Advisor

Recruitment, retention, and the working caregiver

• Lincoln Financial Group • Season 3 • Episode 45

Share episode

In this episode of Lincoln Absence Advisor, we talk about one of the key factors — caregiving — behind what’s been called the “Great Resignation” in the American workforce. Our guests are well-versed in this trend, as they are all part of the Lincoln market intelligence team that conducts industry research and analyzes the latest relevant developments. Together, we discuss the effect caregiving demands are having on recruitment and retention and how employers can take proactive steps to address both financial and emotional challenges faced by employees with caregiving responsibilities. 
 
Some of the information provided by guests came from these studies and articles:

Other resources mentioned: 


 © 2022 Lincoln National Corporation. All rights reserved.  LCN-4502135-031022

Karen Batson:

Hi everyone. We are officially back with season three of the Lincoln Absence Advisor Podcast. I'm Karen Batson Marketing Manager at Lincoln Financial Group, and I will be your host throughout the series. In today's episode, I'm joined by Kelsey Bradbury, Susan Lawson and Sophia Boniecki, who are members of our consumer insights team. They've done various studies on employee benefits. But most recently, they've been working on some studies around the Great Resignation and its impact on the workplace. So in this conversation, we dive into a few aspects of things that they're starting to see from their research. We talk about the effects of leave, we talk about caregiving, and we talk about approaches you may need to take in the future. I hope you enjoy today's episode. Hi, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. You're officially our first guests of season three. So welcome.

Kelsey Bradbury:

Thank you happy to be here.

Karen Batson:

So you know, we'll get the easy question out of the way first, let go around and introduce yourselves and how you're connected to the topic of employee benefits, leave and disability. Kelsey, do you wanna start?

Kelsey Bradbury:

Sure. So I've been with Lincoln since 2012. And I am in a consumer research role focusing on you know, why people do what they do, how they're making decisions, how they're thinking about their finances, their future. And one of the areas we focus on is how people are making decisions about their workplace benefits. And so we've been looking into that for many years. But recently, when this topic of the Great Resignation became apparent, and when we started seeing this trend, we started looking into, why are people leaving? What are they doing when they're leaving? What are they looking for? And so it's been a really big topic of focus for us over the past, I'd say like six months or so. And we're continuing to look into it over the next, you know, several months, we have plans to continue tracking it.

Karen Batson:

Awesome. Susan, how about you?

Susan Lawson:

So yes, Susan Lawson and I have been with Lincoln almost two years, and I support the workplace solutions business. So both group protection and the retirement plan services, business units with insights. So I'm day-to-day consulting on all the things Kelsey just said, and then into the more nitty gritty about how can we bring that to life for our brokers, employers and employees to help employees make those decisions about their benefits. So all the things Kelsey said, as well as, what does it mean for our broker partners and employers? When we talk about the Great Resignation? How can we help them navigate through that? So that's my role with this body of research and Lincoln in general?

Karen Batson:

Sophia, how about you?

Sophia Boniecki:

Hi, I'm Sophia Boniecki. I've been with Lincoln for almost a year now, I think it's about nine months at this point. Just some topics that I've been really digging into with some research have included the Great Resignation, and what employers are really looking for from the workplace, as well as caregiving, financial and mental well being as well as just retirement preparation.

Karen Batson:

So you guys probably have a lot more knowledge than we'll be able to get into for a full podcast. But hopefully, we'll give our listeners some good insights and tips. You know, you mentioned you've been conducting various studies on the Great Resignation and retaining talent. Why are we involved in these studies? And what exactly are we hoping to find?

