Sick at Work: The Chronically Ill Workplace
We measure a society by how it treats its most vulnerable. After companies fired employees as they slept, let's check in on how they treat chronically ill people at work.
We know companies are comfortable firing hundreds of thousands of people after many years of service, and while on sick, family or bereavement leave. Others were fired as they arrived at work, or after being awoken when their computers rebooted overnight.
Chronically ill and disabled employees are some of the most vulnerable who remain at those companies. I’m five months into long COVID. It’s no picnic, but my privlidges mean that have made it easier than it’s been for many others.
I talked with several people people working in professional environments while managing chronic illnesses. I wanted to see how they’re holding up. I don’t speak for all chronically ill or disabled people, but I can share some of the ideas and suggestions some of them shared with me.
Healthy people rarely fake illness, but sick people fake wellness every day. They have to, in order to pass muster in our ableist workplaces. These are difficult stories to tell, for some reasons that you’d expect and some that may surprise you.
There’s a strange bit of etiquette that makes it impolite for sick people to tell healthy people how they’d like to be treated. I talked that over with my sick friends, and we’ve decided to put that aside for a minute.
Here’s why: Well-meaning co-workers want to do the right thing, but sometimes those things come out a little bit wrong.
How you can help
You can help people who are experiencing chronic illness or disability at work. Give them a hand, and they’ll get along a little more easily. Here’s how:
People who are sick at work appreciate knowing that you’re thinking of us. We do appreciate it when you ask how we’re feeling. If you ask about our illness every time you see us, we might start to wonder why you’re asking. Are you starting to see only our illness? We sometimes start to feel a little bit erased. It might be better to just say “Hi how are you?” That might feel just a little bit more normal.
If you’re a boss or our manager, show your concern by extending extra flexibility in how we work. This includes the official accommodations we’ve requested, and by asking if other arrangements would also be helpful. Perhaps afford some extra courtesies, like covering for us when we need to get to an appointment, helping us get around the office, and stuff like that.
You can understand and even embrace the idea that the accommodations we’ve requested at work won’t get us back to where we started. We are working twice as hard to get the same job done. That’s going to have to be good enough. We’re not looking for special recognition. We ask for a little extra patience.
Your health is a private matter, and so is ours. Some aspects of our illness may be exposed while we are ill at work. But that doesn’t make it open season on our privacy. Please don’t put us in the position of answering questions if you don’t really need the answers. Asking health questions to satisfy your curiosity is way out of bounds.
Chronically ill people wish a lifetime of good health on our managers, and those who process our leave and benefits. There is no reason for skepticism or doubt from people who serve in these roles. A manager should not assume that a worker is no longer ill because you don’t see our symptoms. Sometimes that’s the result of our hard work to conceal them, which we might do to make ourselves feel better, or to make ourselves seem better.
If and only if we voluntarily discuss our illness, diagnosis, treatment, or prognosis with you, consider that an invitation to share your thoughts. Otherwise, the subject is off-limits. Don’t consider your awareness of our illness to be a license to share your suggestions or details of your illness or others’ illness with us.
We know you mean well when you say we look healthy. With love, it’s not appropriate to comment on a co-worker’s appearance. Maybe it once was, but the world has changed. It’s not anymore. We talked to our friends in the not-chronically-ill community. This advice landed well with them also. Let’s all just run with it! 🤠
According to the Working with Cancer Pledge, 50% of people with cancer are afraid to tell their employers. Half of people will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetimes. Eliminating the stigma of illness, normalizing disclosure, encouraging accommodation, and supporting recovery at work are all essential steps towards acknowledging the reality of what it means to employ a human and humane workforce.
On disability accommodations
One last word on disability leave or accommodations. Remember that no one stays healthy forever. One is young for a fairly short time. If you can foresee the possibility that you may get sick or old some day, your investment in empathy and equity now could pay off richly in patience and understanding later.
Not all chronically ill people seek accommodations, although many may be entitled to them under the law. Know that people with people often wrangle for a long time with reluctance and shame before formally requesting accommodations. Managers should think about that when considering how vigorously to support their disabled employees at work.
Business owners enjoy no legal entitlement or natural prerogative to pursue their fortune while employing only vigorously healthy people. In fact, the law strenuously forbids employers from discriminating against us when we are sick, pregnant, disabled, or older.
Ask yourself if the aversion to offering accommodations arises from the slight inconvenience they pose to your pursuit of ever-increasing wealth. One way to test this would be to consider whether you’ve ever knowingly chosen to hire a disabled or chronically ill employee.
About COVID
This report, from the nonpartisan Center for American Progress, saysthe reality of Covid means that American workplaces must be re-imagined with disability-forward policies. That’s going to require some significant changes.
Before COVID, 1 in 4 Americans required ADA accommodations at some point in their life. As of December 2022, 7% of adults reported experiencing long COVID. That’s 17.3 million people, a little less than 10% of the workforce. 80% of those reported symptoms that impact their ability to carry out day-to-day activities.
From the report: “The failure of employers and policymakers to better accommodate disabled people in the labor market also represents a major drag on the economy, particularly as poor accommodations decrease employers’ ability to access the full pool of talent available.”
It continues, “Disabled people who are also part of another marginalized group, such as disabled people of color or disabled LGBTQI+ people, tend to experience large employment, wage, and wealth gaps as they bear intersecting and compounding systems of oppression.”
These vulnerable people deserve their employers’ best efforts to keep them safe at work. Accommodations for workers with illnesses like long COVID, cancer, and other chronic conditions and disabilities are surely a difficult task.
This should prove easier though, than the difficult decisions that led profitable companies to fire hundreds of thousands of productive people in the middle of the night.
Please share your feedback or ideas about how to accommodate chronic illness or disabilities at work. I welcome your comments below.