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The purpose of this scoping review was to identify the availability of caregiver-friendly workplace policies (CFWPs) from January 2015 to June 2019.

In order to determine changes over time, the present review is consistent with the methodology used in a scoping review of CFWPs conducted by the same research group five years earlier. This included applying an iterative database search to identify relevant articles, applying inclusion-exclusion criteria and performing qualitative thematic analysis on eligible articles. Both academic literature and literature that is not peer-reviewed were considered.

A total of 80 papers were included, with 82 unique workplaces identified. Three main qualitative themes were discussed: (1) inclusivity, (2) generosity and (3) culture. The finance, education, healthcare and technology industries were most generous. The most common CFWPs offered were support services; paid leave; backup adult care and flexible work arrangements.

This review narrows the gap in the literature by providing a comprehensive synthesis of CFWPs availability to better understand how workplaces are currently supporting caregiver-employees (CEs) while providing recommendations on how to support CEs moving forward.

This paper discusses significant differences from the first scoping review undertaken by the same research group five years ago, suggesting that progress has been made in the workplace culture needed to accommodate carer-employees.

This study aims to investigate the effect of sandwich-generation caregiving (caregiving for elders and children simultaneously) on employed caregivers’ job satisfaction when compared with non-sandwich caregiving patterns of no caregiving, children-only caregiving and elders-only caregiving. This study also aims to explore whether depression mediates this effect and whether three types of caregivers-friendly work time (less work-time length, less nonstandard work-time schedule and more work-time autonomy) buffer these direct and indirect effects.

A sample of 7,571 Chinese employees is chosen from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies through a multistage stratified sampling design.

After controlling for employees’ sociodemographic, work and other caregiving characteristics, this study finds that sandwich-generation caregiving is indeed more likely to negatively affect employees’ job satisfaction when compared with no caregiving and elders-only caregiving, but to the same extent as children-only caregiving. This study also suggests that the effect of sandwich-generation caregiving on job satisfaction is mediated by employees’ depression and that three types of caregiver-friendly work time help to weaken the negative effects on employees’ depression and job satisfaction.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the negative spillover effect and its mechanisms of caregiving on employees’ job satisfaction through focusing on a special caregivers group: employed sandwich-generation caregivers. These results shed light on the importance of extending caregiver studies to the workplace and provide implications for organization managers and human resources practitioners to design caregiver-friendly workplace policies to maintain employed caregivers’ work-family balance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of various employment characteristics on the health of Canadian caregiver-employees (CEs), who are working full-time in the labor market while also providing informal/family care to adults.

Framed with Pearlin et al.’s (1990) stress model and using data from Statistic Canada’s General Social Survey Cycle 26 (2012), several work-related variables for caregivers were considered, including the availability of various forms of caregiver-friendly workplace policies (CFWPs), and a series of work interferences (WIs) experienced as a result of the caregiving role.

This study provides evidence for the value of CFWPs in all workplaces. Counter-intuitively, family and other forms of support were found to negatively relate to both physical and mental health.

This suggests that CFWPs will not only have an impact on CEs’ physical health outcomes, but will likely decrease the effect of the WIs experienced.

There is a growing recognition that when employees who are caregivers lack the organizational support/resources to manage their paid work with care responsibilities, it could result in poor job performance, increase absenteeism, and have an impact on their well-being. Very little is known about managers’ perceptions in supporting their employees through workplace initiatives such as caregiver-friendly workplace policies (CFWPs). The purpose of this paper is: to examine managers’ experience(s) with employees that are engaged in formal paid care and informal care; to explore availability of CFWPs; and to explore managers’ standpoints on offering CFWPs to support their employees.

The authors draw on the findings from semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 (n=20) managers working in the health care sector in an urban-rural region in Ontario, Canada.

Intersectionality analysis of participant interviews revealed three key themes: managers’ experiences with employees who are caregivers; knowledge and availability of CFWPs; and balancing business care with staff care.

Data were drawn from health care sectors in one community in Ontario, Canada and may not generalize to other settings. The small sample size and purposive sampling further limits the generalizability of the findings.

Study findings can be applied to develop workplace policies and procedures that are responsive to workers who are providing unpaid care.

This study contributes to limited literature on manager’s perspectives in supporting employees through CFWPs.

As employed carers tend to experience work interruptions and conflict between work and care, especially women, this paper aims to assess the availability and accessibility of carer-friendly workplace policies (CFWPs) in Quebec workplaces.

An online survey was distributed to members of the Association of Human Resources Management Counsellors in Quebec. The authors used a validating quantitative data design. The data was collected between October 2019 and the end of February 2020 and the questionnaire yielded 122 valid responses.

Adult/elder care responsibilities remain systematically perceived less important than childcare or general work-life balance needs. The current distribution of CFWPs within Quebec workplaces is unlikely to ensure carers sufficient support to prevent or significantly mitigate negative repercussions. Notable differences were found between organization type and size.

There is a need for expanding CFWPs through increased support services, educational workshops, broader access to flexible work arrangements and manager training.

The results support recent research findings pointing that women with caring responsibilities face important opportunity costs and risk falling in precariousness. Carers should be able to maintain a social income from other sources to compensate a reduced activity on the labor market.

