#12 of 12
Employed Caregivers Should be Celebrated, Not Marginalized
Caregivers often experience something called post-traumatic growth that increases their value to their employer.
Post-Traumatic Growth Experience
Post-Traumatic Growth Benefits
Instead of our society penalizing employees for having caregiving responsibilities, we should value their lived experiences as something that can make them more exceptional in the workplace.
Post-Traumatic Growth Experience
Caregivers who have gone through traumatic experiences in their role often express a period of internal change, called post-traumatic growth. The term is self-descriptive: a person goes through a traumatic experience and comes out of the other side as a better person. The caregiving experience is often very traumatic, especially for long-term care or terminal care. It can often involve losing a person as they once were, and then suddenly responsible for caring for the new version of the person.
The sense of loss and tragedy can be overwhelming, and even more overwhelming is the fact that there is not much time for self-care because of the new caregiving responsibility. It is traumatic to be responsible for the well-being for someone who you very much might love, someone who has been in your life, and watch them experience severe mental illnesses, terminal illnesses, neurological diseases, debilitating physical impairments, states of extreme pain and distress, absolute vulnerability, isolation, a loss of self, or the feeling of despair and helplessness. These same people also can demonstrate extraordinary courage and strength, but the trauma of caring for a loved one go through such struggles can feel devastating for the caregiver.
As the caregiver goes through the initial traumatic loss and crisis, they can find an internal resiliency and strength that builds within them valuable characteristics, called post-traumatic growth.
Post-Traumatic Growth Benefits
Post-traumatic growth includes the development of characteristics that are highly valuable in the workplace, often called soft skills. Below is a list of traits that have been found to be gained or improved because of post-traumatic growth from the caregiver experience, including an increase in:
Adaptive coping
Common humanity outlook
Communication
Empathy
Humor
Interpersonal relationships
Leadership skills
Mindfulness
Optimism
Personal strength
Planning for the future
Psychological maturity
Self-compassion
Social support
Stress tolerance
Time management
Values
The development of these traits and soft skills from the caregiving experience should be recognized and valued in the workplace. In essence, caregivers can be celebrated instead of stigmatized.
Post-Traumatic Growth Example
Below is an example of a post-traumatic growth experience, demonstrating the arc of the growth.
Schizophrenia not only affects the patient but also the other people in close relationship with the patient. The feelings of a family at the time of finding out that their children are schizophrenia patients are not much different than when an accident or a serious disease occurs. Parents may lose their hope and expectations about their children and begin to grieve for it. This is like a process of ‘never ending grief’. The mourning here is for a healthy child dreamed of being around starting from the time of pregnancy. At this point, the family enters a process of grieving for the child they had in their dreams and start to have new dreams and expectations about the existing child. This process lasts for a different length of time for each family and never ends for some families.
Families go into a state of confusion when they first encounter the disease. An intense shock and bewilderment occurs. Next comes the reactive stage of experiencing extreme feelings of sorrow, disappointment, anxiety, denial and guilt. This is followed by an adaptation period when they start to cope with the situation and plan how they can help their children. Families begin developing their own knowledge and skills while going through these stages and making future plans for themselves and their children.
Examination of studies made on caregivers of schizophrenia patients reveals that the emphasis is generally on the negative side of the process experienced such as intense stress, depression and family problems faced by the families.
It is also possible, on the other hand, that the members of a family find new meanings in their lives or demonstrate a different growth in spite of all the adversities. Participating in works of social benefit may be an example of such growth. In the aftermath of a traumatic life, the person exposed to such trauma may show posttraumatic stress reactions and traumatic event related disorders, but also some developments as expressed by the concept of posttraumatic growth.
The concept of ‘posttraumatic growth’ relates to the positive mental changes developed as a consequence of dealing with onerous events of life. Posttraumatic growth is a positive cognitive, emotional and behavioral transformation taking place as a result of a traumatic event and efforts of combating it. Such positive changes are referred to as ‘stress induced development’, ‘posttraumatic growth’ or ‘improvement’...
It is reported that posttraumatic growth involved a change in three dimensions. These are: a positive change in self-perception (change in cognitive processes and increase in self-understanding, altruism, empathy, self-reliance and self-sufficiency), a positive change in interpersonal relationships (being more tolerant, social support networks, establishing good relations with the friends and the family and more positive perception of the environment) and a change in the philosophy of life (ability to live in the moment, appreciation for life, establishing a new path for one’s life and more concern about spiritual issues)." (11)
Post-Traumatic Growth as Leadership Development
It is well established in leadership theory of today that soft skills are essential for any effective leader. Soft skills can be developed and refined as a form of leadership development. According to the Harvard Business Review, traits such as "a high level of self-awareness, the ability to listen and communicate well, a facility for working with different types of people and groups, and what psychologists call “theory of mind”—the capacity to infer how others are thinking and feeling," are essential. (12)
A quick glance at the post traumatic growth traits demonstrates the commonality between potential benefits of difficult caregiving for a loved one and the characteristics for an effective leader.
Professionals Who Cares asserts that instead of marginalizing employed caregivers and limiting their career growth because of their need for flexibility, that instead, a traumatic caregiving experience can be seen as a leadership development experience.
