Human Resources Issues for Senior Management
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/605961
08/CANADIAN HR STRATEGY medication, so maybe what I do is I do denial. "We know that about 57 per cent of people don't take their medication regularly — so what are we doing about that?" ACCOMMODATION Employers can help by providing simple, inexpensive accom- modations for employees. Those accommodations will vary from individual to individual, says Nagpal. "But some of the common things that we hear about are that people would ask for a private or a safe place to test their blood sugar, a private or a safe place to administer insulin, regular breaks so they can have snacks — and consistent throughout the day, they have ask for access to fast-acting sugar in case of a hypoglycemic event, or a place to rest if they experience hypoglycemia," she says. Often, employers are afraid of the costs of accommodating, says Patrizia Piccolo, partner at Rubin Thomlinson in Toronto. "They're often surprised when I say to them 'The average cost of accommodation of a disability, including diabetes, is $500 or less…' so if you think of that, those are minimal-cost accommodations that are so easy to incorporate into the work- place to allow that individual to be a productive member of that workplace, and to really allow them to ourish in the role." However, along with accommodation is, of course, the relat- ed challenge of self-disclosure, says Piccolo. "What we nd happens in most workplaces is the issues (aren't often self-reported), it's not usually a self-disclosure. It usually happens where we have someone who is suffering silently, and the issues manifest as performance issues — ab- senteeism, they're taking longer to do their work, they're con- stantly tired, they're not concentrating and so on. So manage- ment sort of brings it forward as a performance-related issue and deals with it on a performance basis," she says. "(But) trained management will stop and say, 'Is there way that they know they're capable of. So that impacts morale, it causes dif culty within teams if one person's not seen to be pulling their weight." People with Type 2 diabetes may often feel a sense of guilt or frustration, and there are some links with depres- sion, says Taylor. "There's lots of links between depression and diabetes — both Type 1 and Type 2 — and again, that's partly related to (the stress of) managing illnesses," she says. "We also know that, unfortunately, a lot of the treatments for people with mental illness cause weight gain and Type 2 diabetes. So sometimes, diabetes comes rst and then they develop dif culties with depression; sometimes the depres- sion is rst, and the treatments that we need in order to help somebody function with depression or another mental illness unfortunately causes weight gain and increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. We don't really understand exactly how that association works yet." There's also the whole issue of compliance with treatment, which can become a challenge with people who are feeling de- pressed, overwhlemed or frustrated. "Compliance is a big issue," said Satok. "I don't want to take "IF SOMEONE IS SUFFERING SILENTLY, IT CAN MANIFEST AS A PERFORMANCE ISSUE."