Canadian HR Strategy

Fall/Winter 2015

Human Resources Issues for Senior Management

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06/CANADIAN HR STRATEGY I t's a condition widespread enough to be almost common- place, yet many employers could be doing more to address one of the most prevalent health problems in the work- force: Diabetes. So Canadian HR Reporter hosted a special roundtable in Toronto, moderated by lead editor Sarah Dobson and sponsored by Sun Life Financial, to take a deep-dive look at the issue. "When we know that 3.4 million Canadians are suffer- ing from diabetes, that's a huge number," says David Satok, corporate medical director at Rogers Communications in To- ronto during the roundtable. When you account for those with pre-diabetes as well, the to- tal jumps to a startling nine mil- lion people, he says. "That's a huge burden to soci- ety — and to the individual, it's an incredible impact. So we have to think about the individual, about society, about the work- place and all kinds of (factors)." It's clear this is a signi cant national problem, says Shana Kapustin, director of human resources at SYNNEX Canada in Toronto — and it's quite a pricey one. "From our perspective, for the last ve to seven quarters, it's consistently been our highest drug use," she says. "And if we don't start doing things such as education, pre- vention, maintenance, this will only get worse." We've already seen an increase in cases of diabetes, says Seema Nagpal, director of public policy at the Canadian Dia- betes Association in Ottawa. "The stats would show that between 2000 and 2010, the population with diabetes doubled in Canada from 1.3 million to 2.5 million. And today, it's at 3.3 million," she said. "So it's increasing every day. Twenty-nine per cent of the population has diabetes or pre-diabetes, and we expect that to continue to rise — unless we continue to pursue these prevention programs which have been shown to decrease the impact of diabetes." MEET THE PANELLISTS (FROM LEFT) Seema Nagpal, Canadian Diabetes Association Patrizia Piccolo, Rubin Thomlinson Shana Kapustin, SYNNEX Canada David Satok, Rogers Communications Joana Oliveira, Softchoice Valerie Taylor, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Diabetes It can mean sizeable drug costs along with disability claims and accommodation requests, but a recent roundtable offers up answers By Liz Bernier with Dealing PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER POWER

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