Marvin Onumonu38% of employers believed stress and anxiety from home life, such as caring responsibilities, was affecting their employees, research from GRiD for National Carers Week 2025 found.
29% said a lack of state-funded social care was putting pressure on staff and that they needed to provide support for workers with caring duties.
Employers said supporting workers with caring duties was challenging, as caring is unpredictable and can create tension between personal and work life.
Without support from employers, this could lead to absence.
Some staff faced stigma or a lack of understanding from colleagues and management.
Employers who wanted to help often did not know how to do so and worried about treating staff equally.
Many were not qualified to give direct help, which is why providing employee benefits for dependants can help staff and the business.
Katharine Moxham, spokesperson at GRiD, said: “Important as it is, support for carers is rarely top of the wish list when it comes to employee benefits, however, many employers will find that their employee benefits already have a wide range of support aimed at this group.
“This type of support is expanding all the time, so even those employers who believe they have a good grasp of what is available may find that additional types of support may now be available.
“As well as helping carers support their dependants, carer-employees must also be encouraged to look after their own health, making the best use of everything available to them in their employee benefits programme.”
Moxham added: “And, as not everyone who has caring responsibilities considers themselves to be a ‘carer’, or makes their responsibilities known to their employer, employers may not really know how many people in their employment are affected.
“Employers should assume the numbers are far greater than they realise and shape their employee benefits accordingly.”
