Everyone needs the odd day off here or few days there, but what if one of your employees had a long-term illness? If we take cancer as an example. Over 2120,000 employees are diagnosed every year, so there is a significant likelihood that someone within your organisation will be faced with a diagnosis at some point.
The hidden cost of chronic illness
Productivity, output and engagement are major issues for your organisation, but especially so when it comes to profit margins. Whether you manage a team or own a company, efficient output and profits are clearly vital in order to maintain a successful and smooth-running operation.
Boost productivity
Cancer affects people in many ways. They go through a wave of emotions, treatments and practical issues such as travelling to and from appointments, looking after the home and for many, trying to function at work.
However, if employees are unable to deliver their best performance then most likely, output will be lower and perhaps, a decreased quality of goods and/or services produced. The immediate cost of having an absent employee is not only sickness pay but also the cost to fill the interim gap they leave.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to reduced productivity, but it is essential to have preparations in place to help your staff to either stay in work or return to work more easily.
For example, are they able to cope with their previous workload? Be mindful that they may not be able to handle the breadth of tasks that they used to before and they may experience stress at this realisation.
Drive employee engagement
Some may be coping well whilst others may feel depressed and anxious. And perhaps, even struggle to manage their physical symptoms.
As an employer, HR team or manager, you probably think you would recognise if something were amiss with a team member. But it can often be hard for teammates and line managers to spot if a fellow employee is struggling, especially when over 1 in 3 revealed that they would cover up their symptoms at work4.
The rest of the team
It’s not just a chronically ill employee who is a concern to the organisation. Their team will be watching how the employer responds to and handles the situation, as well as how the individual is treated.
Your business won’t just be paying out for reduced output from current staffing issues but most likely, increased payments for overtime and additional staff. An absent colleague will likely cause additional work pressure. Extra workloads will have a deep impact on motivation for others to do their own job as well as that of their colleague’s.
Opening up the conversation
Over recent years employee wellbeing has firmly made its way onto the business agenda. Regardless of what initiatives you have in place, ensure that you are expanding your wellbeing strategy to include support for chronic illness, such as arthritis and heart disease. There are a variety of support measures you could incorporate into your benefit offering.
Training
Organisations can often get into the mindset that they are training their staff adequately, their managers have fantastic people skills and they have a variety of benefits in place, but does this translate at employee level?
Worryingly, nearly 1/2 of HR decision-makers we surveyed don’t believe their own line managers are equipped to manage cancer in the workplace3. Some managers may not know what to say or how to react, or even be unfamiliar with your company’s procedures.
Perhaps this impact would be felt less with more training for managers to boost their confidence to support employees. It can be as little as educating managers on symptoms and treatment options so they have a better understanding of what to look out for and what their employees could be going through.
Support provisions
It doesn’t matter what size business you are, you need to ensure you can be there for an employee in a time of need. Providing an inclusive and cost-effective benefit to help in situations of chronic illness will reward both you and your employee. However, you do not necessarily need to worry about having support in place for each of your headcount. Instead, have an initiative or process which can be quickly implemented and adapted should the need for it arise.
Health and wellbeing strategy
Looking after the wellbeing of employees is a hugely important requirement for organisations, however cancer and wider issues such as employee-carers, don’t often feature heavily as a consideration.
48% of employers said that within the next 12 months their wellbeing strategy will support employees with cancer and those caring for a family member3.
This is great news but what are organisations doing today?
Only 6% of employees have a cancer support programme as part of their benefits package, whilst 82% either don’t know if they have cancer support or know that their employer does not have any cancer support in place4. There are two obvious assumptions here: a lack of communication about what benefits they have access to, or that the culture does not make having this type of conversation possible.
If the worst happens to one of your employees, does your organisation show its best side?
Absence and decreased output may only become apparent after a while, at a certain stage of a project, or if a fellow employee raises the issue. Your organisation needs to be prepared in order to prevent the direct and indirect costs of chronic illness. The monetary cost of providing support and provisions will ultimately be less than the unexpected costs required to make up the absences.
If you want to be a great and caring employer then you need to be providing relevant and inclusive support, but caution is needed. The solution isn’t to purchase several health benefits and ask your employees to filter through them to see if any of them can help (if they even know where to find them). Instead, develop an environment whereby members of staff can identify employees who may be suffering with an illness, or can spot the signs that someone is struggling.
Being supportive of your employee will make a huge difference. It’s more than giving them time off or letting them work from home but tailoring your support around their changing needs. Knowing that whatever happens, support will be there for them when and if they need it, is something employees increasingly rely upon – even if they don’t realise it.
Fostering a supportive workplace will enable a boost in employee engagement and productivity, minimising the financial risks to your business.
Do you know how many of your employees have cancer or are caring for someone with a diagnosis?
Our simple calculator can show you the potential cost of absenteeism and productivity loss in your organisation.
