Carer-friendly workplaces: Guide for people professionals

In order to address the challenges faced by working carers, it’s helpful to first understand define what is meant by the term a ‘working carer’ . 

According to Carers UK, a working carer is someone who is managing both paid work and unpaid caring responsibilities. These workers are responsible for the care and support of a relative or friend who is older, disabled, seriously ill (physically or mentally) and unable to care for themselves. This does not include individuals who are employed as a paid professional carer or whose caring role relates solely to a child or children who do not have a long-term illness or disability.  

The need to provide care is likely to affect most of us at some point in our working lives. With an ageing population and people living longer, many employees are finding themselves caring for older, disabled or seriously ill friends or family. These and other social changes have also led to some parents of young children facing having to care for their ageing parents at the same time, as well as juggling work and other responsibilities.  

The most recent Census data from 2021 demonstrated an increase in the proportion of people providing over 19 hours of unpaid care per week. However, caring experiences vary:  

• the amount of time a working carer spends on providing support may vary from a few hours a week to fairly constant;
• the care might be at home or they might have to travel to support someone;
• caring might entail periods of high and low demand, depending on the health and needs of the person being cared for;
• caring may involve one or more types of support such as personal care, handling finances, co-ordinating with medical/care services, or providing things (such as doing the shopping);
• caring might be a sudden experience (following an illness or accident) or it might be more of a gradual process where the carer realises, for instance, that their parents can no longer manage without support.  

Demographic and social change means that we are all juggling increasingly demanding working lives alongside a range of competing priorities in our personal lives. There are a number of compelling reasons why your organisation should be a carer-friendly workplace.  

From a business perspective, supporting working carers is likely to enhance your reputation in the eyes of employees as well as your customers and clients. It will help you to attract and, importantly, retain staff, as evidenced by our research that shows working carers who feel supported by their organisation are less likely to be considering reducing their hours or quitting their jobs. It is also likely to reduce stress and sickness levels and the associated costs of absence. Additionally, it can also boost performance as our research also demonstrates that working carers are less likely to find it difficult to concentrate at work when they feel supported by their employer. 

From a moral perspective, it’s simply the right thing to do. Employees will expect support from employers, especially if they’re experiencing challenges outside of work that impact their wellbeing in the workplace. Organisational values often reflect the commitment to act ethically and providing support ensures that this is reflected in actions as well as words. 

It’s important to have a clear definition of what being a carer means to your organisation. Many people do not identify themselves as carers and may not think to raise any related issues with their manager in the first place. Others might self-identify as carers but may not feel comfortable sharing that information with their employers if they don’t think they would be supportive. Ensuring your organisation has a clear and supportive policy could encourage these carers to seek support when needed. However, a supportive culture goes beyond a written policy by ensuring support is fair and tailored to the needs of individual carers. 

Identifying carers and understanding their circumstances is a helpful starting point. This could be done via staff induction, appraisals or employee surveys. Having carer role models who are willing to talk about their experiences at work can help to encourage others to identify themselves as carers and ask for any support they might need.

You may also wish to keep formal records such as creating a ‘carers’ register’, where employees who have indicated they’re carers are listed, enabling access to carers’ leave and other benefits. A voluntary carers’ passport scheme, where employees hold an individual plan detailing their needs and working arrangements is also an option. However, it’s important to regularly update these records as circumstances change, be clear what the data will be used for and emphasise that providing such data is voluntary. You should avoid seeking or recording data regarding the person, or persons, who are being cared for and instead focus on the carer and their needs. All information should be retained confidentially and only be shared with the explicit agreement of the carer concerned. 

Carers’ experiences should feed into how support is developed within an organisation, based on regular communication and consultation. A workplace should have a supporting environment where there is no stigma attached to carers identifying themselves. However, carers’ decisions concerning this should be respected, as some may not want to disclose their situation.

Develop a carer policy, framework or guidance  

Formally recognising working carers is an important step in creating an organisational culture that’s supportive of working carers. Our research shows that formal recognition of working carers and their challenges supports self-respect – an important contributor to wellbeing. It’s therefore important that carers are recognised within an organisation’s policies and procedures. This might be through a dedicated carers’ policy or with specific mention of carers within existing HR policies. 

A carers’ policy, framework or guidance should detail the support provided to carers and how to access that provision. This could include carers’ leave or other special leave arrangements, flexible working options, information on career breaks, access to wellbeing sessions and carers’ support networks. You may wish to distinguish between carer’s rights according to law and additional support offered by your organisation.  

