Intel to provide health care support to parents of its employees in India

The initiative will be over and above the existing health-related benefits that the staffers get

Intel has introduced a special care programme in India to extend health care support to its employees’ parents. Through the Elder Care Program, the US-based hardware and semiconductor major aims to offer better work environment to employees and help them care for their elderly parents and relatives at home.

This will be in addition to the existing health-related benefits that the company offers to its more than 7,000 employees across the country.

The programme will provide employees access to a range of essential health and wellness services for their parents and parents-in-law including home health aide, transport and escorting to and from medical appointments, home nurse visits, general physician and physiotherapy visits, sample collection and report delivery for medical tests and a dedicated helpline number for free medical and counselling.

“We found in our own assessment there seems to be an increasing vulnerability that elderly seems to experience and this was coming to us from the data of medical claims of employees, percentage of claims and from which segment. We found that a large portion of that was coming in from the parents or the parent-in-laws,” said Preethi Madappa, director, human resource, Intel South Asia.

The company said it witnessed a gap in terms of supporting elderly relatives of its employees and this programme could potentially help in solving some of the pain points in employees’ minds.

Intel has tied up with a third party vendor for Elder Care Program that manages the services across the country including specific tier-II cities.  

Companies such as IBM, Deloitte, American Express have similar care programmes in India for the parents and in-laws of their employees. These benefits vary between healthcare-related support and counselling.  

Life expectancy in India has increased in the past few years and multiple studies suggest it will go up further. This certainly prompted Intel to design a programme for the elderly family members of our employees and especially for those who stays away from family, pointed out Madappa.

“We realised that employees feel that they are able to bring the best selves to work when they believe their entire well-being including family is taken care of. As a technology company we have best and the brightest young minds coming in but that also means their families and parents’ support is another aspect to be considered,” said Madappa.