Your most at-risk employees aren’t in your data. They’re in your attrition numbers.
135+ Sandwich Generation employees per 1,000 are managing an Assisted Living or Memory Care decision for a parent right now, during business hours. Most will never tell you. All of them are losing productivity you’ll never be able to attribute to the real cause.
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The employees who need this most are the least likely to ask for it.
Eldercare doesn’t announce itself. No employee sends a calendar invite that reads “my dad has Alzheimer’s and I’ve been managing it for six months.” They show up late. They step out for calls. They take a half-day for a tour they scheduled during lunch. And they never explain why.
The stigma runs deeper than childcare. As one HR leader put it: “We celebrate one and hide the other.” Elder caregiving now affects more working Americans than childcare (23 million versus 21 million), yet receives a fraction of the programmatic attention.
You can’t see them in your engagement survey. But you can feel them in your exit interviews.
The heavy lift is ours. Not yours.
Most caregiving benefits offer broad resources; almost none offer expertise in the decision that costs families the most time, money, and guilt.
Petunia guides employees and their families through the entire Assisted Living and Memory Care decision: from understanding what they can afford, to organizing tours, to comparing Communities side by side, giving families structured tools built specifically for this moment.
Unlike referral services, Petunia has no financial relationship with any Community. Families get guidance, not a sales funnel.
The result: employees make a confident placement decision without losing weeks of productivity to a process they’ve never navigated before.
Offering Petunia tells your workforce you saw this coming, long before the crisis call ever came in, and long before they ever had to ask.
The productivity leak is already happening. The benefit is free.
See exactly what that leak costs at your company size.
$5,600/yr productivity cost per NIH, 2023. 135+ affected employees per 1,000 per Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023.
Every number on the left is already true for your company. Closing that gap costs nothing.
Comparing Senior Living Decision Support
When an employee’s family faces a Senior Living decision, which benefit actually resolves it?
Petunia vs EAP vs Care Navigation: benefit comparison
Petunia | EAP | Care Navigation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain expertise | |||
| Specialized in Senior Living decisions | Purpose-built Every feature addresses the Assisted Living & Memory Care journey, nothing else. | Generalist Counselors cover hundreds of life situations. Senior Living is one of many. | Broad caregiving Addresses caregiving across many conditions. Senior Living selection is a fraction of scope. |
| Free from community referral incentives | Structurally aligned Zero revenue from communities. Families pay Petunia, not the communities they're evaluating. | Not applicable EAPs typically refer out to services that carry their own referral fee incentives. | Varies by platform Some platforms maintain preferred provider relationships that can influence guidance. |
| Decision outcomes | |||
| Who the benefit actually serves | The whole family Built for the 2–3 family members who make this decision together, including out-of-state siblings and partners. | Employee only Support is limited to the enrolled employee. The family doing the deciding is outside the model. | Employee only Primary relationship is with the enrolled employee. The broader decision-making family isn't served. |
| Supports distributed family decision-making | Core feature Shared community shortlists, tour notes, and family team tools bring distributed stakeholders to a single decision. | Not designed for it EAP support is 1:1. There's no mechanism for coordinating a family team across geographies. | Limited Care coordinators manage tasks for the employee, but family alignment across stakeholders isn't addressed. |
| Reaches a confident family decision | Designed for it Structured to move families from search to committed choice, not just information gathering or emotional support. | Not the goal EAPs support emotional wellbeing during the process. The decision itself is left entirely to the family. | Partial Logistics support helps, but community selection and family alignment aren't defined outcomes. |
| Reduces time to decision | Structured path Replaces 70+ hours of unguided research with community shortlists, tour checklists, and comparison frameworks. | No structure Referrals and coping support don't shorten the research and coordination burden on the employee. | Reduces some burden Coordinators take on tasks but rarely address the core complexity of community comparison and selection. |
| Business case | |||
| Scale of workforce impact | Significant & growing 135+ employees per 1,000 are actively managing eldercare today. Among employees 45–64, that's roughly 1 in 5. | Underutilized EAPs average 3–6% utilization. Eldercare is a fraction of that. Most affected employees never engage their EAP for this. | Narrower reach Typically engaged at crisis moments, not during the extended decision process most families navigate. |
| Cost to employer | Zero Offered as a $0 cost employer benefit. Families pay a one-time activation fee. No PEPM, no contract risk. | Sunk cost Eldercare support is bundled into existing EAP spend, no incremental cost, but no incremental resolution either. | PEPM Care navigation platforms add a measurable per-employee-per-month line item to benefits spend. |
PetuniaWe’ve heard the hard questions. Here are the straight answers.
Four questions that come up on every discovery call, answered without spin.
“We already have an EAP.”
EAPs average 3–6% utilization for eldercare. They're built for emotional support and referrals, not for guiding a family through a 70-hour, multi-stakeholder decision involving real estate, care needs, and family dynamics across multiple states. Petunia fills the gap EAPs were never designed to cover.
“What's the implementation burden?”
Zero. No software to install. No IT involvement. No contract risk. Petunia is added to your benefits enrollment portal as a voluntary offering, just like legal services or pet insurance. Employees activate directly. You're done in a day.
“How is this different from a care navigator?”
We are additive, not competitive, providing guidance on a critical elder caregiving decision that is the highest ongoing cost (averaging $250,000–$500,000) and highest-stakes of them all. Generalist care navigators are built to cover everything, which means they're a mile wide and an inch deep on many topics, including this one.
“Is the market big enough to justify adding this?”
In a company of 1,000 employees, 135+ are managing a Senior Living decision right now. Among your 45–64 cohort (senior leaders, institutional knowledge, highest earners), roughly 1 in 5 are affected. NIH research puts the productivity cost at $5,600 per affected employee per year. And only 13% of employers currently offer any eldercare benefit. The early movers are building a talent advantage. It's the same window that existed for mental health benefits five years ago.
15 minutes to see if Petunia
belongs in your benefits portfolio.
No commitment. No pitch deck. Just a direct conversation about whether this is the right fit for your workforce right now.
Or email Greg directly: greg@usepetunia.com