You should also link to other helpful services if you offer them, such as occupational health and employee assistance programmes, or external sources of support. Supporting the wellbeing of working carers, such as by offering counselling or wellbeing support, can have positive effects for both work and care.  

A mix of solutions could be used, such as flexible working combined with some paid/unpaid time off or special leave. Policies should be developed to be as flexible and beneficial as possible for working carers in different circumstances.  

Outline different roles and responsibilities  

It’s helpful to outline people’s different roles and responsibilities, so that everyone’s clear on how they can support working carers:  

• Employees who are carers should be encouraged to talk to their manager or HR contact if they need support. Together they can explore and agree what support options are possible and suitable. 
• HR should provide advice about supporting carers (including leave arrangements) to people managers and employees as necessary. They also have a responsibility to record carers’ leave and inform payroll of any required adjustments to pay and benefits contributions (in some organisations this might also rest with people managers). 
• People managers should be familiar with the organisation’s policy, framework or guidance for supporting workplace carers. They should be comfortable having sensitive conversations with working carers and finding out what support they need. They should ensure all employees are aware of the organisation’s approach and understand their own and the organisation’s responsibilities in relation to it. 
• Co-workers should be educated on what it feels like to be a working carer and how they can support their colleagues with caring responsibilities.  

Communicate your approach and embed a culture of support  

Organisations can have great policies and support on paper, but if these aren’t communicated throughout the workplace, they’re likely to be of little benefit. Our research shows that a lack of knowledge about existing support and how to access it were barriers for a significant number of working carers.  

Creating a culture of support within an organisation will ensure that carers feel comfortable in the workplace and able to raise any issues they might be experiencing. Good communication of carer policies, frameworks or guidance is essential. This can be achieved by providing information through staff induction, detailing information on the organisation’s intranet or staff message boards and wider workplace awareness-raising sessions. Recognising campaigns such as Carers Rights Day can also help raise awareness. 

Flexible working can be a great support for carers. Caring responsibilities can be sudden and unpredictable, so it’s important to provide informal as well as formal options of flexible working. As flexible working is beneficial to all employees, employers should take steps to create a flexible working culture across their organisation. Our cross-sector case studies show that flexible working in some form can be accommodated across most contexts.  

Hire flexibly wherever possible  

When recruiting, consider including the tagline, “happy to talk flexible working”. Offering a job on a flexible basis increases the talent pool, helps retain staff and saves on sickness absence.

To ensure that job requirements are properly aligned to the flexible working pattern, and vice versa, you might want to assess:  

• Time – how many hours are needed to carry out the job? Is this a full-time role, a more than full-time role or a part-time one? 
• Location – where do the activities need to be carried out? 
• When – what activities have to be done when?  

Be open to considering alternatives rather than assuming a job needs to be done in a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been done. 

Be transparent about your flexible working practices  

Aim to be transparent about your flexible working policies by publishing them on your website. Ensure your policies remain compliant with the current legal framework on requesting flexible working, but also highlight any additional benefits or options. That way both prospective and existing employees will have a clear understanding of the type of flexibility that you offer, and people managers will feel empowered to support flexible working. It will also help you to be an employer of choice and will be key in helping attract and retain valued employees.  

Get creative – understand and make use of a variety of different flexible working options  

Get creative when it comes to thinking about flexible working. There is a whole array of flexible working patterns that you can make use of. It’s possible to consider some form of flexible working arrangement in almost all roles – even roles that are traditionally seen as difficult for flexible working. Our research suggests that carers are particularly appreciative of flexible start and finish times and the opportunity to work from home on certain days.  

Empower managers to support flexible workers  

Give managers guidance to help them feel confident in dealing with flexible working requests and managing flexible workers. Good management practices support flexible working and should include:  

• being inclusive of flexible workers (such as being considerate of working patterns when scheduling meetings) 
• reviewing whether flexible working is going well for both the individual and the team 
• having regular conversations, both informally and through the performance review system 
• including a ‘good people manager’ performance objective against which a manager is assessed and a team supported 
• ensuring ongoing access to development and career conversations for flexible workers 
• recording training sessions and continuing professional development so that flexible workers can catch up on them later 
• implementing flexible working fairly.  

Information and resources (such as guidance for managers) are available on our flexible working topic page.