Kelsey Bradbury:

So I want to back up just a little bit and talk about how consumers like, where did this all start? Right. So we've been looking at how consumers are choosing benefits, what they know about benefits, what's difficult for them when they're going through open enrollment? And also what are their expectations of employers. So we've been looking at that for many years, because it's important to the business we do and making sure that we're educating folks and and helping them understand how to choose benefits and what might be most applicable to them to ease that process of open enrollment. So that's one reason why we look at it. The other reason is because we know it's important very employers that we serve. And so with the topic of the Great Resignation, we've been feeling it Lincoln as an employer has been feeling it and we know that all of our employer clients are feeling the strain of how do we attract and retain top talent in this really, really competitive talent market. So that's why we started looking into it. But we also started looking into it because during the kind of depths of COVID we did some research on how people are thinking and feeling and what are the short term and long long term impacts of COVID on like the consumer psyche. And we found that about eight and 10 folks said that the pandemic had made them reevaluate some aspect of their lives. And one of those aspects of life that they reevaluated was what is important in their work and their career. They also just re evaluated what's important in life generally. And we saw folks re evaluating what's important financially, and really leaning into their finances, recognizing the importance of certain insurances that they maybe had overlooked in the past. Or maybe thought, oh, I should have that, but I'll never need it. The pandemic highlighted for a lot of folks the importance of different protections for uncertainties in the future. And meanwhile, at the same time, they're feeling really stressed. And the pandemic is changing their lives in a way that makes them rethink work life balance, how they spend their time, how they make trade offs between today and the future, and what fulfills them. And so all these factors are coming together and laying the groundwork for what's now the Great Resignation on people are acting on the revaluations that they made over the past two years.

Susan Lawson:

And I think building on that, we're hearing to as employees feel like they are reevaluating, and they're making changes, it's really reflected in where they want to work, right? Because we're seeing that the benefits that they're offered play a role in the choices about the employers that they're going after. So do they have three, four, six, more weeks of paid leave? Do they have a 401k match? Or do they have long term disability where maybe I didn't have that before all of those things that go into the total package, not just I want to make more money. So how we help our employer clients figure out the right balance for their employees is where all this research comes in, and how we can help create the right benefits program based on what employees are saying is more and more important to them as they're evaluating all these changes, like Kelsey said.

Kelsey Bradbury:

I think it's really important to to note that this is evolving. So we're seeing it change, because we're still kind of coming out of the pandemic, hopefully, yeah. And we're still seeing consumers changing and reevaluating, even in the wake of COVID.

Karen Batson:

Do you think studies like this will be continuously evolving into the future, then that perspective of change is just gonna keep growing and shifting and have more to it when it comes to employees expectations?

Susan Lawson:

I think it has to Yeah, right. Like we're calling it the Great Resignation. But everything we're seeing says it's not actually true, right? Like it's a reshuffling. It's a reevaluation, it's a reprioritization. But it's not just people leaving the workforce en masse and and saying, I'm not working anymore, right, people are starting their own businesses, people are trading for the same job with a different employer. So like Kelsey said, all of those changes will continue to happen, we have to keep our eye on it to make sure we're up to date, so that we can continue to help our customers.

Kelsey Bradbury:

And we have a couple of different projects in flight right now to continue tracking trends of people wanting to leave looking for new jobs or being open to new jobs, and then also looking at what their expectations of employers are. And I think that's really the biggest marker of of the Great Resignation, or, or kind of the focus of it, right, is that consumers are expecting more of employers, or they're asking more questions or looking for more detail from employers about what they're offering. And there's, if we go back to again, that idea of consumers in the midst of COVID reevaluating their life there is this heightened focus on holistic well being. And individuals are really looking for employers to demonstrate value by showing them how they can support holistic well being in the lives of their employees.

Karen Batson:

Susan, you mentioned as one of your examples, like looking at paid leave, where did paid leave fall into the studies and what you're observing?

Susan Lawson:

So one of the things we asked in a recent survey that we partnered on with this firm called Greenwald Research, they helped us execute this research. And when you look at when they were evaluating benefits that would help them stay with their current employer, so benefits that really mattered to them. Better parental leave, 47 percent of folks said that that would have an impact on whether they save their current employer versus looking out into the market. But that also comes with a lot of other kind of less specific work life balance benefits, people said they a more flexible schedule, wellness and health incentive programs, option to work remotely when I need it. So those types of things in addition to that parental leave component just to help folks balance all of their responsibilities, and to Kelsey's point, manage that well being not just from a financial or from a mental health, but all of the holistic pieces as part of it, those benefits are really important too.

