We estimate this year alone 160,000 people of working age will be diagnosed with cancer.
Even just a few years ago cancer could still be perceived as something that happens to ‘older’ people, but not anymore.
The number of people developing cancer is growing and people are getting it younger.
A new study this August in the Lancet Public Health, a medical journal, indicated that a Gen X or millennial is more likely to develop certain types of cancer than their baby boomer parents.
So what happens to clients and businesses, including your business, when a serious illness like cancer strikes?
Our own insight amongst 500 people of working age with cancer revealed that many people struggle to work with the disease.
It’s not just the physical effects, but the emotional and psychological ones as well.
It’s impossible to not also think about the job practicalities and what it means in terms of needed time off and the financial and practical support your employer may (or may not) offer.
The average employee will be absent from work for 15 weeks (approximately 75 working days based on full-time employment) as part of their cancer journey.
At each stage this looks like:
- Pre-diagnosis worries and symptoms: 12 days off.
- Diagnosis and testing: 16 days off.
- Treatment: 24 days off.
- Recovery: 23 days off.
For employers this equates to a potential £1.6bn a year in annual absence costs due to cancer (based on an assumption of 160,000 people being diagnosed and an average salary of £34,963).
Many employees struggle with the idea of letting their boss know what is going on with them and when is the best time to tell them about their diagnosis.
We found that more than half of employees (55 per cent) only tell their employer after their cancer diagnosis has been confirmed, meaning most employees will take 28 days off work before they let their HR team or employer know.
This could be for many reasons, maybe they are worried about what their employer will say or what it means for them in practical terms with work.
What is clear is that when it comes to employee benefits there is still a way to go to bridge the gap between what is offered by employers to employees with cancer and how employees feel about their benefits packages.
More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of employees with cancer do not believe that the employee benefits offered to them while on their cancer journey met all their needs.
This view is consistent across different salary levels; both higher and lower earners say they are dissatisfied.
Almost seven in 10 (68 per cent) of those who earn more than £5,000 per month say they do not believe their employee benefits meet all their cancer needs.
Lower earners are even more dissatisfied, with 90 per cent of those that earn under £1,500 a month stating the same.
Given that one in two of us will develop some form of cancer in our lifetime, for employers and employees, benefits such as critical illness, private medical insurance, accident and sickness have therefore probably never been as important as they are now, so it’s important to get them right.
