what to say to a colleague diagnosed with cancer

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​It was September 2008 when Eileen Z. Fuentes, then 34 and a female parent of iii young girls, received stunning news: She had stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer, a particularly aggressive form of the illness.

At the time, she was a human resource manager at a New York hospital. Though she received practiced medical intendance and support from her supervisor, she says she witnessed some unfortunate mistakes past her colleagues.

For example, a clerical employee violated her wellness information privacy past commenting on a test that showed a blood clot in Fuentes' eye, a side effect of her treatment. And delays by co-workers in processing her long-term-disability forms forced her to have to render more than $1,000 in pay, she says.

In both situations, "I know it wasn't done maliciously," says Fuentes, who lives in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J. "But I took it personally."

When people learn they have cancer, many thoughts get through their minds: What treatment will I demand? Will my insurance cover it? What about my family? Fuentes experienced all of this and more. But she says her colleagues' missteps threw her for a loop. When you are fighting cancer, "The concluding thing you want to worry about is [other] people doing their task," she says.

An estimated ane.vii million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2016.

In addition, she would have liked more than a bureaucratic response to her affliction from her employer. "I wanted them to let me know that someone's paying attention," she says. "I wanted them to be human beings."

Privacy or Protection?

An estimated one.7 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed this twelvemonth. About 1,630 people a solar day are expected to die of the disease in 2016. It's the second most common cause of decease in the U.South., post-obit only centre illness.

Even though it touches then many people, cancer presents a quandary for Hr professionals about how much they can—and should—reach out to those affected. Employers must provide sure benefits and protections, such as those guaranteed by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Exit Act, merely at the same time they are obliged to protect medical privacy under other laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Also, workers don't even accept to tell their employers if they are diagnosed with a life-threatening affliction; they tin simply report existence ill and request time off to deal with information technology.

Sometimes an employee will inform his or her supervisor nigh a cancer diagnosis only the director doesn't tell HR. In other instances, HR professionals are told a person has cancer but experience it is not their place to go involved. Occasionally, the diagnosis becomes known to the employer only afterwards medical claims attain the health insurer.

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Answer Swiftly

Regardless of how the news comes out, the result of not getting timely and relevant data to employees with cancer is frequently substandard care, increased costs, a loss of productivity and angst all around.

Offering a patient-navigation benefit can help connect people to the resources they need without violating their privacy. This service allows them to go information and advice from a "navigator"—in some cases a trained health care professional person—who is not an employee of the company.

"Navigation services are a big help," says Karen van Caulil, chair of the National Business Coalition on Health and CEO of the Florida Health Care Coalition, an employer group based in Winter Springs, Fla.

Notwithstanding, says Rebecca V. Nellis, chief mission officer of Cancer and Careers, an educational organization based in New York City, in the effort to manage cancer in the workplace, "Nosotros're pushing a large rock up a mountain slowly."

Ane reason the journey is and then challenging to navigate is that it is unique for each person. The catchall term "cancer" really refers to more than 100 singled-out diseases, each of which has varying symptoms, treatments and prospects for recovery. No ii patients face the same experience—and organizations differ widely in their responses to the condition.

"It varies dramatically from workplace to workplace. At that place's not a one-size-fits-all response," says Barbara Hoffman, founding chair of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship and a faculty member at Rutgers School of Police force-Newark in New Jersey.

That said, there are three crucial areas of back up that employers should strive to offer to workers who have cancer:

• Determining which handling is most appropriate and how it tin can exist provided.
  

• Agreement health care, disability and other employer-provided benefits.
  

• Dealing with the emotional impact of the affliction.
  

"It's important for benefits professionals to understand that gaps exist in all these iii areas," says Jeremy Nobel, medical director of the New York City-based Northeast Business concern Group on Wellness. Cancer-related benefits and some insurance payment systems "are totally opaque to most employees and, arguably, to many benefits professionals," he says.

Oft, employees who accept just been given a devastating diagnosis have trouble absorbing even conspicuously explained data.

