How Workplaces Can Help Employees Battling Cancer?

This is why it is important to know your workplace rights. Understanding what legal protections and accommodations exist enable employees to navigate treatment and work without fear of discrimination.

Working while undergoing Cancer treatment provides more than just financial support. It provides the ability to maintain a sense of normalcy, connect with others socially, and continue to contribute meaningfully to the world. It can be difficult working through treatment related scheduling, side effects, and fatigue.

Benefits of staying at work when you can:

• A source of financial security, during treatment
• A source of emotional and social support from colleagues at work
• A source of control, stability, and routine
• Access to health insurance and employee benefits competitors don't provide

You cannot be treated unfairly in the workplace simply because you are diagnosed with Cancer.

• You cannot be fired, demoted, or not promoted because of your illness.
• You cannot be excluded from a hiring decision because of your medical condition.

In many countries cancer is addressed under disability laws ensuring additional protections for employees from bias.

Cancer treatments like chemotherapy or radiation can lead to side effects including fatigue, nausea and multiple hospital visits. Employees have the right to reasonable changes to their work environment, including:

• Flexible working enabling remote work or varied hours
• More frequent breaks throughout the day
• Change to workloads or deadlines
• Access to ergonomic furniture or private area to rest

These changes ensure employees can be productive without compromising their health.

Various countries will have legal entitlements for leave, allowing absence from work for medical treatment for example:

• In India employees are legally entitled to medical leave through adherence to labor laws, although this will vary in the public/private sectors.
• Other countries will have time off for cancer care as a policy, or have long term illness as an aspect of disability benefits.

Looking at both national laws and HR policy in your organization will assist with what entitlements you will have.

Your employer cannot discuss your medical condition with other workers unless you provide consent. Any health information provided to HR or management must be private and confidential. This right prevents unwanted stigma or gossip in the workplace and ensures employees are only known by their performance not their health.

If you are fulfilling your job duties either with, or without, reasonable accommodation, an employer cannot fire you for your illness. Under most state laws, wrongful termination due to cancer is discrimination in the workplace.

• Communicate with HR: Ongoing communication with your HR department about treatment and needs will facilitate your future needs for accommodation, and other leave.
• Know Your Rights: Familiarize yourself with your country's labor laws and, if you feel it would be useful, reach out to an employment attorney.
• Surround Yourself with Trusted Support: Identifying trusted peers or supervisors can help reduce stress and keep you on track at work.
• Give Health Priority Over Work: Ultimately, you cannot feel guilty for prioritizing your treatment, health and recovery over deadlines.

Employers have the obligation to build inclusive workplaces. By being flexible and by ensuring that stigma is pushed out of the workplace, it fosters an environment in which employees affected by cancer feel included rather than pushed to the side in every aspect of life. Employers can develop more than just a compliance culture, but a culture built upon empathy and transparency that supports employees with health issues.

Cancer is not just a medical journey; it is often a workplace journey too. Knowing your legal rights enables you to protect your career as you heal. No one battling cancer should also have to battle their dignity as they return to work. Workplaces that support employee experiences during cancer challenges show true compassion and humanity, and are simply following the law.