During a company reorganization three years ago, Bayer Corp. reminded employees at its U.S. headquarters in Robinson that its WorkLife Web site was full of tips on how to deal with stress induced by the corporate overhaul.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Kate Nolan, a manager at Bayer Corp., used Bayer's WorkLife Web site to line up a music therapist, Maria Carlini, left, to work with Virginia Sullivan, Nolan's 89-year-old mother. Above, Carlini and Sullivan are at the piano in Marian Manor, where Sullivan resides. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Franchise seeks to help watch older dependents It doesn't take natural disasters to concern an elderly population faced with an onslaught of rising costs and, in some cases, debt

At the time, Kate Nolan had more than workplace changes on her mind: The organization development manager for Bayer MaterialScience LLC North America was trying to find an assisted living facility that would suit the needs of her aging parents, as well as a music therapist to work with her mother, a former piano teacher.

So Nolan went to the Web site for help with elder-care questions, and called a toll-free assistance line. She soon was speaking with a geriatric expert in California who researched Pittsburgh-area personal care facilities that might be options for Nolan's parents. The referral service also provided books and brochures on elder-care and helped line up a music therapist who has been working with Nolan's mother, Virginia Sullivan, now 89, twice a week since 2001.

Nolan didn't have to pay for the research or the referrals; Bayer picked up the tab. The company is one of a few but growing number of employers that have added elder-care to their benefits package in recent years. As more workers attempt to juggle careers with raising children and caring for aging parents or relatives, such perks have become a bigger priority for companies and their employees.

An estimated 44 million adult caregivers provide unpaid care to another adult and 59 percent of those caregivers work or have worked while providing care, according to a survey released in April by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. Of those that work while they provide care, 62 percent have had to make adjustments at their jobs, ranging from coming to work late or giving up their jobs entirely. "It's an emerging, up-and-coming issue that's going to parallel the child-care movement of the 1970s and '80s," said Paula Tchirkow, a geriatric care manager based in Gibsonia.

In its annual survey of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers, published last week, Working Mother Magazine cited Bayer as well as two other local employers, PNC Financial Services Group and GlaxoSmithKline, for family-friendly benefits such as elder-care that help employees better manage the tough balance between work and personal life demands.

IBM Corp., among the top 10 best companies on Working Mother's list, has started dependent-care centers for employees' children as well as older parents. The computer industry giant also provides employees with care planning for elderly relatives, a phone check-in service and online discussion groups that focus on senior care.

Ted Crow, Post-Gazette Click photo for larger image.

But company-subsidized benefits such as IBM's dependent-care centers are far from the norm. A June study by the Society for Human Resource Management found fewer than 1 percent of 459 surveyed offer on-site care or help pay for regular care off-site. Only slightly more, 2 percent, pick up the cost of emergency or back-up care for elderly relatives when the caregiver has to come to work.

By far the most popular subsidized elder-care benefit is the kind of referral service Nolan utilized at Bayer. Twenty-one percent of employers now provide free elder-care referral services, up from 15 percent that offered such assistance in 2000, according to the HR society's survey. Besides Bayer, other big local employers that offer it include PNC, GSK, Mellon Financial Corp. and Del Monte Foods Co.

One low-cost way some employers try to help with personal issues such as elder care is by offering unpaid time off beyond the 12 weeks guaranteed by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act for workers. Thirty-nine percent of companies surveyed by the HR society said they provide the extra time.

Employers who provide elder-care perks say they do it to keep workers more productive on the job and boost morale by sending the message that the company cares about their personal lives. "It really helps drive home the whole issue that can't be stated strongly enough: balancing home and work life," said Lori Rosen, a lawyer and workplace analyst.

"Employees appreciate that the employer understands life is not centered only at work ... so they are going to give even more concentration and productivity at work because they're not worrying about how things at home will be taken care of," said Rosen, who works for Harris Interactive CCH Inc., an Illinois-based human resources consulting firm If a Bayer employee wants to find nursing homes, for instance, the company's referral service "does all the research and narrowing down so that improves the productivity of our employees who are not doing that on their work hours," said Diana Kamyk, Bayer's manager for Diversity & WorkLife. About 23,000 Bayer employees across the country have access to the service.

Headquartered in a county with the second-highest elderly population in the United States, PNC has plenty of insight into how employees cope with issues dealing with the care of elderly parents and relatives, said Kathleen D'Appolonia, vice president and manager of Work/Life and Diversity.

"If people come to work everyday and they can't offer their best selves, it's not very good for the business," she said. "We found employees don't think of [asking for help from employers] when they deal with this issue. They'll talk about a new baby and child-care issues but not elder care."

Two years ago, PNC added free in-home assessments of elderly relatives to its lineup of benefits. PNC workers can call a toll-free referral service, or contact the service through an employee Web site, Lifeworks, to request a skilled, geriatric expert take a look at their relative's living situation to determine if that person needs help with medical issues, transportation, cleaning or shopping. The parent or relative doesn't have to live in the same town as the employee for PNC to pick up the cost of the assessment.

Employees are eligible for six free "units," or six hours of elder-care management services per year.

Besides the in-person assessment, free units can be applied to telephone or in-person check-in services, on-site reviews of nursing homes and assisted living centers and in-home respite care. About 70 people a year have used the assessment service since it was added two years ago, D'Appolonia said.

Pat Centofanti, senior investment service specialist for PNC's Rhode Island mutual fund subsidiary PFPC, tapped the elder-care benefit earlier this year when she was worried about her parents who live in Oak Creek, Wis. Centofanti's father, 88, had suffered a minor fall while getting out of the shower and her mother, 86, was running out of energy doing daily chores and taking care of her husband.

Centofanti, who lives in Pawtucket, R.I., researched elder-care services on PNC's Lifeworks Web site and called and arranged for someone in Milwaukee to conduct the assessment. A geriatric expert recommended in-home therapy for her father and several months of light housekeeping help for her mother.

"It was adding to my anxiety being so far away," she said. "But I was able to show [my parents] I cared and was trying to do something." Without the on-site assessment of her parents' situation, "I would have had to take a week off from work ... and I can't always do it."

Judy Ekey, who works in PNC's corporate human relations department, Downtown, used the referral benefit a year ago when her father-in-law, who lived in Florida, was going through a second round of treatments for prostate cancer.

Ekey had tapped PNC's Lifeworks in the past for help on various issues including moving her grandmother into a nursing home. So when her 73-year-old father-in-law was sick, she used it to research the type of cancer he had and ways the family could support him.

When the family became worried about whether he should continue to live on his own, Ekey arranged for a home assessment. A nurse assigned to the case agreed to conduct it when Ekey and her husband could be in Orlando to participate. Through the assessment, the Ekeys were able to arrange transportation for him to get to chemotherapy treatments and help with cleaning and grocery shopping.

A month later, with her father-in-law's condition quickly deteriorating, Ekey called the referral service for help finding hospice care. He died in December. "Just having a service like this was a tremendous thing for me," Ekey said. "It was such a comfort to know I could get my work done when I needed to."

Besides helping employees focus on work, elder-care benefits can be a savvy recruitment tool, making the difference for a prospective worker weighing one company over another. "We know we'll get better employees and it's important to us to be attractive to the external world. We want the best and brightest," said Bayer's Kamyk.

Because of the recognition PNC has received on Working Mother's Best Companies list, mainly for its child-care programs, "People call and want to work for us," said D'Appolonia. "These benefits are a way to invest in the employee so they want to invest back. And it's a wonderful way to recruit."