By investigating the availability of CFWPs in Quebec workplaces, this paper adds insights regarding the availability and access to CFWPs regionally and in small and medium size workplaces, rather than identifying best practice from workplaces across the globe. Workplace policies are analyzed for adult/elder care specifically.

Young adults have been particularly adversely affected by COVID-19-related disruptions, especially in relation to industries with an over-representation of young adults. This study, a report, aims to discuss the findings from survey data from young adults who reported poorer mental health comparative to older generations prior to the pandemic. Drawing on the international literature and the research findings, the authors propose recommendations for rebuilding the workplace post-pandemic to support young adult's mental health.

Data from 1,999 respondents from 200 organisations in the UK were sought in relation to workplace well-being and mental health through a 15-item multiple choice online survey. Overall, 17% of the sample were senior management, 31% junior management, 37% in non-management roles and a further 15% stated “other”. Exploratory quantitative analyses were undertaken to assess differences in responses to questions between age groups.

Participants in the 16–25-year-old age group were more likely than any other age group to report that work adversely affected their mental health, that their mental health challenges influenced their performance at work, that they had witnessed colleagues' employment negatively influenced by mental health challenges and they felt more comfortable citing physical health challenges for absence than mental health difficulties.

COVID-19-related disruptions meant a large-scale move to remote working for many people. As we return to physical workplaces, we have an exciting opportunity to reform and improve the status quo. The findings, in relation to the mental health of young adults, highlight key risk factors that need to be addressed.

Acknowledging the importance of work–family practices that extend beyond what is legally mandated and that cover the needs of a diverse workforce, this paper offers a conceptual model that explores the factors that can influence the provision and inclusiveness of work–family policies in organizations.

The conceptual model is based on a thorough literature review of relevant articles in the fields of management and political science.

In line with the upper echelons perspective, chief executive officers’ (CEOs') political ideology is a multidimensional concept, comprising two main dimensions (financial and social) that can influence the provision and inclusiveness of work–family practices. Moreover, the proposed conceptual model considers other important factors, such as the centrality of the CEO's political ideology, as potential moderating factors, as well as the conditional role of institutional pressures. Finally, the proposed model takes into account the important role of line managers/supervisors in the implementation of work–family policies and shows the importance of the provision and inclusiveness of work–family practices for critical organizational outcomes (organizational attraction and turnover).

The proposed conceptual model offers a more in-depth understanding of the factors that influence the provision and inclusiveness of work–family policies.

Family friendly workplace policies (FFWPs) are designed to help employees co‐manage work and personal obligations. With the rising aging population and subsequent emphasis on informal caregiving in Canada, Canadian employees will have to maintain paid work while serving as caregivers for family members at end‐of‐life (EoL). Thus, workplaces need to be prepared to accommodate these workers' requests. The objective of this paper is to explore, qualitatively, the workplace and employee characteristics that are most helpful to employees in EoL caregiving situations from an employer/human resources (HR) perspective so as to inform the development of FFWPs targeting this group.

The authors draw on the findings of five focus group discussions undertaken in 2008 with Canadian employers and HR professionals in the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

There are clear differences in how large and small workplaces accommodate employees who are providing EoL care. For instance, larger workplaces are more likely to have set policies around employee EoL care leaves and are unable to accommodate employees' needs that fall outside the scope of these policies; smaller workplaces are less likely to have standard policies for caregiver leaves and are more able to customize responses to leave requests. Employee characteristics such as length of time working for the employer and employee skill level also have a bearing on accommodating employee EoL care leave requests. The presence of HR infrastructure, which is more characteristically found in large workplaces, is also related to the availability of formal FFWPs.

The fact that the data were derived from the employer/HR perspective and not those of actual employees is a limitation. The small sample size and convenience (non‐random) sampling limits the generalizability of the findings.

This research contributes to the limited literature on FFWPs and EoL caregiving accommodations. The findings of this study can directly inform workplace practice, both now and in the years to come, regarding how best to support workers who are also providing informal EoL care to family, friends, and others.

Complex and sudden change that healthcare organizations often have to respond to, such as during the recent pandemic, can create major disruptions and a prolonged state of alert. Although the impact of such crises can be predominantly negative, rapid adjustments during this time can also yield positive change that can support organizational response to crisis, if managed well. Using insights from organizational learning and organizational change theory, the aim of this study was to understand organizational learning during sudden change. Specifically, the authors aimed to understand the experiences and types of gains and losses in the processes of complex and disruptive change in one large healthcare organization in the UK.

Focus group data were used from 23 focus group discussions with 575 participants representing all functions and departments in one Healthcare Trust.

The participants revealed the rich gains, losses, and lessons experienced in response to sudden change that can promote organizational learning. Perceived losses are more likely to drive a desire to refreeze “back to normal” and perceived gains more likely to lead to an emphasis on embedding gains and changing to better. Therefore, on balance, the substantial, in number and variety, gains and learnings point to a learning organization. This is an essential attribute for responding to disruptive change successfully and facilitating organizational recovery in a post-pandemic world.

The findings highlight the importance of timely harnessing of the organizational learning emerging from crises and how this can inform a more resilient organization, as well as supporting sustainable organizational cross-learning.

By extending these insights on workers’ adaptation to sudden change, the findings can help to advance the science and practice of organizational learning and support organizational recovery, especially as they describe the new status in UK healthcare organizations.