Foundation Forum: Abstracts from participants

Gail Hunt
Caregiving and work

Ms. Hunt will present new data on caregiving and work from the April 2004 US national carer survey. Nearly 60% of employed carers report that they have had to make some sort of workplace accommodation, including 17% who said that they took a leave of absence. She will also present data from the study Sons At Work on differences in attitudes between male and female family carers in the workplace. Lastly, she will offer data from Miles Away on how long-distance caregiving has financial and work impacts.

Dr Wolfgang Seidl
How investing in work-life balance can increase productivity

Due to demographic changes in the workforce and increasing pressure on personal lives, new topics and instruments for employee support are emerging. Stress care, well-being, resilience, childcare, eldercare, and debt management programmes are becoming vital strategies for employers to maintain productivity within an increasingly diverse workforce. Integrated service models are responding to these new demands and are required to find innovative ways of evaluating the effectiveness of these HR interventions.

In the current economic climate, such expenditure has to be justified with reference to evidence-based practice, including the assessment of the return on investment of Employee Assistance Programmes and Work-Life services. The presenter will introduce a Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator that has been developed with support from a Harvard-based researcher. The economic assumptions will be explained and a case example will demonstrate its application in everyday practice.

Learning objectives

• Methods for the evaluation of increasingly complex services
• Parameters relevant to the calculation of the return on investment of integrated programmes