When his cell phone rang at 6:30 p.m. one weeknight, Ken, an attorney at a financial services firm in Boston, was at his desk at work. He was taken aback to hear the voice of his distraught mother, calling to inform him that his father had been rushed to the hospital near his parents' home in northern New England. His father had taken a fall at home earlier that afternoon. His mother reported that medical tests were underway to determine the extent of his injuries. She said she didn't know what to do next.

Knowing that he was scheduled to represent his firm at a crucial meeting the next morning, Ken felt torn between fulfilling his commitment to attend the meeting and hopping on the next flight to join his mother at the hospital to help oversee his father's medical situation.

Ken found himself in a bind increasingly felt by employees around the country: the elder care/work balancing act.

Fortunately, Ken remembered seeing a posting on the human resources page of his firm's website announcing the company's elder care consultation and referral service. He picked up his phone and spoke to a trained advisor that evening and arranged for a nurse geriatric care manager to visit his mother and assist her in overseeing his father's care. The next morning, he was able to attend his business meeting with a degree of peace of mind - and he got a detailed update from the care manager later that day.

Elder Care Costs to Employee and Employer

Ken is one of about 56 million Americans engaged in the care of an older relative or friend. Between 15 - 25% of the workforce now care for elders, and by 2010, the percentage is expected to double, according to the MetLife Mature Market Institute. These family caregivers struggle to balance their work and elder care obligations. This juggling act often affects a worker's health, finances, and family and social life-and it results in lost productivity at work.

The cost to U.S. business from the lost productivity of working caregivers is more than $33 billion per year, according to the MetLife Caregiving Cost Study: Productivity Losses to U.S. Business. The average caregiver costs an employer $2,110 per year. The findings in the 2006 study represent an increase of about $4 billion from 1997, when the study was first conducted.

The MetLife study documents productivity losses linked to unresolved elder care/work conflicts. Examples of these losses include replacement costs due to employees leaving work due to elder care conflicts ($6.5 billion), absenteeism ($5 billion), workday interruptions ($6.2 billion), and reducing hours from full to part-time ($4.7 billion).

These figures on productivity losses are daunting in themselves. When one realizes that elder care losses are linked with the larger trend toward a labor shortage, it's not surprising that, at many leading companies today, elder care has appeared on the corporate radar screen.

Next Month: Part 2: Preventing Costly Conflicts