A company's decision to support the reconciliation of care and work is a decisive step towards keeping employees with care responsibilities healthy and productive and retaining them in the company. When implementing a care-sensitive HR policy tailored to the needs of employees, there are a few important things you should bear in mind and ask yourself the following questions in advance: What are the needs in the company? What measures are already in place? What do other companies offer? What do you need to consider when developing supporting measures?

10 steps to a care-sensitive HR policy:

1. Sensitize decision-makers to the topic
2. Assess the company's needs yourself
3. Ask your employees
4. Take company-specific framework conditions into account
5. Develop an initial concept
6. Optimize your concept
7. Create an exposé
8. Initiate the planned measures
9. Evaluation - check whether it fits
10. Ensure continuous communication and adjustment

It is clear that the implementation of these steps involves some effort. Nevertheless, they should serve as a guide to the question of which aspects are important on the way to a care-sensitive HR policy. And of course, individual steps can also be delegated to external bodies.

1. sensitize decision-makers to the topic

In many companies, there is still no pronounced awareness of the issue of reconciling care and employment. The first prerequisite for implementing support services is to sensitize the people involved in the decision-making process, e.g. the works council or staff council, to the issue. The next step should involve the management levels.

2. estimate the needs in the company

In order to decide which forms of support are useful and necessary, you should estimate how many employees are affected by the topic of care. Keep in mind that most of those affected do not like to talk about this topic and it is therefore important that managers or HR managers approach employees on their own initiative and ask about it, for example, during appraisal interviews.

The following questions will help you to make a rough estimate of whether there is actually a need for support for carers in your company:

• Does your company have several employees aged 50 or over?
• Have several of these employees already expressed a desire for flexible working hours or do they attach particular importance to precisely adhering to their start and end times?
• Have there already been specific requests for support measures to reconcile care and employment?

Answering "yes" to these questions is a clear indicator of a need for supportive measures to reconcile care and employment.

3. ask your employees

You can either survey your employees systematically and comprehensively using a questionnaire or approach the question of needs in smaller groups by means of discussion or one-on-one interviews. All methods have their advantages, sensitize employees and get the conversation about the care issue going:

• An official company-wide survey provides clear figures on the need to reconcile work and care responsibilities - or family responsibilities, if you ask broader questions. For reasons of corporate culture, it may be advisable not to carry out a planned survey yourself, but to commission external experts, e.g. consulting institutions or universities, to determine the needs.

• Smaller discussion groups with committed and affected persons are often sufficient in a medium-sized company to identify acute emergencies and possibly determine suitable actions immediately. Seminars or short presentations, e.g. on the subject of health care proxies and living wills, can also make it easier to get to grips with the topic.
• Employee appraisals offer a confidential setting for individual topics. In a personal discussion, it can become clear that employees are burdened with a care issue and need company or professional support in order to continue to perform at work. In this way, managers can find out individually which support measures are appropriate.

Caring for relatives is a sensitive topic. Therefore, treat employees' personal details with absolute confidentiality.

 4. take company-specific framework conditions into account

In particular, answer the question as to which factors in the company and beyond are conducive or counterproductive to reconciling care and work.

With regard to the internal framework conditions, for example, the following questions need to be asked:

• What is the culture in the company when it comes to the topic of illness and care? Is there an open communication atmosphere in which such a stressful and negative topic is also discussed? Or is the topic of care taboo and not discussed among colleagues or with managers?

• What measures with care-supporting potential already exist in the company?
• How can existing measures (e.g. to support parents with children) be modified to meet the needs of carers?

With regard to the external framework conditions, questions such as:

• What offers are there in other companies - nearby or in the same industry?
• What services - such as nursing services, day care, private, non-profit or municipal institutions - are available near the company that can be accessed and cooperated with?
• What current or future legal regulations are there that require the development or amendment of measures (Part-Time and Fixed-Term Employment Act, reform of long-term care insurance, Anti-Discrimination Act, Long-Term Care Leave Act, etc.)?

5. create an initial concept

Let go of the idea that there is a perfect concept. Review your options - e.g. flexible working time models - and the offers available in your company to support carers - e.g. special advice offers or information lists with external cooperations. Think about how these can be modified and supplemented.

6 Optimize your initial concept

At this point at the latest, you should involve (other) decision-makers and multipliers in the company, e.g. works council, HR department, marketing and possibly also accounting. Inform them about the status of your considerations and your previous concept and invite them to improve it together.

7. create an exposé

Create a detailed exposé in which all previous considerations are precisely broken down. The exposé should include the following aspects and details:

• Conclusion from the results of the needs assessment through surveys and discussions - the more specific the better
• Catalog of possible measures
• Cost plan
• Implementation schedule
• Description of responsibilities within the company

• Expected successes

8. initiate the planned measures

The measures required will vary depending on which points are included in your concept. Possible implementation steps are

• Draw up draft contracts and cooperation agreements for collaboration with external service providers and institutions.
• Inform the service providers and institutions about your company and its philosophy as well as the potential needs of your employees.
• Plan how you will inform your employees about the planned measures, e.g. through written information material. Also make it possible for employees to give their feedback.
• Develop procedures for specific cases of need - for example, when an employee applies for care leave. Develop information material and possibly hold information events for management.
• Develop strategies for publicizing the concept in order to make your care-sensitive corporate culture visible.

9. evaluation - check whether it fits

Particularly in the initial phase of introducing measures, it is important to recognize any problems that arise, to monitor the use of the offers and to ensure that the cost plan is adhered to. After a certain period of time, you should subject the measures to an official evaluation, taking the following aspects into account:

• Which offers are used?
• Who uses the respective services? Consider in advance what information about the users you need for the evaluation. Remember: The more personalized you evaluate the use of the services, the more likely employees could develop inhibitions about accepting a service on the taboo subject of care. Therefore, limit yourself to absolutely necessary usage data and, if necessary, work together with external service providers to lower the inhibition threshold among employees.
• Does the actual use meet expectations?
• How do the employees concerned rate the offers? Do they find them helpful?
• How much do the measures cost?
• Do the actual costs match the expected costs?
• What positive effects do the measures have? For example, does it reduce absenteeism or increase productivity and the quality of the work performed?
• Are there expansion requirements and possibilities?  

Answering these questions will make it easier for you to decide whether and how the support measures introduced need to be modified.

10. communication and adjustment - an ongoing task

To ensure the success of the support services in the long term, the following measures should be implemented regularly:

• Ensure that employees are regularly informed about the support options for reconciling care and work and are reminded that they are entitled to make use of them. Experience has shown that employees who do not have a current need do not register such offers. It is therefore important to keep drawing attention to the service, as the need for care can often arise very quickly.
• Be sure to keep managers informed on a regular basis. Make them aware of the importance of the topic of care to ensure long-term success.
• Check the supply structure on the one hand and the demand and feedback from employees on the other in order to be able to adapt offers or cooperations if necessary.