Karen Batson:

Now, you kind of hinted at this earlier, I want to bring it back, you know, with paid family leave, and parental leave and just paid leave in general, it's a big topic of conversation it feels like, and we've noticed employers becoming more transparent and what they offer, you know, on social, they'll advertise on their website, what they're offering, do you think that's a step forward, and kind of what you're seeing being so transparent with this information?

Kelsey Bradbury:

I do, I think, because a we're seeing that employees are expecting and have a little bit more maybe awareness of what they're looking for, from a benefits perspective. You know, it used to be that you would see the phrase competitive benefits. And that was it. And I think this trend of employers providing more information, even for just kind of casual people, perusing the job board is really important and a good step in the right direction, and a smart step for employers to take, it can be really scary to be an employer looking at the current talent market, because it's so difficult to hire, and you think, you know, we have a certain amount of dollars that we can spend, how are we going to hire top talent when there's so much competition, but I think the employers that are gonna come out ahead with this great resignation are the employers that have been doing right by their employees all along, and that are focusing on their employee needs. And it's really just about demonstrating that during the recruiting process, and also demonstrating it to your current employees, highlighting what they're offered and making sure that people are aware, I can't tell you the number of times that we see in surveys, whether it's employee awareness of the insurance benefits are offered financial wellness benefits, mental well being physical well being when you compare employer reports of what they offer to their employees, versus what employees say they're offered in the workplace, it doesn't match up, there's a huge gap. So making sure that current employees are really aware of what's available, so that they're not out there looking and saying, oh, company A could offer me this, this and this, and maybe they're already actually offering those things in your current job.

Sophia Boniecki:

Just wanted to add on a little bit to what Kelsey was saying, especially given the fact that it's so easy for anybody to just casually look at job postings and everything, that additional transparency can have a lot of impact. Because we found that in our own research amongst employees who haven't left their jobs, over half of employees mentioned that certain benefits, like an increased salary, or a better benefits package for them, can persuade them to leave their current jobs. So it's really anything and seeing those things offered from other companies could have a huge impact, whether they were looking casually or not even really considering it at that point.

Karen Batson:

Good point. Now, shifting gears kind of have that employer perspective of the employee. How important is it that the employer shows the importance of the working parent and the responsibilities that they have?

Susan Lawson:

Back to the research I mentioned before, when employees say that benefits can make a big difference when they're considering a job change? The idea that the company understands the needs of working parents, while it's not the top reason folks are considering a job change, it's right in the middle of the pack with 58% of people saying that it's somewhat or very important. So even more important than health insurance, life insurance, disability, like just understanding what it is required to be a working parent right now is a big deal and as important to folks as their health insurance, which ranks the same 58% Life insurance 57%. So folks are saying that these are really important features when they're evaluating a job change.

Kelsey Bradbury:

And anecdotally, you know, just think about conversations you've had with friends family members over the course of the past two years, it's been really interesting how different employers approached flexibility, especially flexibility for folks who had responsibilities to care for parents, children, especially young children, you know, in again, in the early days of COVID, when school was fully remote, some workplaces offered a lot of flexibility to employees, and people were talking about it and kind of comparing the experience. So that all again is playing into once the talent market kind of picked up, is playing into folks decisions to stay or leave,

Susan Lawson:

Right. Did I have to hide my, hide my family, hide the toys? Or was it Okay? Understood. We were all going through it together kind of thing.

Karen Batson:

Well, those are the more it's vocalized, the more comfortable people are to talk about it, you know, and that kind of has a snowball effect where you have to pay attention. And you're gonna see that on the survey that, you know, it's a more common thing to discuss, and that we're an issue that is common to have in front of us.

Kelsey Bradbury:

Even dog parenting. I remember before COVID, if a dog was barking in the background, there would be profuse apologies, you would be mortified, right. And now it's like, on many calls, your saying, Oh, yeah, there's, and you even know the name of the dog. In many cases.

Karen Batson:

It's true. It's a much different environment. Now, last year, actually, on this podcast, we had many conversations about caregiving needs. We've kind of hinted at this a little bit through our conversation so far. And particularly, we talked about the importance of flexible leave programs that consider the needs of the employee, what other learnings can we tell our listeners about caregiving? In regards to the studies you guys have done.

