There’s a particular kind of tired that doesn’t show up on a leave form. It’s the tired that comes from running a team meeting at 9am, ducking out to take a call from your mother’s GP at 11, and then being back on deck by 1 to review a budget, all while your youngest has a school assembly you promised you’d make. I see it in leaders across Newcastle, Sydney and the Hunter Region regularly. Capable, senior people quietly stretched between two generations who need them.
This is the sandwich generation. Pew Research puts it plainly: almost half of adults aged 40 to 59 are caring for both an ageing parent and their own children. That’s not a niche experience. That’s a sizeable chunk of the leaders running your teams, your departments, your organisations right now.
And the pressure is real. Nearly a third of sandwich generation caregivers report feeling constantly pressed for time, which tracks with anything I’ve heard from clients navigating this. The mental load isn’t just about hours in the day. It’s the constant background calculation of who needs what, when, and whether you’re letting someone down by choosing one priority over another.
“Almost half of adults aged 40 to 59 are caring for both an ageing parent and their own children. That’s a sizeable chunk of the leaders running your organisations right now.”
The gender split matters too. Pew’s research found 60% of sandwich generation caregivers are women, who spend an average of 45 minutes more each day on caregiving tasks than men do. If you’re a leader trying to build a genuinely inclusive workplace, that stat is worth sitting with. It shapes who’s available for the early meeting, who can take the interstate trip on short notice, and who’s quietly managing a second full-time job that never appears in any position description.
It’s not only a personal issue either. AARP reports that of the nearly 48 million Americans caring for an adult family member or friend, 61% are also holding down a job. Workplaces are already full of people managing this. The question for leaders is whether we’re making it harder or easier for them to do both well.
Here’s what I know from sitting across the table from leaders in this position. They rarely ask for help directly. They’ll ask for flexibility around a specific day, or quietly step back from a stretch project, without naming the reason. That’s a trust issue as much as a caregiving one. If people don’t feel safe naming what’s really going on, we lose the chance to support them properly, and we lose visibility over a genuine risk to their capacity and wellbeing.
What Good Leadership Looks Like Here
Start by normalising the conversation. If someone on your team is navigating school pickups and aged care coordination in the same week, that’s not a performance issue waiting to happen. It’s a reasonable, common experience that deserves a straightforward, judgement-free conversation about what support actually looks like.
Get precise about flexibility rather than vague about it. “We’re flexible” means very little to someone trying to plan around a parent’s specialist appointment three weeks out. Specific, predictable options, like core hours, genuine remote work, or the ability to shift a start time without a formal request, give people something concrete to work with.
Watch for the leaders who never take anything off their own plate. Sandwich generation caregivers are often high performers who’ve built a reputation on reliability, which makes them the least likely to put their hand up. A direct check-in, asked with genuine curiosity rather than as a box-ticking exercise, can surface a load someone’s been carrying quietly for months.
And if you’re the one in the sandwich yourself, the same principle applies to you. Leadership under this kind of pressure often comes with a private rule that says the team’s needs go first, always. That rule serves no one well over time. Seasoned leaders learn to renegotiate their own boundaries with the same clarity they’d expect from anyone else on the team.
“Sandwich generation caregivers are often high performers who’ve built a reputation on reliability, which makes them the least likely to put their hand up.”
None of this requires an overhaul of your policies overnight. It requires attention. Noticing who’s stretched. Asking a genuine question instead of assuming someone’s fine because they haven’t said otherwise. Building a culture where flexibility is a considered, standing offer rather than something people have to justify needing.
The sandwich generation isn’t going anywhere. As life expectancy rises and people have children later, more of your best leaders will find themselves in this position, not fewer. The organisations that get ahead of this won’t do it with a single policy update. They’ll do it by building genuine, everyday practices that treat caregiving as a normal part of a working life, not an inconvenient exception to it.
If you’re leading through this yourself, or leading people who are, what’s actually helped? I’d love to hear what’s worked in your workplace.
If you’re navigating this yourself, or thinking about how to better support leaders on your team who are, get in touch. We work with organisations across Newcastle and Sydney on building leadership cultures that genuinely support people through the realities of working life.
Stacey Kelly is Director at Seed People Consulting, a boutique organisational development consultancy based in Newcastle, Australia. Seed People Consulting works with leaders and organisations on leadership, team effectiveness, and culture.