Promote an open culture  

People managers should promote an open culture for their teams and hold regular one-to-one conversations with team members. Managers should always ask their employees about their wellbeing and workload as part of conversations about their objectives and performance. This gives individuals the opportunity to raise any issues they’d like to discuss beyond work matters.  

Use positive language when talking about carers in the workplace. Having a supportive manager will enable carers to feel that they can continue to work while fulfilling their caring responsibilities. This is likely to encourage employees to come forward and let their manager know that they’re a carer and may need some support and flexibility. It’s important that options are fully discussed and considered from both the employer’s and employee’s perspectives. Flexibility, fairness, communication and co-operation are important on all sides, between carers, their colleagues, and their managers.  

However, the choice of carers to self-identify themselves should still be respected, understanding that some people may not want to disclose their situation. If someone discloses their role as a carer to their manager, it should be treated as confidential and any consent to share this must be explicit.

Managers should discuss with them who will be told and by whom, as well as the information they do or don’t want shared with colleagues. It’s therefore helpful for line managers to have a space for private conversations with employees.  

Ensure managers know about your organisation's approach to supporting carers 

Managers should be knowledgeable about their organisation’s approach to supporting carers. Whether your organisation has a carers’ policy, framework or guidance, it’s important to understand this and ensure that all employees are aware of the policy and understand their own and the organisation’s responsibilities.  

Examples of workplace support for working carers:  

• carer's leave or other special leave arrangements (like that available in Great Britain under the Carer’s Leave Act 2023)
• flexible working options
• information on career breaks
• access to wellbeing sessions 
• carers’ support networks
• occupational health and employee assistance programmes
• access to an external carers’ advice support line
• drop-in lunchtime carer support sessions
• access to a telephone to be able to contact people in case of emergencies  

Remember, a mix of solutions could be used. Talk to carers about what would help them. Some of the best suggestions come from carers themselves.  

Provide training for managers to empower carers  

People manager training is especially important in ensuring that carers are fairly treated across all departments, and providing a consistent approach when a manager leaves. Training can help managers to be empathetic towards the challenges working carers face – as well as raising their awareness of some workplace solutions.  

Don’t forget that managers may have caring responsibilities themselves and combining their own work and care can have adverse effects on how they manage employees. Measures aimed specifically at managers who are working carers could have ‘trickle down’ effects that could also benefit those that they manage.  

Engage senior leaders in supporting carers and creating inclusive cultures 

If people managers know that they have the support of senior leaders, they’re likely to feel more confident supporting and empowering working carers. It’s important that senior leaders promote flexible working and share any examples of caring that they may have experienced. Senior leaders and HR have an important role in ensuring that policies and practices to support working carers are applied in a consistent way across the organisation. See the CIPD report on building inclusive workplaces. 

Provide information on workplace support for carers 

It’s important to provide information on workplace support for carers in your carers’ policy, framework or guidance. This could include carers’ leave or other special leave arrangements, flexible working options, information on career breaks, access to wellbeing sessions, and carers’ support networks. You should also link to other helpful services if you offer them, such as occupational health and employee assistance programmes. 

Develop an in-house support group for carers 

You could consider supporting the forming of an in-house support group (either in person or online) for carers, where they could get together to have a chat about their caring responsibilities. However, some carers might be looking for social groups and activities that take them away from their responsibilities and give them a chance to relax, unwind and feel included with others and society in general. 

Point to sources of further information and guidance 

It’s helpful to point to sources of further information and advice and signpost carers to useful support they can access externally. 

The CIPD is incredibly grateful to the organisations who gave their time and expertise to provide feedback to help inform this guide. These include: 

• Simon Brown, founder and chief executive, FamilyCarersNet 

• Alice Devlin, senior policy adviser, Gender Equality and Economic Empowerment Team, Government Equalities Office 

• Professor Jason Heyes, employment relations, School of Management, University of Sheffield 

• Tara Hutton, stakeholder engagement manager, Business Engagement, Government Equalities Office 

• John Palmer, senior guidance managing editor at Acas 

• Sara Wallin, senior policy adviser, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) 

• Katherine Wilson, head of employers for carers, Carers UK 

We are also grateful for helpful feedback from internal colleagues and experts at the CIPD, including Leah De Silva, Melanie Green, Dr Jill Miller, Rachel Suff, Derek Tong, Danielle Munroe and Ben Willmott.