how to make carer's leave work for carers?

Earlier this year, there was the introduction of a piece of legislation that gives people in work, who also have unpaid caring responsibilities, the right to take up to a 'week off' as part of how the can better support the person who relies on them in that role.

However, as various researches and stories shared to coincide with the recent #CarersRightsDay by various carers bodies highlighted - most employers (and carers) aren't aware of this, and of those that are, most can't afford to ask for it or take it. This is largely because:

• people in work who are also carers are more likely to already be in poverty, so simply can't afford to take this time off unpaid;
• many businesses' workplaces may struggle to offer the flexibility that a person needs (for example - if they're a teacher, work in a clinical role, or as part of a manufacturing or engineering firm);
• lots of carers simply don't recognise themselves as being such, or if they do, are afraid of recriminations or damage to their future careers if they 'come out' to their employer.

And as a result of their not being able to take this leave, carers are:

• leaving their jobs in droves: currently, in the region of 600 people every day quit their jobs, because they can't balance their paid role with their caring responsibilities. This means a growing loss of skill and talent for businesses, and more people entering a life of poverty (because the act of being a carer means that, typically, you 'loose' at least £20,000 in earnings you would have otherwise earned each year);
• increasingly unwell and becoming mentally ill, because they're having to use their holiday leave entitlements to fulfil caring responsibilities. This leaves them no time to rest and recover, which means that they're accelerating when they'll reach burnout and breakdown points. 

All of this has been percolating around the back of my head over the last few days, and if anyone has a magic wand going spare (or knows where I can pick up a magic lamp with a genie it), this is what might help:

1. Extend the government's existing Access to Work scheme: this was designed to support people with disabilities or mental ill health to gain/remain in work, and is based on the Equalities Act. Carers are (in theory) also covered by the same Act, so what if Access to Work could be flexed to recognise and support carers as well? This would enable employers to invest in/introduce practices and systems that they might otherwise struggle to be able to. And yes, this would mean an increase of cost to the government, but it would also mean more people are able to stay in work, and employers are able to retain the skills and talent they need for growth.
2. Create a 'carers note' system, akin to current GP's 'fit notes'. This would help employers be able to better recognise and 'legitimise' employee's needs as carers, and might also help individual carers better identify as such (most of us don't 'claim the badge' until we've been doing it for around 3 years on average). This also then links into the next idea...
3. Get the Treasury to offer employers the ability to reclaim the cost of an employee's salary when they're on carers leave, in the same way they currently can for maternity and other types of family leave. Carer's are nearly always caring for a family member of some type, so it's in keeping with current systems and rules; and this would also mean that Carers could afford to take this leave too. And yes, it would mean a higher cost to the government, but as with extending the Access to Work idea above, the return would surely show it would be 'fantastic' value for money, on the same grounds?
4. Get higher visibility and profile for carers and carers needs in workplaces, not by recruiting 'ambassadors', but targeting the people that most small businesses listen to and trust the most: their accountants and trade bodies.
5. Finally, remove the +20% growth potential requitement that businesses have to evidence to be able to access funded business support programmes, so more employers can get support in working out how to make options best work for them and their employees who are also carers. Otherwise, lots of employers will continue to lose skills and talent, and increasingly perform less well, which will contribute to the wider economy grinding to a halt...

These is all based on existing government schemes, programmes, and legislation, so in theory, not that difficult to introduce or legislate for?

And... for the half a million of us sole traders and freelancers who currently don't have these same rights as our salaried counterparts (in fact, we don't have any!), these would all largely directly apply to us as well, which helps to remove some of the discrimination we currently face in working in this way.


And yes, any changes to systems that offer government payments can be open to abuse and fraud - but there are already safeguards and checks and balances in place for all of the above where these might be needed, including the DWP's own longstanding practice of being able to recognise a carer and authorise them as an 'appointee' to manage disability payments and other benefits that the person they care for is entitled to receive, if that person is not able to do so themselves. So another example of how the systems and infrastructure needed is already there...

