Background:
Cancer diagnoses are most prevalent among working-aged individuals (25-64), accounting for approximately 40% of all cases. Given earlier diagnosis, increasing survival rates, higher work participation rates, (due in part to increasing financial pressures, and delayed retirement) we can expect more people to experience the challenges of balancing work and cancer.
Aims:
The aim is to provide equitable access to enduring work for all, beyond simply returning to work. The key is to enable people with cancer to fully realise their personal and professional goals, and collaboration is essential. Thus, Tiedtke captures how “the interests of employer and employee in relation to return to work are interrelated; both have responsibility and a role to play, and both are in need of support.” Furthermore, Branicki et al., in discussing responsible work and cancer, states the importance of “partnership for mutual benefit, on-going tailored adjustments, extraordinary, discretionary support exceeding the accommodations that employees expect.”
Method:
My lived experience provided the catalyst to explore two questions: Was my experience unique as a woman executive leader, aged 60? If the situation were reversed, how would I have supported the person, and in what way would the outcome have been more positive?
The literature validates that my experience was not unique, and as a line manager pre-diagnosis, it is unlikely that I would have had the knowledge and resources to effectively support someone with cancer.
Results:
LiveWorkCancer is a project that will build and deliver person-centred supportive care, orchestrating and empowering collaboration between employees, employers, and other stakeholders such as specialists and allied health service providers.
The project supports employees living with or after cancer to navigate work and careers. This is made available on a pro bono basis, empowering them to retain or regain purposeful work participation, no matter their insurance, position, industry, culture, socioeconomic status, or location (urban or rural, remote).
The program also supports employers to create a more CancerKind workplace, promoting enduring work for all employees with chronic diseases such as cancer.