Family care solutions: Are they worth it?

Your employees are unique.

We know we aren’t telling you anything you don’t already know. Still, while each employee, company, and family is unique, many benefits solutions tend to take a one-size-fits-all approach. There’s nothing generic about your employees– so family care solutions that don’t account for each person’s individual needs often fall short of accomplishing what they set out to achieve.

We know that you want what’s best for your employees and the company as a whole. This means that you are always on the lookout for innovative ways to ensure that your workforce has what they need to be successful and your company can reach its objectives. 

Part of that work involves putting together a comprehensive benefits package that addresses the holistic needs of your employees without costing a fortune. 

This takes some time–and finesse–and we want to help. As you work to identify the best benefit solutions for your company, it can be hard to parse the various options to determine what will work best. We want to help you understand the family care solutions available to you so that you can make decisions that align with your organization’s values, philosophy, budget, and needs. 

Beyond basic employee needs

In the last several years, the US Department of Health and Human Services has developed a program focused on addressing the Social Determinants of Health. They have determined that these social factors play an outsized role in individuals’ overall health. 

Much of the research reinforced this concept as we developed our employer guide. It is evident that employees need benefits solutions beyond basic medical and dental care to address the social factors that drive their health.

These added benefits can include everything from an Employee Assistance Plan to added or unlimited paid leave to benefits point solutions. These benefits point solutions–things like infertility care, wellness benefits, and family care benefits–are designed to provide added support for employees. Family care–what we do at Grayce–is wrap-around support that complements medical and mental health care. When an employee feels overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious, family care programs provide resources to mitigate these impacts before the employee’s overall wellness declines and workplace productivity is impacted. Social care programs like Grayce are designed to support employees with solutions to personal and family care challenges such as caregiving needs, legal needs, financial needs, education, and more.

What support is most needed?

As we considered the added support that employees in our modern workforce need for our employer guide, several things stood out. We determined that specific types of resources were most often determined to meet the beyond-the-basics needs of most employees. Those were:

• Emotional support and community: People need other people, especially when they feel stretched or overwhelmed. They crave social communities where they can connect, share stories, and build lasting, supportive friendships.
• Care navigation services: It’s hard to navigate health care, especially in our modern world, which has countless options. People want support as they navigate their healthcare, resources, and educational content.
• Expert guidance: It often takes much more than a quick Google search to understand complex social care needs, and many people look for expert advice from professionals who understand the system and individual needs to get the answers they need. 
• Financial programs and stipends: Health care is often covered through insurance or other programs, but navigating these financial resources feels overwhelming. People crave support in figuring out exactly how to pay for the health care they need.

While there are other needs that some employees have, when we dug into the data, the aforementioned were most often mentioned. With this data in mind, we worked to create our family care solutions to address these needs. 

Optimized family care solutions

The most successful organizations take a proactive approach to benefits. They seek out benefits solutions that address not only the physical health needs of their employees but also their social needs. These organizations don’t just add a benefit here and a benefit there; instead, they work to provide holistic programs that meet the diverse needs of their employees. 

The Grayce platform was built to support employee needs at every life stage. Our holistic employee support solutions address the above needs by offering multifaceted, well-researched care planning. Gracye’s family care solutions are supported by a Master’s-level social worker who understands the entire care ecosystem and can help employees navigate their unique needs with personalized, hands-on support.

We have also worked at Grayce to address the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) to ensure that each employee has what they need to stay healthy and productive. For example, our Grayce “Gather” communities address the Social and Community Context SDoH by providing members with a platform for peer support. Likewise, our Care Partners work hard to help members get access to quality healthcare–and then go beyond that to find access to transportation, education resources, and more.

Family care solutions like Grayce can be life-saving for an employee in crisis or one struggling to balance work and family care. Grayce addresses the holistic needs of each employee, and in turn, companies reap the benefits of reduced attrition, improved employee morale, and increased productivity. 

Navigating social care

As you’re working to provide benefits solutions to support your employees, we would love to help. We know that many family care solutions are available to you, and navigating the options can be overwhelming and confusing. 

To start, we put together our “employer guide” to help employers navigate the family care ecosystem and know what to look for to ensure holistic support for employees and families of all types. This guide was designed to give you access to the latest research about our modern workforce, and then to provide you with actionable ways that you can support employees.

Download the free guide here, then get in touch with us so that we can support you in determining the right family care solutions for your employees.