But what do others think?

How audacious, crazy, unfeasible might some of these ideas be?

Maslow's doughnut

A lot of people have probably heard of 'Maslow's hierarchy' - it's based on the idea that as human beings, we have different 'levels' of need, and until we can satisfy one, we can't progress to the other (i.e. if we're homeless, it's hard to commit to a course of learning or securing a job).

In recent years, there's also been the emergence of 'donut economics' - the idea that because we live in a closed ecosystem (aka a planet revolving around the sun, and all we've got is what's already on it), we need to try and balance how we consume with how we live, and the donut creates a visual representation of this:

But I've been thinking recently about where these 2 models might/can/should overlap with each other - Maslow designed his model on the assumption that we should all be encouraging ourselves and each other us to be striving to reach the top of the pyramid, and that there would always be enough resources available for everyone to do this in ways that they determined were right for them. But maybe we need to be slightly more nuanced in this 'race to the top'? - not everything that's good for us is good for everyone else.

Could encouraging ourselves to work out what our 'personal doughnut' should be, and then thinking about where we are/want to be (in Maslows' hierarchy) allow us to more sustainably (and so better) achieve and set our personal ambitions, through recognising and understanding how our ambitions and choices affect others, and theirs, us?

(To work out your personal doughnut = https://doughnuteconomics.org/tools-and-stories/118)

Could this 'Maslow doughnut' be a better model for how we think about our personal development in the 21st century?

does freelancing make you a better lifelong learner?

We're currently in the middle(ish) of this year's Lifelong Learning Week - an annual campaign to highlight the importance of continuing to exercise our 'little grey cells' after our school years, and shine a light on the various benefits that doing so creates for us personally, those around us, and the wider communities and worlds we're part of.

As a freelancer/self-employed, I've always prioritised maintaining an ongoing and active learning mindset:

• I set targets for how much of my turnover I try and spend on courses, journals, and events;
• I keep a rolling monthly log of all my formal CPD activities, to help reflect on what I've taken from them, and how they've contributed to how I've challenged/changed my thinking and practices;
• I hold memberships of bodies like the Workers Educational Association and the Co-op College, as a show of solidarity with providers of lifelong learning;
• and more...

But I was struck this year that only 52% of us 'adults' have engaged in any type of recognised learning activity in the last 3 years, and that there are growing inequalities in the opportunities and abilities for some of us to even have the option and opportunity to engage in learning activities : https://learningandwork.org.uk/resources/research-and-reports/adult-participation-in-learning-survey-2024/

Reflecting on my own 'learning habits', and hearing about those of fellow freelancer and self-employed types through different communities I'm part of (such as Being Freelance, ipse, FSB, etc) makes me realise that perhaps there's something about working in this way which helps to address some of these barriers and inequalities that we all face when it comes to lifelong learning.
Maybe because we recognise the importance of always investing in our skills and knowledge (we'd quickly become obsolete and lose work if we didn't!), and because of this, more easily 'catch the learning bug'?

And if so, should we make this part of how we celebrate and evidence just how important we are to the wider economy and communities, as another example of how underrated and undervalued we are to policy makers and politicians? 

why cowbells, 3-year olds, and punching bags are a better way to create social enterprise policy

"We need to get more experimental with creating national policy" - is the encouraging takeaway I took from my recently being part of the global Social Enterprise World Forum Policy Forum event.

Showcasing a range of insights and experiences from around the world, the Forum offered a rare opportunity for people within all parts of the wider social enterprise ecosystem (from start-up social entrepreneurs, to global policy managers in the UN), who wouldn't normally be able to meet each other to question, challenge, encourage, and inspire in ways that don't usually happen.

It was also far from what some might have expected in terms of how research was shared, ideas provoked, and people engaged, as the title of this blog post suggests!

Listening to the debates; reflecting with others in the speed networking slots; (and yes, for those of you who know me, I was also doing lots in the chats of each session I joined); it struck me that a lot of policy we've seen in the UK over the last 20-30 may actually not have been that great for the impacts they've created.

