Speaker
Description
Canada’s employment landscape is changing, with 1 in 4 employed Canadians also juggling unpaid care responsibilities (Magnaye et al, 2023). As the backbone of the healthcare system, unpaid carers provide the vast majority of health and social care in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2023). Transportation is the primary care activity by CEs navigating a variety of environments in carrying out care related tasks, often resulting in burnout (Magnaye et al, 2023). The labour force sector has a major impact on CEs ability to navigate work-life balance. To support work-life balance, McMaster University partnered with the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) to build two tools that provide guidance for employers to build carer-friendly workplaces: the CSA B701:17 Carer-inclusive and Accommodating Organizations Standard (CAOS) and accompanying Implementation Guide B701HB-18 Helping Worker-carers in your organization (HWO) were published in 2017 (Williams et al., 2018). Although previous intervention research with Canadian workplaces has highlighted the significant health and economic benefits of carer-friendly workplaces (Ding et al., 2020; Ding et al., 2021; Ding et al., 2022), limited uptake of the CAOS and HWO has occurred. The present study aims to determine the degree of uptake of these tools. A mixed-methods approach will be employed, beginning with a quantitative survey followed by qualitative interviews with a sub-sample of survey participants. Data will be triangulated, with results providing insight into the degree to which the tools have been implemented, in addition to the identification of barriers to uptake. This will inform continued knowledge mobilization of the tools.