Kelsey Bradbury:

We've been focusing a lot on caregiving, I would say over the past, at least eight to 10 years, probably, you know, before I was even on the team. And it's a huge area to focus on not only in light of COVID, but in general with the aging Boomer population. And the Boomer generation is such a big, big group of folks, some of whom will need care from their children or loved ones. And that's going to impact how people show up to work who are in that caregiving situation. And so we've been looking at that for a while. We just did some research this past summer, specifically about caregiving. And that was really interesting to look at, again, in light of everything going on with a pandemic. It's pretty staggering and impressive to look at the, I guess the workload that folks who are caregivers are taking on. So we're seeing that, you know, employee caregivers are often spending at least six, sometimes as many as 20, or more hours per week on top of their day job. And so that's really significant. And we've found that it does impact by folks own admission, it's impacting their career to the tune of seven in ten folks, whether they're, you know, adjusting their schedule, reducing work hours, if those are possible, working from home or taking time off, some folks are taking a leave of absence. And we see people kind of, you know, to use the term leaning in, we see people leaning out turning down jobs or promotions, changing jobs to a less demanding one, even leaving their job. And some folks are saying that they're noticing their performance, you know, waver as a result of everything that's going on outside of work. And so it's really impactful to employers when employees are in this caregiving situation. And I think it's important to a understand that this is going to be just a fact of life for the workforce, in many cases, and then to figure out ways to be really supportive of the caregiver situation, so that folks are still able to get their work done, and do so in a way that they feel proud of and fulfilled, but don't have to be making sacrifices to the quality of their work because of these other demands on their time.

Sophia Boniecki:

Speaking a little bit to what Kelsey was saying about understanding as well. Something that's always really stood out to me when ever I have conversations, either professionally, or even just, you know, in my personal life with people that I know. And when caregiving does come up as a topic, it's always really interesting to hear people lean towards one type of caregiving. I know we talk a lot about elder care in the consumer insights team, but then a lot of the times people will lean towards childcare is well, and they stick to either end of the spectrum. But there's even such a large middle ground, I guess you could say, because you have, say, parents of adult children who might be disabled and need a little bit more caregiving then or just different caregiving. And because there's such a large spectrum, I think that there's a lack of understanding maybe from some employers perspective, and also going off of the research that we did last summer. Some interesting findings for me were that only 58% of employees had said that their employer was aware of their caregiving responsibilities. And going off of that, despite that 58% said that their employers were aware, we had only 28% say that their employers were extremely accommodating and 31% said somewhat. And then just from there, the fact that the rest basically assumes that it's less than accommodating, I guess you could say. And in most cases, we have 53% of employees say that their employers offered flexible working hours, but that's still only 53%. And whether you're a caregiver for children, or elderly people, or even just what I mentioned, say disabled adult children, only 53% offering something such as flexible working hours is really staggering. And it's something to think about on that topic.

Karen Batson:

Well, it's interesting to go back to what we were talking about earlier, like even having one solve doesn't solve everything, there's just so many aspects to the whole employee. So flexible schedules can work in one element, but there might be other factors even for that individual. And consider folks who have doing elder care and child care, right, who are in that sandwich generation, like, it's crazy to think of how much responsibility they have going on in their out of work life.

Kelsey Bradbury:

And it takes an emotional tone to which, you know, we've seen really high levels of stress throughout the pandemic, and we're seeing that folks are reporting physical symptoms of stress, you know, changes and feeling their heart racing or their blood pressure's higher, they, you know, have a loss of appetite, you know, any of these things that are really taxing on the body physically as a result of stress. And those are only intensified being the population of folks who have caregiving responsibilities, whether that's caring for a younger child, and adult child, or a parent or elderly family member.

