The fifth annual Future of Benefits Report from Care.com explores the prevalence of employee burnout and the linkages with family caregiving, but also the solutions for employers of recognizing the issue and offering benefits and support to their workers.

While 84% of employers acknowledge burnout plays a moderate to high role in employee retention, the report finds a gap between perception and reality: employers estimate 45% of their workforce is at risk, but 69% of employees report moderate to high burnout. The report states that employees report higher stress (64%), lower quality of life (48%), lower job satisfaction (40%), decreased mental health (38%), and lower work productivity (34%) when their caregiving needs are unsupported by their employer.

The report also offers seven points on how employers to evolve their benefits strategy:

1. Understand your caregiver population: With 73% of U.S. workers juggling caregiving responsibilities, identifying the varied care needs across your workforce is essential for delivering support that makes a difference.
2. Broaden your definition of caregiving: Go beyond one-size-fits-all to support the spectrum of care responsibilities, including child care, senior care, adult care, pet care, self care, and house care.
3. Tackle care gaps with backup care solutions: Disruptions in care plans add to employee stress. Access to reliable backup care options can dial down stress, burnout, and absenteeism—and dial up engagement and productivity
4. Support wide-ranging needs while lessening financial stress: Care spending accounts give employees flexible funds to help manage their unique care needs. Measure the impact of your caregiving benefits Identify key metrics, such as employee engagement, satisfaction, productivity, and retention, to track the return on your caregiving benefits investment over time
5. Provide access to expert resources and support: Navigating care needs can feel overwhelming. Offering easy access to specialized assistance, care resources, and expert advisors helps to relieve the pressure and earn employee appreciation.
6. Build awareness, understanding, and utilization of caregiving benefits: Even the best benefits can’t reduce stress and burnout if employees don’t know about them. Create ongoing communications and train frontline managers to help employees get the support they need.
7. Measure the impact of your caregiving benefits: Identify key metrics, such as employee engagement, satisfaction, productivity, and retention, to track the return on your caregiving benefits investment over time.

More data and recommendations are available in the full report here.