The Hidden Cost Sitting in Your Benefits Gap

Every year, organizations make deliberate, well-researched investments in their people. Medical benefits. Retirement plans. Wellness programs. These are not accidents. They are the result of years of data, advocacy, and a growing understanding that employee wellbeing drives organizational performance.

But there is a significant gap in that picture. And it is costing employers an estimated $5,600 per affected employee, per year, quietly, invisibly, and with almost no dedicated support in place to address it.

That gap is elder caregiving.

The chart above illustrates a fundamental imbalance in how employers allocate attention and resources. Medical benefits, retirement plans, and wellness programs receive high employer investment, and appropriately so. But caregiving-driven absence, turnover, and lost productivity register an equally high organizational cost with virtually no corresponding investment or support. It is, as HR leaders are now beginning to recognize, hiding in plain sight.

A Workforce Reality That Has Outpaced A Benefits Strategy

The numbers are striking and highlight the need for strategic attention:

According to Guardian Life, 2025 between 23% and 43% of employed adults are currently juggling caregiving responsibilities alongside their work.  In a workforce of 1,000 employees, that could mean 230-430 people are quietly managing a second, invisible shift.

Why Caregiving Is Not Like Other Life Events

Employers have built robust support systems around predictable life stages such as parental leave, childcare FSAs and FMLA guidance because these needs are visible, consistent, and time bound. Elder caregiving is none of those things.

The caregiving journey for an aging parent or spouse does not follow a schedule. There is no developmental milestone chart. Instead, there are unexpected emergency department visits, shifting cognitive and physical needs, medication management demands, and care transitions that can occur at any time and often without warning. The result is a pattern of unpredictable absences, reduced availability, and presenteeism.

Consider what caregivers themselves report:

• 64% experience significant emotional stress (Caregiving in the U.S., 2025)
• 45% report physical strain (Caregiving in the U.S., 2025)
• Nearly 35% of caregivers ages 45 to 64 are managing two or more chronic conditions of their own (CDC, 2018)
• 1 in 5 rate their own health as fair or poor (Caregiving in the U.S., 2025)
• Caregivers spend an average of 26% of their personal income on care-related costs (Kiplinger, 2023)

80% of working caregivers say their employer is more understanding of childcare than eldercare. That perception reflects a real gap in employer strategy. (AARP/S&P Global, 2024)

Your Caregiving Employees Are Among Your Most Valuable

What is often missing from the cost conversation is this: an employee supporting an aging parent, coordinating care, and navigating a complex healthcare system isn’t just dealing with a personal challenge.  They’re actively developing a set of capabilities that research shows are among the most valuable, and difficult to cultivate.  

This shift in perspective is critical and the data supporting it is strong.

MIT Sloan Management Review (March 2026): Caregiving skills achieved 100% overlap with the top managerial skills in demand across all occupations: adaptability, problem-solving, decision making, and leadership.

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When researchers at MIT Sloan mapped caregiving competencies against the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' 17 core workplace skills, they found that caregiving skills covered 76.5% of all workforce skills valued by employers. For management roles specifically, caregiving skills had 100% coverage across all leadership competencies, including adaptability, problem-solving, decision-making, and leadership itself. 

How Arlow is Addressing This Challenge

Arlow believes that working caregivers deserve the same quality of structured, expert support that employees receive for any other major health or life transition. We are intentionally designed specifically for the elder caregiving journey, bringing together the clinical expertise, care coordination tools, and empathetic guidance that caregivers need to manage this chapter without sacrificing their careers or their own wellbeing.

For employers, Arlow operates as a strategic benefit, embedded in your existing workforce support framework and designed to address the caregiving gap before it becomes a retention problem, a productivity loss, or a benefits cost.

What Arlow offers your workforce:
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• Human support and 24/7 app navigation through the eldercare journey, from early-stage support needs through complex care transitions
• Personalized care planning tools that help caregivers organize, prioritize, and take action, reducing the cognitive burden that spills into the workplace
• Access to guidance on care transitions, resource support and logistical needs often encountered during caregiving 
• Caregiver health and wellbeing check-ins, reminders and resources that support the mental and physical resilience of the caregiver themselves
• Employer-facing insights that help HR and benefits leaders understand caregiving impact and respond proactively

Caregiving is not a wellness trend. It is a complex, multi-year responsibility that intersects health, finances, family dynamics, and work performance in ways that require real expertise to navigate well.

Arlow approaches this with deep empathy for the caregiver. These are your most committed employees, carrying an extraordinary load with very little formal support. They are asking to be seen and given the tools to manage this chapter with greater confidence and control.

The Strategic Opportunity

Caregiving support is a core retention strategy, a productivity lever, a talent development recognition, and increasingly, a signal of organizational values that top talent notices.

Your caregiving employees are not liabilities to be managed. They are among the most experienced, adaptable, and emotionally intelligent people in your organization. The question is whether you are investing in keeping them.

The data is clear. The cost is real. The gap is measurable. And the opportunity to close it, for your employees and for your organization, is available now.

Learn how Arlow can help your organization build a caregiving-ready workforce. Visit www.arlow.ai to schedule a consultation.

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