Kim Bohr, SparkEffect’s President & COO, just published a piece on HR.com that cuts straight to why caregiving support has become one of the clearest signals employees use to decide whether to trust what leadership says about culture, fairness, and inclusion.

Why this matters right now

Our 2025 Trust in Turbulence™ research shows that Fairness & Change Impact Perception consistently scores among the lowest trust domains and drops even further when organizations face disruption. Caregiving sits right at the center of that perception gap. When support is uneven, hard to access, or depends on which manager you report to, employees experience it as a fairness violation. And fairness violations erode trust fast.

The reality is that elder care, disability-related caregiving, and the sandwich generation aren’t edge cases anymore. They’re everyday workforce realities. And how organizations respond, whether different family structures and caregiving roles are valued consistently or treated like exceptions becomes proof of whether equity commitments are real or performative.

What you can actually do about it

Kim’s article doesn’t just name the problem. It walks through practical steps HR and business leaders can take now: conducting a caregiving fairness audit, training managers in fairness-centered conversations, and designing benefits that work as part of your trust architecture, not as one-off accommodations.

Organizations that get this right don’t just avoid turnover. They build strategic confidence, the kind that shows up when employees believe leadership will handle the next disruption with the same care and consistency.

Read Kim’s full article on HR.com: Caregiving Benefits Among Strongest Signals of Workplace Fairness and Trust in 2026