Most organisations, no matter what size or sector, will have some form of carer support in place, whether that be general support such as a flexible working policy, or an employee assistance or wellbeing programme, or specifically tailored carer support such as a carers network, passport or carers leave.

• Firstly, you may wish to capture data to measure the business benefits of having carer support in place for your organisation as a whole. Common basic measures that EfC members have sought to capture include staff absence rates, staff retention and staff engagement.
• Monitoring and measuring such data over time can provide your organisation with evidence of reduced staff absences or early exit from the workplace, and/or increased staff retention and staff engagement due to implementing and sustaining carer support.
• Capturing the impact of carer support on individual employees is also an approach that organisations can take, and this could be in the form of quantitative and qualitative data. For example, it could include monitoring the uptake of carers leave and/or carer passports (if in place), as well as receiving feedback from carers to see how this works for them in practice and whether any developments are needed. It could also include monitoring the uptake of workplace support such as a staff carers network. The feedback provided could then also be used to promote this support and the benefits of being part of a carer community.
• Other individual employee data capture could include using your organisation’s HR management software to register information about who is a carer and their caring situation. This could be done via self-declaration, in the same way as all diversity and inclusion data is captured, as it is sensitive data.
• Yearly workplace surveys are another method to use to ensure that you are up to date on how many carers there are in your workplace to support, and to map an increase or decrease in numbers over the years. Asking individuals to indicate they are a carer on a workplace survey also means employers can view direct feedback from carers on the range of engagement questions asked. This is an invaluable resource to understand how engaged carers are and what barriers in the workplace they face.

• Meeting carers’ support needs in the workplace is critical not only for individuals’ own personal wellbeing but also their ability to combine work and caring healthily and productively. Furthermore, given that 1 in 7 employees in any workplace is juggling work and care, there is also potentially a wider impact on the health and productivity of the organisation as a whole.
• While ‘productivity’ itself may be hard to capture (both at an individual and organisational level) capturing data on – and addressing support for – carers can make a helpful contribution to initiatives to support staff retention and wellbeing and reduce unplanned absence.
• It can also support diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Census 2021 data has shown that at least 60% of unpaid carers are female, and evidence also suggests that workers from some BAME backgrounds are less like to self-identify as carers. Gathering information both on D&I characteristics and caring responsibilities can help to inform staff recruitment and retention initiatives, including steps to address multiple barriers that may be faced by some employees in accessing support. Capturing carer support data can help organisations to understand the experiences of employees who are combining work and caring, and therefore to develop support that meets their needs. This can help to understand support needs arising not only from different types of caring situations but also job roles. For example, staff in front line roles may be unable to have as much flexibility on location as those who are office based, so different flexibilities and support solutions will need to be identified.  
• It is also useful to have data to identify any gaps in policies and provisions that you have in place so that you can make any necessary changes and ensure development and implementation of your carer support. Where carers are happy to provide information and comments, you may also be able to create a feedback loop to help make improvements to workplace support. For example, following such feedback, Centrica amended their carers leave policy to clarify that paid leave could be taken in hours, rather than only in half or full day chunks.
• Finally, measuring the impact of carer support shows a commitment to your carers and a willingness to improve support for them. This can be seen as an interdependent circle consisting of three main things: measuring data and impact, identifying as many carers as possible, and creating a culture where it is ‘OK to be a carer’. They all depend on each other and are improved by each other.

Tip: Carers UK’s Carer Confident benchmarking scheme is a good vehicle for gathering evidence of current support and identifying gaps. It provides a practical framework for organisations for implementing and sustaining support for carers in their workplace and promoting this internally. Evidence from members engaging also shows that it has helped to raise the visibility of caring within their organisations (both among managers and employees) and to promote workplace and external support available to carers. This in turn has helped to prompt more conversations about caring in the workplace, more carers to come forward for support, and more (or enhanced) provisions to be offered.  You can find out more about Carer Confident by visiting our website here.