Sharing stories through the conversations made me realise/re-enforced my ideas that:

- the reason we have an apparent glut of social investment that most lenders are struggling to 'get out', is because it was a government policy agenda that said it would be a 'magic bullet' that the sector needed (but with little research or evidence to substantiate this)?

- it was also government policy that gave us the Community Interest Company (CIC), at a time when it admitted that the wider sector had no stated need or appetite for any new legal forms. It also created them in a way that simply 're-badged' various existing company features as something 'new and unique'. Perhaps this the is reason why CICs seem to have always struggled to have more longevity than regular private businesses, and are usually more reliant on grants than charities are?

- and those early policy agendas also drove the impetus for social enterprises to be delivering public sector contracts: yet the researches that have been published in subsequent years point to most social enterprises not using this as a mainstay of how they trade, and for those that do, they often do so at a trading loss?

But despite this, having had separate policies as we have, has meant the profile and awareness of the concept of social enterprise is higher than it might have otherwise been.

However... I was also reminded as I traded stories with others in the Forum, that most of the research about the specific needs of social enterprises shows that they have more in common with private businesses than not - and in the very early days of the explosion of interest and activity around social enterprise (at the turn of the millennium), it was 'regular' business support bodies and services, and the policies that informed them, that sought to integrate the majority of support for this 'new' sector.

There was subsequently a 'parting', but now, 20-ish years on, I'm starting to see some signs that there's thought and interest in exploring how they might be re-integrated (through the likes of Growth Hubs, Shared Prosperity Fund programmes, etc). 

And perhaps this emerging possible refocussing of policy is coming about because we've now had sufficient time to understand the impact of these early policies? As one of the key speakers suggested, "it can take at least 5-10 years to understand the impact and effects of a policy, so we need to treat them as more experimental". In those early days of social enterprise, there was scant data to base policies on, in comparison to what we now know and understand - so maybe policy makers need to start being braver in resetting the paradigms that they're working with? 

However, creating such a shift will take time and effort - and for those making the policies, represents a scaring foraying into new unknowns.

Maybe the best way we can be part of bringing this change about, was an idea shared that social enterprises might best create influence amongst policy makers by 'stealth': offering and asking to engage in staff secondment schemes, so that those informing the design of future infrastructure get first-hand experience of the realities of how it would be likely to be actually experienced by those it's intended to benefit. This may not be the usual 'showy' way that we're encouraged to try and lobby and advocate (with huge petitions, and PR stunts), but reminds us that everyone in the wider (eco)systems are ultimately human beings, and we can best get things done by engaging and building relationships with each other as such.

For more reflections on the Forum, see - https://sewfonline.com/empowering-rural-communities-and-youth-sewf-policy-forum-highlights/ 

I'm lovin' it (but I'm not sure I should?)

"What's your motivation for doing this?" is a key question I ask new and emerging social enterprises and social entrepreneurs, in start-up programmes for them that I'm invited to support from time to time.

And while everyone always talks about impact in some way, there will always be some who reply that it's because as a social enterprise they can create more impact than a private business can. And for those people, I set a challenge, that (so far) no-one has ever been able to beat:

"Go and read up on McDonald's UK's impact - and then come back and tell me how you're not ashamed when you compare yourself to them as a private, for-profit, business."

In the 20 years of my setting this challenge, no-one has ever come back to me.

That's because McDonalds UK has done a pretty good job of:

• examining how they've designed their supply chain and invested in their suppliers; 
• thought about the behaviours of their customers and staff at a local level in how they can be the best 'corporate neighbour'; 
• as an employer, designed processes and systems which (amongst other things) mean they regularly win awards as one of the best large employers to work for, and also won the contract to train all of the changemaker volunteers at the last London Olympics (to the shock of all volunteering support and training bodies); 
• have a strong stance on animal welfare; 
• model a lot of good and best practice in how they're approaching how they manage their impact on the natural environment; 
• undertake national programmes to encourage childhood literacy; 
• are the biggest non-charitable supporter of community sports; 
• and the list goes on...

