Liz O’Donnell, founder of Working Daughter, a community for people balancing eldercare and career, and the author of Working Daughter: A Guide To Caring For your Aging Parents While Making A Living (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.) penned an article for the Harvard Business Review providing tips for those already in the sandwich generation, but now with the added challenge of working from home.
She offers four tips to help those working from home AND who now share space with spouses, children, and perhaps an aging parent.
- Set your parents up for success by establishing routines and clear communication where possible.
- Set boundaries both for them and yourself so that you can minimize or control the interruptions that shared work and home life will bring.
- Overcommunicate your situation with co-workers and managers. Chances are, they are in similar positions or there will be other co-workers who are as eldercare comes out of hiding and into the mainstream.
- Do not neglect your own self-care. Caregiver burnout was already a big deal even before COVID. For the working adult children of dependent parents, at least the office provided the odd respite from the chaos of home. Now that is gone for many, so self-care needs to be a priority.
For the full text of the article, see the link below.
Source: Balancing Work and Elder Care Through the Coronavirus Crisis