Renee Fry 9/12/24

(This interview has been edited and condensed for length)

Selma:  In the EBN article “ ‘I was just a daughter and a mother’: Sandwich caregivers struggle to manage it all”   you had some really thought provoking comments. The first of which I wanted to touch base on is the comment about when you identified yourself. You labeled yourself as “a CEO, a founder, and a caregiver.” And that really struck me. I just wanted to know why you felt it was important to include a “caregiver” in your self description.

Renee:  Oh, thank you. And to all the caregivers out there, I think they'll probably understand why. Because it's such a huge part of your life, right? So whether it's your child or in our case, and this is where the sandwich part comes in, helping care for our father who had developed Alzheimer's, it really becomes almost a full time job…

 Because caring for an adult is something that takes just a lot out of you. It's very time consuming and emotionally consuming. And you see this person who coached softball games for you,  led the bank, did all these great things, and now you're there trying to say, okay, we're going to eat dinner now. I'm going to have to help you, and you have to feed that person. And so that's where it's not the nice story of saying it's not like caring for a baby. It's a unique situation.  And for those who are caregivers, I think they can appreciate that.  We learned that we weren't unique, that other people are going through this as well. And so while it's something people don't want to talk about, when you do start that conversation, it's amazing how many people do have stories they can share with you.  

Zack:  You've used the term “caregiver” in the professional setting with your employees. How did you get comfortable doing that and what kind of impact is that making on your employees or clients? 

Renee:  So first, it takes some confidence, right, because you don't know how people are going to react when you tell people that or if they're going to be too worried that your time might be consumed or your attention is put in other places.  But the reason we started using the word “caregivers" is that it became a role that we knew how to manage. We knew what the demands were, what it was going to take, and we knew that it had to be a balancing act, and we knew that there had to be a multiple of us involved. Thankfully, I have a brother and a sister and my mother. And so among all of us, we could be kind of a caregiving team, but that was something where we wanted to be open and honest with people around us. This is where our time and attention goes.  This is where we really try to be thoughtful about what decisions we have to make and how sometimes we might have to say “no” because caregiving duties prevail or if emergencies happen. And so I'll share one story with you as we were doing some fundraising activities for my company, and my dad, unfortunately, was getting close to where he's going to pass away. And when you're making those decisions of “do you want to be at the bedside?”, or “do you need to be at those meetings?” and things like that, that's where you have to remember you're a caregiver too and where you put those priorities. And if you don't recognize that caregiving is an element of that, you don't make good decisions.  

Selma:  It sounds like we're talking about what you said in the article about setting boundaries. You know, that we're only human.  We can only do so much in a day. 

Renee:  You have to be able to admit that. Right? The one thing we learned too, especially during this caregiving process, is that not making a decision still is a decision. It just means you didn't make the choice… So, knowing that there were decisions that needed to be made, and then in that role as a caregiver, and this is why giving that title helped us feel empowered to make those decisions and know that we felt good about the decisions we were making. And we were lucky along the way that our dad had done things like health care proxies and he told us what he wanted while he could because he was nonverbal for quite some time and couldn't share with us some of those things. So you want to make sure that you know what role you're playing, and that you are giving yourselves the support network and tools to be able to make the decisions that you think are best.  

Zack:  What would you tell the non-caregiver Renee today? What are some tips you'd give non- caregiver Renee? 

Renee:  So I think life inflection points matter a lot. And by what I mean with life inflection points, like getting married, having a baby, major health scares, caring for an aging parent. I don't think I thought about things like when you're in high school, you're just like, woo hoo, I got a driver's license.  Right? I'm going to go to college. This is great. If you don't think much out further about some of those major choices that you're going to be making, and sometimes choices get made for you, like, you become a caregiver.  And you need to be considerate about those things because the amount of time and energy that go into those life inflection points are something that I don't think a lot of people consider. But you want to make sure that if you're getting married, are you a good husband, wife, or good partner? Right? What energy and time do you have to put into that?  If you choose to be a parent, then you need to make sure that you're putting time and effort into making sure that person that you brought into the world can be the best version of themselves. Right? And so that's where I think, if I could tell myself that, I probably would've looked at the world maybe a little bit, I don't know if it was not less selfishly or just in a different light. 

Selma:  You, as a CEO and a founder and employer of other people, how do you think your care experience has influenced how you manage others?

Renee:  They're very lucky (laughing). I learned empathy. Because if you had met me when I was probably right out of high school or something, I'd be like, I was gonna take over the world. Woo. Right? And empathy was not a skill set that you if someone had said, where is Renee on the empathy scale, it would've been negative. Because I just feel like I have things to do. I have places to be, places to go.  These are things you learn about yourself. And so from the caregiving perspective, you learn that, uh-oh, you need to understand. And caregiving is unique in the way that it's not just the person you're caring for, but it's the folks around that person as well. It's the other people on the caregiving team. It's your sister, your brother, your mother. It's  the person you're caring for. And so that's where I had to learn empathy because some things you just can't barrel down and come with you know, I was gifted with a hammer in my toolkit of, life, leadership abilities. But as you learn and you develop, you understand that, a hammer is not the right tool, and that sometimes you have to consider a little bit more what the bigger picture is, where things are going or not going, or maybe there's some reason, and you need to help solve a problem for that instead of just telling people to do something or do more.  That's not the solution because it might not be the underlying problem that you think it is. And so being a lot more cognitive that people are dealing with a whole lot. And so how do you get the best out of people by helping them be the best in themselves and then working together as a team? And you still need to lead, and I hope I'm a good leader. And you still need to set the pathway for people, but maybe being a little bit more appreciative of how we're all going to get there together that's something my younger self definitely could've learned. 