Susan Lawson:

I think, for us as Lincoln, when we talk about leave, or disability, those are the things that show up for us in claims, right. And the employer may never know that, oh, if I just offered a bit more flexibility and peace of mind to this employee, we could have completely avoided a disability or need for an unpaid leave of absence or something for this employee. So to me, it's how all this stuff connects, right? When you start to think about why does caregiving matter? Or why does being a more flexible workplace matter and appealing for people, it matters to the bottom line too, because you can, if you're doing these things up front, and really trying to help people manage their stress, manage their responsibilities, then you're saving on the back end by having a more loyal employee and reducing the number of claims your company has.

Karen Batson:

Now how did all of this become evident in some of the studies you're doing around the Great Resignation? How connected are these topics?

Susan Lawson:

So I think to Kelsey's point about continuing to research this, for one thing, I think we're just scratching the surface, right? So really continuing to dig in and figure that out. But folks say that a more flexible work schedules the number one reason to stay with your current employer. The way the survey was designed, we asked folks, okay, did you change jobs in 2021? Okay, tell us about that. Are you planning to change jobs in 2022? Okay, tell us about that. So when you ask folks who say they're still planning to make a change in 2022, to Kelsey's point, pandemics caused me to feel like I just need to change or something new. I need more flexibility. I'm burnt out, I need to be able to work remote. I don't feel valued as an employee. I have poor work life balance. So like all of these things that are kind of intangibles. But you as an employee might be feeling them day to day. Yeah, these are the reasons folks say they want to change, right. So when we see headlines about the great resignation, and people looking for new jobs or looking for a change, all these factors that are pressures and responsibilities are driving some of these reasons are looking for new jobs.

Kelsey Bradbury:

And I also want to bring up one other piece of the puzzle that often gets ignored when we talk about the great resignation and that's retirees and pre-retirees. So we saw that over the past two years 27% of pre-retirees considered changing their plans to either retire earlier or later than originally planned. And we also saw a similar percentage of retirees saying they actually did change their retirement timing. Now, the retirees were more likely to retire earlier than planned, which is for a variety of reasons. But that's pretty consistent with what we've seen pre COVID. But for the pre-retirees who considered changing, you know, either decided, hey, I'm going to delay retirement, or I'm gonna retire earlier than I had originally thought the reasons why they would either defer retirement or choose an earlier retirement differ, when for those who are considering an earlier retirement, a lot of it's that they reevaluated what was important to them. Some folks are saying that they feel less satisfied with their work. So they wanted to kind of exit earlier. And then 20%, which is really sizable, say that the nature of their job changed. And that's the reason they want to retire earlier. So really checking in with pre-retirees I think is really important. If you want to make sure as an employer, that you are keeping talent that's close to retirement happy and and satisfied, if you want to retain that expertise and knowledge, checking in and seeing are you still satisfied with your job is there you know, something that changed over the past couple of years that has made you feel less fulfilled, because these folks would have maybe stayed in the workforce, but they're saying, I don't know anymore, I'm not satisfied with work or the nature of my job changed. And then on the flip side, you know, we're seeing people considering later retirement because they're concerned about inflation or a market downturn. And they they you know, in many cases have good income that they don't want to give up. And that can be a benefit to employers, again, if they want to maintain the knowledge and expertise that comes with experience of workers that are closer to retirement. But on the flip side, if people are just staying for a paycheck, because they're afraid to give it up, they may not be as engaged as they were earlier in their career, especially if they were thinking that they were going to retire a year or two ago, they may just be kind of punching the clock. And so it's definitely not the case for everybody who's in this in this situation. But being aware of that, and again, kind of supporting those employees who are in that pre retiree category, and making sure that their needs are met, whether those needs are feeling engaged and satisfied with their work, or being given the the tools and the financial resources to feel confident that they can retire on time.

Karen Batson:

Last question for you all knowing that, you know, we have a lot of employers and their staff listening, is there anything we didn't cover that you think would be of interest to them, or they should be paying attention to as a future topic? Because things are gonna change? Or we'll learn more about?