But they don't seem to use any of the above as part of their core marketing messages or reasons why we should eat with them (in contrast to the cause-relating-marketing messaging of most organisations in the social economy) - they're simply doing these things because they recognise that there's a strong business case for them to, other than what their customers seem to prioritise in their buying decisions.

But why am I sharing this here, now, if I've been apparently so enthralled by this fast food chain for so long?

Well, they've recently published what I think may be the first impact report that takes a 50-year perspective (organisations usually only publish their impact reports based on the last year, or a specific funded project) -   

https://www.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/sites/uk/nfl/pdf/uploads/mcdonalds-at-50-social-and-economic-impact-report.pdf  

(They've also been quietly producing annual impact reports since 2016 on all aspects of their business model, and the impacts they're creating -

https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-purpose-and-impact/impact-strategy-and-reporting/performance-reports.html)

Which can't help me start to wonder - as well as setting a quite high bar on what impact and good it's possible to create within a trading model that isn't reliant on grant income or support (as many social enterprises are), is McDonalds now shaming the social economy further by how its approaching understanding its impact from such a 'whole life' perspective?

However, perhaps I should share a slight possible bias about my apparent extolling of the Golden Arches in this post - although I think there's better tasting burgers to be had elsewhere, and will always prioritise eating out in locally owned independent cafes and restaurants when I can, we do share the same landmark birthday. 

And as an unpaid carer who's also self-employed, it was in one of their restaurants that I chose to (belatedly) celebrate mine with them, by treating myself to their birthday 'cake'. 

chocolate, taboos, impossible choices, and tax - the present and possible futures of freelancers with caring roles?

Each October is the global Freelance Business Month – a coming together of freelancers from different countries to share encouragement, support, insight, and general building up of each other.

This year, I was invited to lead one of the sessions, to explore the ways in which freelancers from around the world who are also unpaid carers approach balancing the often-conflicting demands of these roles.

In the run up to it, the topic seemed to be drawing a lot of interest, based on responses, comments, and reshares to social media posts about it on different platforms; and, on the day, the number of windows in my zoom app from people joining only just all fitted onto my screen…

As part of the conversations, everyone agreed that it would be important to try and capture some of the stories shared, as an encouragement and support to our peers who are similarly juggling these roles and circumstances - which is what you're now reading in this blog post.

Caring around the world

We opened with a brief reflection on what unpaid caring and freelancing looks like in different countries. Based on my own researches over the last few years, we know that in the UK, unpaid carers who are also freelancers:

• Number in the region of approximately 500,000;
• Are twice as likely to be in poverty than their counterparts who are able to be in some form of salaried work, and that’s largely because we suffer a ‘caring penalty’ in the form of lost earnings of up to £20,000 each year because of our caring responsibilities;
• Were usually freelancing before gaining a caring responsibility, in contrast to popular belief;
• Aren’t recognised or offered any rights in law (as other carers are), and as a result have no caring or business services designed in recognition of their specific circumstances.

Others in the session shared a similar lack of recognition and support available in their respective countries. 

The stress is universal, unavoidable, and causes problems

Some talked about how the pressures and stresses of taking on and managing a caring role can mean that we may be more prone to making mistakes in how we manage our affairs as a freelancer - one person shared that the process of becoming a carer meant that they were so distracted during one of their annual filings of accounts, they are now paying more tax than they should be (and at a time when they are now also earning less because of the caring role).