Selma:  So do you think that sharing with your staff that you are a caregiver helps to create that environment for them to share as well? 

Renee:  That's a great way to put it. Just saying “I am a caregiver” and admitting that you accept that role and the responsibilities that come with that. Because oftentimes, I've gotten to meet people who say “I have to go care for this or my mom or something”. It's like, well, look. That happens every week, and every week, you're all scattered and you're all over. But you can predict at this point that's going to take 5 or 10 hours of your week.  So you need to start making the call, put that in your calendar, to make that decision, because otherwise, you're just disappointing a whole bunch of people that you're saying, yes, I can do all these things when you can't… And you just have to figure out how to balance things. It goes back to the decision making process. Be honest with yourself where your time is going and what roles you need to play and when you need to play them. 

Zack:  What advice would you give to a manager, a leader, a c-suite person who oversees a large responsibility of people on how to become more empathetic about working caregivers that either have or have not identified themselves as caregivers? 

Renee:  From the caregiving standpoint, I think helping people acknowledge that they are a caregiver is something that's important. And so I think from an HR perspective, and this is why I'm excited about all the things that you're working on, is giving people the tools to be able to enable people to say, this is a responsibility I have, and I need to be able to say that and not get punished for it. Because this is where I think people that I've worked with in the past, they don't want to tell people, “Oh, I have to care for a parent” because they don't want to have to say, “Oh, I might miss this meeting” or “I might not do this”.

And so this is where, from a management perspective, taking the approach of, are you meeting your  goals? And maybe you need some flex time to be able to do those caregiving things. And so I think that starts with a lot of things over the HR world too. We're making sure that they're well informed.  We're living in a world now where probably the majority of people are caring for aging parents and not younger children. And so it's a different perspective. So it's how do you educate those folks that this is an issue. Because it starts with educating those folks so that when a manager calls the HR person and says, “What do I do?”, that HR person has a toolkit to be able to help that person… And if you're prepared you can put structure and things like that in place to be able to help people instead of just saying, “Oh, good luck with that” because that scares a lot of people, and it doesn't mean they're going to change any of their behaviors if you wish them luck. But if you give them tools or a way to be more productive in how they're working or communicate better, those are the types of things that are real and can help people.  

Selma:  Our audience is made up of employers.  As an employer who wants to be supportive of caregiving, what would you say to them are the returns on that investment for you and your company in terms of having a supportive resource field, embracing the atmosphere for working caregivers so they are comfortable bringing their total selves to the job, all the different facets of their personal life?

Renee:  Incredible loyalty!  I can tell you that, if you know that your employer is supportive of that and that your employer really just wants to make sure you're doing your work, getting your work done, you're checking off your boxes and stuff, and you're bringing your all to the table when you can, you will have loyal employees that are so grateful for all of that…. And so that's something that we work with at Gentreo quite a bit. We don't really care what you're doing Tuesday at 10 AM if it's meeting your goals and checking your boxes, coming up with new ideas, and having the energy to grow with us and do things that really support our Gentreo team.  Do what you need to do because that's part of life… And people have stories to tell in life, and there's a lot of joy too that you can get from knowing that you're there to support people and do the best you can. And if you can bring that energy to people, you can bring that back to the company.

Zack:  Think back to your caregiver journey while working, and, can you share what has been one of the most difficult parts of it, and what'd you do to overcome it if you've been able to fully overcome it?

Renee:  It is tough. Caregiving is often sad, and we talked about this before. Like having a baby is something that's joyous and new, and you're teaching the baby to walk and you're caring for the baby, but you have these moments of joy.  Whereas in caregiving, a lot of things, maybe someone breaks a hip, and that's the beginning of where things start to happen to that person. And so that's where we found our family grew closer together over caring for our father because those moments were scary. It was hard to be by my mom watching all that she had to go through as well and just how sad, and people deal with emotions differently… Even when someone passes away or if the person you're caregiving for passes away, then you're still sad. I think you’ll still have all these memories, but then you have to think about how you bring joy back to that, and how do you remember the person when they're coaching 1st base or you scored that winning run because they taught you how to do those things. And so bringing that joy back as well. And so knowing that it's not just a one and done occurrence, but it's something that is going to last for quite some time, and then you'll be dealing with the memories…

 This is why I love what you're doing because when you talk with people and they've had these experiences where they've lived this, I bet it's going to be, hopefully, a weight off their shoulders knowing that other people have gone through this as well. Because we talk with people a lot of times people think they might be the first person ever to create a will or the first person to ever care for their mom, and we can smile and say, I've lived that too. And now I think what you're doing to be able to share that with people and say, okay, let's be open about this, that caregiving is a lot, whether it's money, whether it's responsibility and time or love that you didn't know you had to provide.   It's a lot. And so to be open about that, I think, can change a lot of lives for the better.