The Work & Cancer blog - advice for employers and HR professionals

  • Rights at work for employees with cancer: a guide to what you need to know

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    The Equality Act 2010 protects employees with cancer from being treated unfairly at work. This piece of legislation applies in England, Scotland and Wales. In Northern Ireland those with cancer are protected by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). If you have cancer, the law considers you to be disabled and this legal protection applies even if you no longer need treatment or you move to another employer. Employment…

  • What is ‘Chemo brain’ – and how can you support an employee who is affected by it?

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Chemo brain refers to the cognitive changes that people with cancer may experience before, during and after cancer treatment. These changes may include having trouble with mental tasks related to attention span, thinking, and short-term memory. Many people describe this as a mental fog. The condition is common in cancer patients and survivors, and sometimes it continues for quite a while after treatment.

    Chemo brain is…

  • How can I embed a workplace policy on managing people with cancer and other long term conditions in my organisation?

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    This is a question to which there is no quick fix as it’s really about changing organisational attitudes and behaviour.  Support from the top makes a big difference, and too often it is the case that this only really happens when those people have been affected personally. I think there are three major areas where HR can contribute a great deal to effecting change:

     1.       Making the case to the top team, appealing to…

  • Returning to work after cancer: seven steps to success

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Going back to work, sometimes after many months with relatively little contact with your employer, can be a scary time. Some people’s diagnosis and/or physiology allows them to work during some – or even most – of their cancer treatment so returning to work is less of an issue. But for many, this simply isn’t the case.

    So it’s important to formally plan an employee’s return to work a few weeks…

  • Working Carers- The Lost Tribe?

    FormerMember
    FormerMember

    I remember it distinctly. It was just another rather mundane day at the office when I left a meeting to take an urgent phone call. One of our employees had recently become a dad but now – just a few weeks later – a routine blood test had revealed that his wife had acute myeloid leukaemia. She would need to spend many weeks in hospital in isolation and would be unable to care for their new baby. Shocked and floundering…