This theme of enhanced stress was echoed by all, in wanting there to be a greater understanding and recognition of the psychological stresses and mental strains that becoming (and acting as) a carer places on us as freelancers. As one person shared in the chat: 

“It [being a carer] seems to be both an obligation and a choice. There is also the choice to NOT be a carer, but…”

Balancing it all 

We moved on to sharing some of the ways in which we’ve been approaching creating our own balances to keep our earnings as a freelancer continuing, with fulfilling the responsibilities of having a caring role (or in some instances as was shared, having multiple caring roles! One freelancer shared how they’re now the sole unpaid carer for multiple family members in their immediate household):

• Some have chosen to purposefully limit their earnings/avoid certain types of work and clients as part of trying to reduce the increased stress that being a carer brings;
• Some shared how they have identified and accessed counselling support for themselves as part of managing the stress, via memberships of professional freelancing bodies – but all agreed that we should all be trying to access this through other means where we may be able to, as part of trying to manage our personal well-being in this dual role;
• Some shared that despite having less earnings, they have reduced their personal disposable even more in order to pay for private health care plans so that they can better manage their own health needs around those of the people they care for, and in working as a freelancer.

We also talked about how there was a need for better education and understanding about the needs and circumstances of freelancers in our position – 

“if you’re not in the situation, you would never understand just how it feels and what you’re faced with having to manage”.

Which in turn, led to a consensus on the importance that as a community of freelancers we need to take opportunities where we can (and are able/comfortable to) to share our stories in breaking the taboos around unpaid caring as a freelancer, if we’re ever going to be better recognised and encouraged as such, (which includes finding encouragement in/from our peers).

This led to a lively discussion around if / how / when to disclose to our clients that we have a caring role.

'Coming out' as a carer

Nearly all present stated that they’d told at least one client they work with about their caring responsibilities, and that in the main, it strengthened the working relationship by that client then seeing them as subsequently being more authentic – and in our also disclosing this in ways that included examples of how we would mitigate the risk of this impacting on our work with them, that we’re seen as also being more trustworthy, too.

One freelancer shared a story of a how, after disclosing their caring role to a client, the client had stated that they wouldn’t be able to work with them after all, owing to the nature of how the wider programme that they were managing had been designed. However, the following week, the client returned to say that after reflecting with their own colleagues, they’d decided to redesign their programme so that the freelancer could be commissioned to support the delivery of it after all.

This was heard by all in the session as a massive encouragement as it showed:

• If we openly work with them, clients can better understand our circumstances and respond – but they'll probably have never before thought about this, until we forced them to;
• A validation for the value and worth of how that freelancer is viewed by their client.

Another unexpected outcome shared in the session by another freelancer after they ‘came out’ as a carer to a client, was that client suddenly being able to share their own caring story with someone who they knew would ‘get it’ – it built more points of connection with a fellow human being, and highlighted that it’s not just freelancers who struggle to be able to find ways to talk about the realities of being a carer in workplace settings.

What's good for freelancers who care is good for all of us (and vice versa)

Finally, we shared our ‘magic wish’ with each other – the one thing that we would like to see happen or change for freelancers who also having caring responsibilities:

• More chocolate to help us manage our stress;
• More understanding from clients and governments;
• Having some form of basic universal income;
• Bringing in an equality of access to benefits and supports that employees who are carers can access, but which we as freelancers who are also carers currently can’t;
• Changes to the tax systems as part of a wider recognition of financial supports freelancers need, owing to the displacement/loss of earnings that having a caring role forces.

Interestingly, many of these wishes are relevant (to lesser degrees) to all freelancers in all countries, regardless of them having an unpaid caring role or not – which suggests that any changes introduced to support freelancers with caring roles, would also be of benefit the wider freelancing community too (and vice versa).

And none of what was shared by people seemed to be specific to any one country – which suggests that our experiences are pretty universal, meaning that it would be easy to learn from and support each other more in progressing these.

 

Special thanks and recognition 

I'd like to thank those of you who were part of the conversation for your openness, honesty, and bravery in not only talking about your caring stories and experiences, but also for encouraging me to share this all on with the wider world.

I'd also like to recognise those who were there who shared that they're at the start of their own personal caring journey as an existing freelancer, for your proactiveness in seeking opportunities and ways that you can better support yourself and inform the choices you're starting to face (I wish I'd had your foresight when I started my own caring journey 7 years ago...)