"When you get cancer, there's non a whole lot of time for instruction," says Martin J. Murphy, CEO of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer and AlphaMed Consulting in Durham, N.C. Despite being a veteran health care provider, Murphy remembers the shock he felt when he received his own cancer news. "I had to ask, 'What did you say about a tumor?' " he recalls. "It took a couple of times" for the doctor'due south statements to sink in.

The challenge for employers is pregnant. "Yous have all these benefits and programs and services, and y'all communicate and communicate and communicate. But in a crisis, the person doesn't recall," says van Caulil.

According to the National Business Group on Wellness and the National Comprehensive Care Network, employer-provided cancer benefits should include:

• A medical do good.
  

• A pharmacy plan.
  

• Clinical support and condition management.
  

• Short-term inability.
  

• Family medical leave.
  

• An employee assist plan.
  

• Health improvement programs.
  

Medical experts and cancer survivors recommend that employers formalize the steps that any supervisor or HR professional person should take when an employee reports that he or she has cancer or another serious disease.

A team approach with a quick, coordinated response is advocated by Brenna Shebel, director of the Institute on Health Care Costs and Commitment at the National Business concern Grouping on Health in Washington, D.C. The physician or a wellness plan representative can initiate a meeting that includes the employee, HR, the employee'due south supervisor and a representative from the employee assistance programme.

The person running the meeting should demonstrate compassion but avert speculative statements such every bit "You'll be all right," experts say. The leader should explicate the worker's legal rights and protections, including visitor benefits and policies, and guide a discussion most workplace modifications and accommodations—such as paid time off, go out-sharing, flexible or part-time hours, telecommuting, job restructuring, and leaves of absence.The meeting host should too ask questions well-nigh the worker'south preferences, including whether he or she plans to inform colleagues near the diagnosis. It's also a adept thought to identify an office signal person who will serve as the worker's contact when he or she is absent and craft a plan for how work volition be handled. The coming together leader may besides want to encourage the worker to contact one of the 64 comprehensive cancer centers in the U.S. for more information.

Federal law prevents an employer from discriminating confronting an employee with cancer. However, if a worker exhausts legally protected go out periods and doesn't indicate that he or she plans to return to work, information technology may be possible to terminate that private. Fifty-fifty so, that desperate action might be hard to defend in courtroom—and would almost certainly harm the organisation'southward reputation and employee morale.

Training Helps

Teaching managers and Hour professionals how to respond when an employee receives a cancer diagnosis can brand a huge deviation. Checklists and documents outlining appropriate steps include those offered by Workplace Transitions and the Job Adaptation Network.

Nonetheless, Nobel notes, "There's not a lot of systematic guidance that'south easily digestible and easy to deploy."

'An accommodation can be something similar having a printer at the employee's desk so they don't take to run upwards the stairs all the time.'
- Rebecca V. Nellis, Cancer and Careers

Employers may proactively determine to customize existing materials for their workplaces. Often, yet, it is only after going through the experience of supporting an employee with cancer that organizations come up to realize the optimal process. "Companies have a lightbulb moment," Nellis says. "Then things get implemented."z

Typically, accommodations for cancer patients are comparable to those for other individuals with disabilities.

"An adaptation tin can be something similar having a printer at the employee's desk so they don't accept to sew together the stairs all the time," Nellis says. The worker's point person tin can keep the patient up-to-date about activities he or she has missed and manage the menstruation of information, preventing overload. "Nosotros meet this happen all the time when someone goes on maternity get out."

Managers must be coached to make carefully thought-out statements to the employee's team members to let them know that no i is receiving special handling—particularly if the employee's diagnosis is not widely known. For example, Nellis suggests saying, "Jane is availing herself of some benefits that the company provides. If you were in that position, here's what you lot would be getting."

Even in offices where employees have told their colleagues they have cancer, ill workers typically want to exist treated like everyone else. "Maintaining a sense of normalcy is very important for a person diagnosed with cancer," Shebel says.

When the employee returns to work, recognize that he or she likely will demand standing intermittent fourth dimension off. "Re-onboard them without overwhelming them," Nellis advises.

