Dive Brief:
- In an Atlassian survey of 7,000 working caregivers across seven countries, the majority of respondents (76%) said they feel like a “whole new workday starts” when they finish work and get into caregiving mode.
- Similarly, 78% of said they feel like their caregiving to-do list is just as long as their work to-do list, if not longer, according to the Nov. 5 report.
- This leads to the majority of caregivers — 71% of of those surveyed — using their time off to catch up on work. More than 60% surveyed also said trying to balance caregiving and their job has had a negative impact on their career.
Dive Insight:
At the top of the year, one expert projected that paid time off for caregiving would be the next big thing in leave management — and since then, the desire and need for employer-sponsored caregiving benefits have continually been a point of conversation throughout 2025.
Employers’ support of caregivers was one of this year’s SHRM annual conference topics, with one report from this summer suggesting that employers who don’t offer paid caregiving leave may lose top talent.
And yet only about a third of employers offer family caregiver leave, according to a 2026 leave management outlook report from Aon company NFP, published last month. In sharing the survey results, NFP’s head of Human Capital Solutions, Maria Trapenasso, also pointed out how workers in the “sandwich generation” are using their time off to care for loved ones instead of recharge — which leads to worsened burnout.
“Leave management has shifted to a strategic lever for talent retention and engagement,” Trapenasso said in a statement. “Organizations that treat it as a cultural investment — not just an administrative necessity — are emerging as employers of choice in today’s competitive market.”