Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How a Tech Firm Created a Career Ladder for Caregivers
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this stat that I keep coming back to — roughly one in six workers in the US is currently caring for an aging adult, a child with special needs, or a partner with a chronic illness. And for years, the conventional wisdom was that those employees would just have to accept slower career growth. Luna: Right — the assumption being that caregiving and ambition are somehow mutually exclusive. Lucas: Exactly. But a mid-sized tech firm called OmniTech Solutions — about four thousand employees, headquartered outside Austin — decided to test that assumption. In 2023, they launched what they call the 'Caregiver Career Track.' And the results so far are pretty striking. Luna: Walk me through how it works. Because most companies I've seen just offer a flexible-hours policy and call it a day. Lucas: That's the trap, right? Flexibility without structure. OmniTech's program has three specific pillars. First, they redesigned performance reviews to explicitly credit outcomes over hours. So if a caregiver parent finishes a project by midnight after putting kids to bed, the manager is trained to evaluate the deliverable — not the fact that it came in at 11 PM instead of 5 PM. Luna: That sounds simple, but it's a huge cultural shift. Most managers still default to presenteeism. Lucas: Absolutely. So they baked it into the review rubric. The second pillar: they subsidized backup care — up to twenty days a year of in-home care for an elder or a child, at no cost to the employee. The company covers the full cost, which is about forty dollars an hour in their market. Luna: That's a significant expense. What's the ROI they're seeing? Lucas: They tracked it. In the first eighteen months, unplanned absenteeism among caregivers dropped by thirty-seven percent. And retention among that group — which had been running at about seventy-eight percent annually — jumped to ninety-one percent. When you factor in the cost of replacing a mid-level engineer, which can run fifty to seventy thousand dollars, the backup care subsidy pays for itself about four times over. Luna: So the business case is solid. What's the third pillar? Lucas: This is the part I find most interesting. They created a 'caregiver mentor' network — senior leaders who are themselves caregivers, formally paired with junior employees on the track. The mentor's job isn't just emotional support. They're expected to advocate for the mentee in promotion discussions and to help them identify projects that have high visibility but flexible schedules. Luna: Because a lot of caregivers self-select out of stretch assignments, assuming they can't handle the time commitment. Lucas: Exactly. And the data bears that out. Before the program, caregivers at OmniTech were promoted at about sixty percent the rate of non-caregivers. After two years, that gap narrowed to ninety-two percent. Not perfect, but a dramatic improvement. Luna: Were there any pushbacks? I imagine some managers felt this was a special perk. Lucas: There was some grumbling initially. But the company framed it as a talent strategy, not a moral stance. They published internal data showing that caregivers were actually more productive on a per-hour basis — they had to be, because their time was more constrained. So it became a story about efficiency, not favoritism. Luna: And that resonates with listeners who might be thinking about pitching a similar program at their own company. If we've helped you think through a career move or a way to advocate for a change at work, it's worth noting that our show stays ad-free thanks to listeners who support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small gesture that keeps these conversations going. Lucas: Yeah, we really appreciate that. And honestly, the caregiving piece is something we hear about from our audience a lot. So let's dig a little deeper into how OmniTech actually trained managers to spot caregiver bias. Luna: Good. Because I think the training piece is where most programs fall apart. Lucas: They did something very specific. They brought in an external firm to run workshops on 'caregiver bias' — things like assuming a caregiver won't want to travel, or assuming they'll say no to a promotion that involves more hours. Managers had to role-play conversations and get feedback. Luna: And did they track whether those workshops changed behavior? Lucas: They did. They surveyed caregivers anonymously six months later. Seventy percent reported that their manager had proactively asked about their career ambitions — compared to thirty-two percent before the training. That's a concrete shift. Luna: So the key ingredients seem to be: structural flexibility in performance reviews, a tangible benefit like backup care, and a mentor network that actively advocates. Are other companies picking this up? Lucas: A few. I know of a large insurance company and a regional bank that are piloting similar tracks. But it's early. The challenge is that OmniTech's leadership was unusually committed — the CEO personally sponsored the program and talked about his own experience caring for his mother. Luna: That top-down buy-in is probably the hardest piece to replicate. Lucas: It is. But what I tell people is: you don't need the CEO to be a caregiver. You just need one senior leader willing to be the sponsor and to make the business case. The ROI data from OmniTech is now public, so you can take that to your HR team and say, 'Look, this isn't charity. This is a retention strategy that saves money.' Luna: And it's also a recruitment tool. I've seen surveys where millennial and Gen Z workers rank caregiving support as a top-three factor in choosing an employer. Lucas: Right. Which is why I suspect we'll see more companies follow. The demographic trends are undeniable — the population is aging, and more dual-career couples are juggling care. Companies that ignore this are going to lose talent. Luna: So what's the one actionable takeaway for our listeners who might want to push for something like this? Lucas: Start small. Don't try to launch a full Caregiver Career Track overnight. Instead, propose a six-month pilot for one team — maybe a department with a high proportion of caregivers. Pick three metrics: retention, promotion rate, and manager-reported productivity. If the pilot shows improvement, you have ammunition to scale. Luna: And if you're a caregiver listening, what's your advice for navigating your own career? Lucas: Find your mentor. Even informally. OmniTech's data shows that having a caregiver advocate is the single biggest predictor of promotion. So look for a senior colleague — doesn't have to be in your department — who understands the juggle and is willing to speak up for you. And if your company doesn't have a formal program, consider starting a caregiver employee resource group. That's often the seed for bigger changes. Luna: It's a reminder that inclusion isn't just about race or gender — it's about the invisible identities that shape our work lives. Lucas: Exactly. And the best programs are the ones that turn those invisible challenges into visible career paths.