Companies that demonstrate success in managing workers with cancer can earn the CEO Cancer Gold Standard laurels from the CEO Roundtable on Cancer. The Buffalo Niagara Human Resources Association partnered with the American Cancer Society starting in 2012 to encourage employers to seek that designation. Nationally, award winners include Avis Budget Grouping, State Subcontract, Dell, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis.

For employers to respond effectively to cancer, "HR folks demand to exist empowered," Murphy says. "Health and health has to exist a cadre value of the CEO."

Reaching Out

Suzanne Garber was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2002 while working every bit a managing director at a large logistics company. She says it bothered her that "Hr was completely absent-minded from my event. I recollect at that place is an unstated expectation by ill employees that their organization volition intendance near them, whether that means a telephone call, a card or a personal message." Such contact "tin can hateful the difference between feelings of alienation and indifference and the motivation to alive," she adds.

When Garber learned that an employee in a dissimilar department was ill and on leave, she sent a handwritten card to his family. Although she did non know what the worker's affliction was, she included her private telephone number in case any family unit members wanted to contact her. Every bit it turns out, they did: The family unit invited Garber to visit the employee in the infirmary, where he expressed his gratitude that someone had reached out.

Garber has been cancer-gratuitous for more than a decade and is now CEO of Philadelphia-based Gauze, which manages a global hospital database. When an Hr professional showtime learns of an employee's serious disease, "the legal and regulatory framework just takes over," she says. "What's lacking in so many companies is the human bear on."

Garth Callaghan has had a much different feel with his employer. He ofttimes works from home, with flexible hours, as an Information technology recruiter for Experis, a segmentation of ManpowerGroup. In fact, when he interviewed with Experis in 2013, he informed the company that he was recovering from cancer surgery. And a few months afterward he started his new job, he had to sit down with visitor officials and explicate that his cancer had returned. This time, he was told, there is no cure.

'Don't forget that this person is scared for their life. Be empathetic.'
- Garth Callaghan, Experis

When he is having a bad day, he shoots an email to his manager. He might take a nap. He gets no pushback. "I'thousand very thrilled with how I'm beingness treated in my state of affairs," says Callaghan, who lives in Glen Allen, Va., and is also an author and inspirational speaker. "I realize that it might not be the norm."

His communication for HR professionals when people share that they have cancer: "Don't forget that this person is scared for their life. Exist empathetic. Utilize words that show that you're on the same side every bit the employee."

The Long-Lasting Bear on

Equally a veteran recruiter who owned her own company when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, Gail Tolstoi-Miller had a lot to navigate, both personally and professionally. She notes that people who get cancer wonder, "Am I going to take a job when I go dorsum to work? Are they going to see me as weak?"

'Employers demand to realize that cancer is not done when you have the last treatment.'
- Gail Tolstoi-Miller, Consultnetworx

Over the years, "I've heard stories where companies are amazing. I've heard stories where companies are not supportive," says Tolstoi-Miller, CEO of Consultnetworx, a consultancy, and Speednetworx, a networking outcome visitor, based in Livingston, North.J. "Employers need to realize that cancer is non washed when y'all have the final treatment," she says. "It'south like a mail service-traumatic affair" that impacts the psyche of the employee indefinitely.

"We need to bring some pity back to the workplace," says Tolstoi-Miller, who is now in remission. "Employees requite their all. Nosotros owe them."

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Consider a Patient Navigator

Fuentes says she is now free of cancer. Merely the disease tested her, and her struggle was intensified past the contempo deaths of her begetter and her brother. "I was determined to take all the hurting, hardships and struggles and turn them into a positive," she says.

She used her feel to transform her career. Since September 2015, Fuentes has worked as a navigator for chest and gynecological cancer patients.

"I'm sort of a benefits case managing director. I assistance people fill out forms and tell them what they need to know. I'm their abet," she explains.

"Information technology is non completely a career change," she says. She feels she is offer others a more personal class of human resources—the kind she never got from her own onetime employer.

Steve Bates is a freelance announcer in the Washington, D.C., area and a quondam writer and editor for SHRM.

Opening photo: Eilleen Z. Fuentes. Photograph by Susan Farley.

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Source: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0616/pages/how-to-support-employees-with-cancer.aspx

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