Kelsey Bradbury:

I think it's really important to get a pulse on your specific employee base and understand from those employees who are already at your company, what's working? Well, what are they happy with? What makes them excited to go to work? What do they feel that's driving satisfaction, and also what could be improved and really getting that read on your employees. I think it's important from two fronts. A, it's important for anyone, whether it's in the context of work, or in the context outside of work, like a relationship, right, it's important to feel heard. And so when employees feel heard, they know that you as an employer, care about supporting them and doing right by them. And that goes a long way. And then it's not just about asking the questions, right, it's about acting on it. And I think you can act on it in two ways. And one way is to, you know, keep doing what you're doing when it's working well, and to address the things that employees say could be better. And then to really communicate to employees how their feedback is being incorporated. So that's one thing. And the other thing is to really play to your strengths during, you know, when you're recruiting because your employees are telling you that you're really good in one category or another. Maybe you have a really strong paid leave program and your employees tell you that when you ask them for feedback, well then highlight that to you know, as a hallmark of the employee experience at your company, and use that to your advantage when you're recruiting.

Susan Lawson:

Yeah, I would build on what Kelsey said and say, it's not just about the paycheck, right? Like folks are changing jobs or moving around looking for new jobs for the highest pay, right? The total package is really more about the story right now with all the things we just talked about, and responsibility On employees plates that, okay, you can be competitive and pay. But if you can do these new different, better paid leave program, those types of things can really help you stand out. It just isn't always just about the paycheck.

Kelsey Bradbury:

And that's not to say that salary isn't important. We absolutely see it show up. And and we're seeing that employees do care about salary. But it's kind of like, you know, you need to be in them, you need salary to be in the mix. But once you're in the mix, the add ons can really put you over the toss, right. And people I mean, anecdotally, we spend hiring and Lincoln is a great place to work remotely. And we've seen folks come to us specifically because that drew them to Lincoln. And so I mean, I've seen it in the research, and I've seen it in the recruiting process firsthand.

Sophia Boniecki:

Yeah, I guess also just to further support what Kelsey was saying too, and these points come from a variety of sources and studies. But one thing that I had seen to support, you know, just the importance of listening to what employees really want. And reflecting on that, and being honest with yourself about that is that I did recently see that there's a pretty decent disconnect between reasons that employees have been leaving their jobs and reasons that executives think employees are leaving their jobs. For example, this one study the reasons cited by employees, the top two were better compensation and better work life balance, which is really what we've been talking about this whole time. But coming from the executives, the top two reasons that they really thought employees were leaving were better benefits and better career advancement opportunities. So they're not entirely entirely wrong for the reasons but they're not really understanding what those top reasons are. And that could be beneficial for them if they were reflecting a little bit more. And then also just to support what Kelsey was saying, another study that I had been looking at employees really do, they're asking for leaders to speak to them and speak to their department or what their specific needs are, and to tailor the things they're saying to different groups of people. So the fact that these employees are asking for that really stands out. And that's something to reflect on as well.

Karen Batson:

Oh, thank you so much for helping me kick off season three. I really appreciate you guys joining me today.

Susan Lawson:

Yes, was fun.

Sophia Boniecki:

Thank you so much.

Susan Lawson:

Thanks, Karen.

Kelsey Bradbury:

Yeah, thank you for a great discussion.

Karen Batson:

Thank you, everyone, for listening today, we covered a lot of information, yet only scratched the surface of the studies that this great team is doing. So of course, a special thanks to them for coming and giving us a sampling of things that they're learning this year and a little bit of last year. You may wonder where you can get some of the information that they shared or what other things that they're learning, I can tell you that throughout this year, we'll be looking into that information and we'll develop articles for you all. So keep an eye on your mailbox for future things from Lincoln. The other thing I thought I'd mention here, as we do talk about reviewing your strategy, and one of those things might be reviewing your leave strategy. Last year, we did a webinar on just that the steps to review the things you should look for and consider. So I'll put a link to that webinar recording in the show notes for you to take a look at. We also did a follow up podcast that dove a little bit deeper into some elements and only to that episode as well. I really hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Please tell us by rating us leaving a comment or even sharing the episode out to others who might be interested in the topic. We will have more episodes throughout the year so be sure to follow us on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Disclosures:

The information contained in this podcast is for general use and is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney or your human resource professional. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation and its affiliates. Affiliates are separately responsible for their own financial and contractual obligations.