And, my thanks again to the organisers of this years’ FBM for allowing me to host this space in it, and for also changing the format this year to a ‘free for all’ access – instead, asking for donations to support pancreatic cancer: https://ti.to/freelance/fbm24/with/freelance-business-month-donation

(if you didn’t already know, freelancing is one of the ‘life activities’ that puts us at an increased risk of developing cancer in the future! https://www.freelanceinformer.com/news/cancer-alert-40-of-cases-linked-to-lifestyle-freelancers-are-you-at-risk/)

 

how desperate unpaid carers really are...

Carers UK recently published research into how many unpaid carers are in poverty (spoiler: being a carer means you're x2 as likely to be in poverty than if you're not).

Despite being lauded by government and other agencies in recognition of the roughly £160 BILLION that we save the government EACH YEAR, there's still plenty of disgruntlement amongst us for the lack or recognition and support we receive in turn - for example: for those eligible to qualify to be able to apply for carers allowance (plot twist: despite having sole unpaid caring responsibilities for several family members in my immediate household, I'm only eligible to receive £6 each week), this only offers about £2 per hour that we can receive in recognition of the time we spend caring, which prevents for from being 'economically active' otherwise: earning money to support ourselves as others can. For comparison, the legal minimum wage we would have to be paid for any job, however menial, starts at £6.40 per hour.

The report by Carers UK digs into this topic in painful and shocking detail. And while others have done far better jobs that I in looking at the wider dimensions of how carers suffer inescapable poverty because of the nature of the role: https://numbereighteeninthecorner.blog/2024/09/19/carer-servitude/, - I'm focussing here on what this latest research tells us about how being an unpaid carer affects those of us who are also self-employed. 

Now, before we get into Carers UK's research, to 'set the scene' here, self-employment in general is:

• one of the worst things you can do for your mental well-being; 
• likely to mean you earn less for doing the same job than if you were salaried;
• worse than being employed for your long-term health.

And yet roughly 500,000 of us who are unpaid carers are choosing this way of working on top of being a carer, which in itself is recognised as being:

• highly stressful;
• leaves us socially isolated;
• bad for our mental well-being;
• roughly, up to £20,000 worse off EACH YEAR. 

So lets do the reveal: unpaid carers who are also self-employed are x2 more likely to be in poverty than their employed counterparts, who also have caring responsibilities (and to 'rub salt in the wound', we don't get the same legal recognition or protection as they do...) 

So why are so many of us pursuing this apparent nonsense of pushing ourselves even further 'over the edge' by 'doing' self-employment alongside our caring role, when all the evidence above says it's the worst thing anyone could do to themselves?

As Carers UK research highlights, nearly half of people who were salaried before becoming carers are forced to give up their jobs, because they find the two roles aren't compatible. 

The current rules on carers allowances (assuming you're eligible to be able to be apply for it, then and lucky enough to get it) means that you can't earn more than £151 a week. Combined with the max carers allowance of £81.90, this would mean you have a maximum income potential of roughly £12,000 a year to live (covering housing, food, utilities, clothing, etc). That's less than half of what's recognised as a person needing to earn in order to have a minimum acceptable standard of living. This means that many carers simply can't afford to apply for/live on carers allowance, and as previously highlighted, quite a lot of demands and requirements of being an employee are incompatible with being a carer.

Which means that short of picking the winning numbers on the lottery, or robbing a bank, the only other choice is either living in deep poverty or doing self-employment (although as the research shows, doing self-employment is no guarantee you won't escape the poverty trap).

And I've also heard of some of my contemporaries in this space who've openly shared that taking on this most stressful of all employments was the best way they could find to help them find a counter-balance to the stresses and responsibilities of being a carer. Which takes us back to the earlier point of how tough being a carer is - but how tough must it be, for the most stressful of all employments to be seen as a type of respite from it?  

So for anyone out there who's also a carer as well as being self-employed: I hope you take some comfort from this post, in it offering you a recognition of how tough life really is for you. And for anyone who isn't: I hope you can use some of the feelings that this post has (hopefully) stirred up in you to act in support for carers of all types.