A few stipulations are necessary. First, post-traumatic growth does not happen immediately, and can vary by person and by depth of trauma and ability to heal to get to the other side of the crisis and shocked mentality. However, the results can also be deep and lasting. Second, not all caregivers want to be leaders. Some prefer to have reduced responsibilities or schedules to reduce stress, allowing them to focus more energy onto their caregiving. Caregivers should be given the opportunity to express their career goals based on the caregiving status of their life, and as with any employee at a successful workplace culture, they should be supported in these goals.
Third, it is important to note that caregivers often experience downstream effects of being marginalized. Some caregivers have pursued leadership but have been cut off from it because of their caregiving status. For example, a caregiver might be passed over for a promotion, be skipped from being hired at an ideal job, or might be demoted or laid off because of their caregiving status. The reduced income or employment gaps can be very difficult to overcome in subsequent years - and sometimes have devastating consequences for the caregivers' lifetime.
Below is an example of a young executive who pursued career growth by being part of the women's leadership group Lean In, before learning of the significant difficulties in overcoming stalled career growth from caregiving. The lack of flexibility and inclusivity for caregivers in the workplace can be highly detrimental - and in this example, especially to women who fulfill more caregiving responsibilities.
“My son was born in July 2015 with some serious but treatable health problems. His illness filled my earliest moments of motherhood with trauma and anxiety. But I was still back at my desk when my too-short maternity leave was up because I was terrified that my colleagues would judge me as not committed to my job if I tried to take more time to be with my baby. I went on to lose that job shortly after returning from leave. This turn of events shattered my self-confidence and led me to question my whole identity as a competent professional… Mothers face [serious barriers] in hiring and they are judged more harshly than childless colleagues. For women who have children during the prime childbearing years of 25 to 35, their earnings never recover, and their salaries often drop precipitously after having a kid. All of this does serious, long-term damage to women’s economic prospects.” (7)
Therefore, Professionals Who Cares recommends that hiring managers and human resource professionals show insight in evaluating internal and external candidates who demonstrate any of these consequences because of caregiving, and instead credit candidates for strong soft skills and leadership development if they have experienced post-traumatic growth from their caregiving experience. This action will help reduce the longstanding consequences of unconscious bias against caregivers and will attract effective leaders who have strong and proven soft skills.
Resources for Post-Traumatic Growth
1. Abraham, T. H., Stewart, G. L., & Solimeo, S. L. (2021). The importance of soft skills development in a hard data world: learning from interviews with healthcare leaders. BMC medical education, 21(1), 1-7. 2. Balaban, O. D., Yazar, M. S., Aydin, E., Agachanli, R., & Yumrukcal, H. (2017). Posttraumatic growth and its correlates in primary caregivers of schizophrenic patients. Indian Journal of Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.4103/psychiatry.indianjpsychiatry_18_17 3. Brower, T. (2021, December 10). Can caregiving help your career? yes! leverage these 5 skills to get ahead. Forbes. Retrieved April 30, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2021/11/21/can-caregiving-help-your-career-yes-leverage-these-5-skills-to-get-ahead/?sh=67e290c572cf 4. Chan, B. S. M., Deng, J., Li, Y., Li, T., Shen, Y., Wang, Y., & Yi, L. (2020). The role of self-compassion in the relationship between post-traumatic growth and psychological distress in caregivers of children with autism. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 29(6), 1692-1700. 5. Chen, Y. H., Lee, W. C., Kao, Y. Y., Chen, L. C., Ho, L. H., & Shih, W. M. (2022, August). The Post-Traumatic Growth of Primary Caregivers of Patients after Liver Transplantation. In Healthcare (Vol. 10, No. 9, p. 1617). MDPI. 6. Gil-González, I., Pérez-San-Gregorio, M. Á., Conrad, R., & Martín-Rodríguez, A. (2022). Beyond the Boundaries of Disease—Significant Post-traumatic Growth in Multiple Sclerosis Patients and Caregivers. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 903508. 7. Goldstein, K. (2018, December 6). I was a Sheryl Sandberg Superfan. then her "Lean in" advice failed me. Vox. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/12/6/18128838/michelle-obama-lean-in-sheryl-sandberg 8. Harvey, J., & Berndt, M. (2021). Cancer caregiver reports of post-traumatic growth following spousal hematopoietic stem cell transplant. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 34(4), 397-410. 9. Md Shahid, S. A. (2012). The importance of soft skills for leaders. 10. Nouzari, R., Najafi, S. S., & Momennasab, M. (2019). Post-traumatic growth among family caregivers of cancer patients and its association with social support and hope. International journal of community based nursing and midwifery, 7(4), 319. 11. Ozlu, A., Yildiz, M., & Aker, T. (2010). Post traumatic growth and related factors in caregivers of schizophrenia patients. Anadolu Psikiyatri Derg, 11(2), 89. 12. Sadun, R., Fuller, J., Hansen, S., & Neal, P. J. (2022, September 26). The C-suite skills that matter most. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved October 16, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2022/07/the-c-suite-skills-that-matter-most