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High turnover, burnout, work-life imbalance, lack of support — staffing healthcare workers has never been more challenging. However, one of the biggest causes of healthcare employee turnover can be traced to the burden of caring for families.

Nationwide, for example, nearly three-quarters of employees shoulder childcare responsibilities.1 Couple this with astronomical costs, lack of facilities, and 18+-month waitlists, and you have a childcare crisis that affects workers across all roles, income levels, and geographies. Fiftyeight percent of parents who left their jobs cite unavailable or unaffordable childcare as the primary reason for their exodus — and it’s the number one reason women leave the workforce.2

Childcare cost for 2 children is 25-100% more expensive than rent in all 50 states.3

Employees need help securing family care. In fact, the number one most requested benefit from employees behind healthcare and retirement is family care support4

These statistics cross all industries, and you, as an HR leader in healthcare, know the family care crisis holds especially true for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. But what type of family care benefit will truly help your employees? With long hours and high-stress environments, healthcare workers face particularly

challenging work lives. What will be most effective in supporting the most important part of their lives — their family?

In this buyer’s guide, you’ll discover the particular challenges the healthcare industry faces and the top factors you need to consider when choosing your company’s family care benefits, including:

$122 Billion Annual losses in earnings, productivity, and revenue due to lack of family care6

50%+

—more than half of Americans live in a “childcare desert” with limited or no access to childcare facilities.5

Use this guide to empower your family care benefits decision-making. The result? You’ll help increase employee retention (and attract top talent), spur productivity so your company achieves better outcomes, and boost job satisfaction while reducing burnout for your healthcare employees.

Staffing shortages:

The healthcare industry is facing critical staffing shortages. The American Nurses Association projects a need for 1.2 million new registered nurses by 2030.7 Childcare

Challenges Unique to Healthcare

What makes the healthcare industry so challenging? Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers face even more family care challenges than employees in other industries, such as:

24/7 operation:

Hospitals and many healthcare facilities operate around the clock, requiring staff to work nights, weekends, and holidays. Traditional childcare centers often don’t accommodate these schedules.

Unpredictable shifts:

Healthcare workers, especially in emergency services, often face last-minute schedule changes or extended shifts, making consistent childcare arrangements difficult.

High-stress environment:

The demanding nature of healthcare work means employees need reliable care solutions to fully focus on patient needs without worrying about their own family care situations.

Burnout and turnover:

The healthcare industry faces high burnout rates, with childcare stress contributing significantly. A study by CHG Healthcare found that 43% of doctors left their jobs during the pandemic due to work-life balance issues, including childcare concerns. 8

Huge replacement costs:

Replacing a highly specialized healthcare professional can cost an organization as much as 200% of an employee’s salary,9 and ongoing turnover also significantly impacts patient care and service.

These challenges not only affect individual employees but also impact healthcare organizations through increased turnover, absenteeism, and reduced productivity. Over two-thirds of parents feel they are expected to do it all without a fundamental support system. It’s time for a comprehensive solution tailored to the healthcare industry.

Family Care by the Numbers

STUDY

67%

spendover 20% of income on childcare11

1 in 6

employees are caring for an aging loved one and spends on average more than 20 hours a week providing some kind of care12 Each week 9-26 million potential work hours are lost because of childcare problems10

70% say caregiving responsibilities distract them from work13

74% of parents have considered switching jobs due to childcare difficulties14

Healthcare Staffing in Crisis CASE

Emory Healthcare struggled to support their diverse staff’s childcare needs, particularly for frontline workers who couldn’t work from home during childcare disruptions.

What they did

Emory Healthcare turned to Upwards to offer a comprehensive care solution, so their employees would have access to 255,000+ vetted care providers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With Upwards dedicated care navigators, search time was reduced. Employees were able to find personalized support for their unique needs.

Results

Top Considerations for Family Care Benefits

Unpredictability, staffing shortages, burnout — clearly the healthcare industry faces extraordinary staffing challenges. That’s why providing family care benefits for healthcare employees makes all the difference. By providing support for one of your employees’ biggest stressors, you help increase employee loyalty, job satisfaction, work-life balance, and retention. By decreasing turnover, you help ensure better healthcare outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency for your organization.

Healthcare employees work long hours and sometimes need to suddenly work a double shift. Their facilities often operate 24 hours a day, which means they might work in the day or they might work nights. Consequently, your benefits need to be flexible as their schedules are.

Upwards provides customizable, 24/7 family care for your employees, with an always-on online platform that allows them to find the care they need when they need it.

QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BENEFITS PROVIDERS:

“Does my provider offer 24/7 family care coverage?”

“Does your program offer benefits such as stipends and backup care?”

“Is the coverage tech-enabled so my employees can find coverage in a hurry?”

“Can your program be customized according to the needs of different employees?”

Safety CONSIDERATIONS

For your employees to feel confident and focused while they are working, they need to know that their families are safe with childcare and eldercare choices they have.

Upwards offers accessible care via licensed home daycares with 24/7 coverage with safety standards that exceed regulations.state

Availability CONSIDERATIONS

More than half of U.S. employees live in areas with little-to-no childcare options. Access becomes an essential part of any useful, effective family care benefit.

QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BENEFITS PROVIDERS:

How many childcare providers do you offer?

How wide is your coverage for family care coverage?

Do you provide access to in-home caregivers?

What type of family care coverage does your benefit offer?

Upwards provides care in 99% of zip codes and includes commercial centers, nannies, and babysitters.

QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BENEFITS PROVIDERS:

Are the providers’ daycares licensed? What kind of certifications do the providers hold? Have the caregivers been fully vetted? What do other parents and families say about the options offered?

Ease of Use CONSIDERATIONS

Healthcare workers already deal with enough stress on the job — they don’t need their benefits to add to that. Thus, making their family care benefit easy to access and use needs to be central.

QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BENEFITS PROVIDERS:

How hard is your technology to use?

Can my employees search and book their caregivers all on one platform?

How many steps does it take for my employees to find a caregiver?

What kind of instructional videos do you offer to help my employees use their benefit?

Upwards offers an easy-to-use, all-in-one platform for employees to find and book daycares, nannies, in-home help, and more.

CONSIDERATIONS

Service

offersUpwardswhite-glove 95%service,matching of families with needed care within 24 hours via navigators.dedicated

Given the high-stress environment of healthcare, your employees need to know they will get coverage when they need it. No one knows emergencies better than doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals — and lack of family care in these moments mean they might not be able to cover a work emergency.

QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BENEFITS PROVIDERS:

What type of service do you provide on short notice?

How hard is it to get a live person for advice if needed?

What if my employee has a special needs child or elder care situation?

Cost CONSIDERATIONS

The strain of child care and elder care costs on employees can’t be emphasized enough — and that’s true in the healthcare industry too. It is one of the main causes of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to leave their jobs. Consequently, finding affordable care remains paramount.

Upwards connects employees with unused government childcare funds and local subsidies.Typically, when employees use an Upwards-recommended home daycare,it is 40% cheaper than traditional care.

QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BENEFITS PROVIDERS:

Do your benefits offer affordable care options for my employees? How expensive is the typical care my employees can access?

Do you help my employees find government and local childcare funds?

Accountability CONSIDERATIONS

It’s important that your provider can show the difference they make in your employees’ lives. Afterall, you need to know that your efforts pay off in reducing absenteeism and turnover.

QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BENEFITS PROVIDERS:

How do I know if you are providing the services my employees need?

How do you show the effectiveness of your family care benefit?

What ways do you support me to help my employees maximize their family care benefits?

Do you offer “plug-and-play” instructions for employees to help ensure usage?

Upwards offers an easy-to-use dashboard for centralized program management, data, and insights, which has shown to reduce absenteeism and turnover with continuous optimizing of care solutions.

Affordable Childcare Solutions Boosts Retention for American Vision Partners

American Vision Partners recognized that lack of childcare options was causing real problems for its employees. The high cost of childcare was causing increased absenteeism and affecting employee turnover, which in turn was causing higher recruitment costs.

What they did

AVP partnered with Upwards to provide employees with reliable childcare support and reduce the need for time off work to address childcare emergencies. With Upwards’ Childcare Navigation and Care Stipend, AVP’s employees’ childcare became more accessible and affordable.

Results

With 40% of employees opting in to Upwards’ affordable childcare benefit, AVP experienced:

Your work as a healthcare human resources leader has never been more critical. Though the COVID pandemic has now become endemic, the

Upwards is a technology-driven care solutions company with a mission to make care accessible to all families and empower the caregivers who provide it. Upwards brings together families, care providers, employers, and governments to create new care avenues in real-time and utilizes a data-driven approach to enhance the supply and capacity of the care system. Upwards matches families with caregivers equipped to meet their unique needs and connects families with the resources they need to afford care, whether through government subsidies or workplace benefits.