About Heather

I'm Heather Laing, founder of Complex Caregiver Solutions. After more than 20 years leading HR and Talent organizations, I now help employers improve retention, productivity, and workforce resilience by better supporting employees raising children with neurodevelopmental, medical, behavioral, or emotional needs. My work is informed by both executive HR leadership and my lived experience as the parent of a child with complex needs.

Here is how I got here.

In 2021, I landed my dream job as Head of People at a fast-growing startup. After nearly 20 years in HR and Talent leadership, I had supported employees through divorces, health crises, family emergencies, and countless personal challenges that inevitably showed up at work. I finally had the opportunity to build a workplace where people could bring their full selves and still succeed professionally. At home, I was also raising two children, including a son with neurodevelopmental and behavioral needs, while balancing the demands of marriage, parenting, and leadership. Life was full, but it was good.

Then everything intensified at once. My son’s needs escalated just as the demands at work became heavier and more high-stakes. Working from home often meant managing employee investigations or layoffs while a child in crisis was just a few feet away on the other side of the door. In 2026, the company made difficult financial decisions that included eliminating my role. For the first time in years, I stopped long enough to realize I wasn't simply tired, I was deeply burned out from carrying a full-time HR role alongside the silent full-time work of being the primary caregiver for a child with complex needs.  

As I searched for support, I found a community of mothers navigating the same impossible tension between demanding careers and caregiving for children with complex needs. The relief of being understood was immediate, but so was the realization that almost none of us felt safe talking honestly about what we needed at work. We were quietly taking calls from schools, doctors, and pharmacies during executive meetings while pretending everything was under control. And the hardest truth hit me all at once: I was the Head of HR, and even I didn’t have the support I needed. This wasn’t an individual failure. It was a workplace system that had never been designed to recognize or support complex caregivers.

That realization led me to found Complex Caregiver Solutions. Through targeted benefits strategies, workplace policies, manager training, and community support, we help companies identify and retain the high-performing employees quietly carrying the invisible load of complex caregiving. Having sat on both sides of the desk, as the Head of People responsible for talent strategy and as the caregiver struggling to stay afloat, I understand both the human and business costs of getting it wrong. Today, I help organizations create cultures where caregivers can thrive without sacrificing their careers, reducing the risk of burnout and the loss of valuable talent while strengthening engagement, retention, and long-term workforce sustainability.