As an HR professional or Line Manager,
- How would you react if one of your staff told you that they had cancer?
- What would you say?
- How can you encourage an ongoing dialogue throughout the employee’s treatment and recovery?
- What would you tell the rest of the team?
- What changes in working practices may be required and how can these changes be managed?
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- hat would you do if someone in your team wanted time off to care for a member of their family with cancer?
- What is your company’s policy?
- How are people with cancer, and their carers, protected by employment legislation?
NDC’s Unique Cancer in the WorkplaceTM Coaching and Training Programme
- Approximately 42% of the working population has either had cancer or is now dealing with it.
- The number of people of working age with cancer is rising.
- The good news is that more and more people are surviving and wanting to return to work.
New Directions Coaching is proud to offer public and private sector clients a unique resource – our Cancer in the WorkplaceTM Coaching and Training Programme.
The Programme goals are two-fold:
- For employers, to provide corporate managers and HR specialists with the information and tools they need to efficiently and sensitively manage the effects of an employee’s cancer journey on the individual, their co-workers and the corporate culture in general. This enables managers to minimise any negative impact on employee productivity, scheduling and morale, while working within the current legal requirements regarding disability.
- For current and former patients, to empower the individual to retake control of his/her life after having been placed into the NHS care system for a significant period of time and to redevelop independent processes of thought and action to allow the individual to overcome the widely held perception of cancer as the effective end of one’s ability to have a “normal” life, both professionally and personally.
The Programme consists of 4 stand-alone modules and optional Individual and Group Coaching
- Cancer in the Workplace – An Introductory Workshop for Line Managers and HR personnel
- Cancer in the Workplace – An Advanced Workshop for Line Managers and HR personnel
- Cancer in the Workplace – Legal and Benefit Issues and the Equalities Act 2010
- Cancer in the Workplace – A Workshop for Senior Managers
NDC’s Forum TheatreTM forms an integral part of each Workshop, allowing participants to explore real-life issues in a challenging but safe environment and assisting them to develop the skills and behaviours to effectively and sensitively address the complexities resulting from cancer in the workplace.
The positive energy from our transformational courses results in the participants becoming aware of their true capabilities and how they can use this knowledge to achieve the goals they set for themselves, as well as to achieve the goals set for them within the organisational framework.
Our training and coaching models to both groups and individuals not only recognise individual differences in patterns of behaviour but also help participants to understand why both they – and others – behave as they do and how to adapt, change and model different, more successful behaviour for personal development and leadership. Our courses also look at the impact of behaviour on others and how to change and manage impressions for different situations.
Feedback is obtained through surveys, assessments, attendance at workshops and coaching sessions, focus groups and results. Based on survey and anecdotal data to date, Employer training has resulted in improved staff self-confidence and motivation in relation to effectively dealing with cancer in the workplace and improved understandings and partnerships between Line Managers and HR personnel with regard to dealing with staff cancer issues and team management.
How the Cancer in the WorkplaceTM Programme was developed
Working for 16 months in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Support, Mark Stevens designed and delivered a pilot project to assist former cancer patients to return to full-time employment and to enable corporate managers and HR specialists to efficiently and sensitively deal with the effects of cancer in the workplace.
The execution of this design was achieved through 1 to 1 coaching and group workshops for individual participants (employees) as well as bespoke training courses and group workshops designed for and provided to Employers, NHS staff and GP surgeries in Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
Line Managers and HR staff at local Employers, NHS facilities and GP surgeries were trained to encourage and support organisational change, staff management and culture, vision & values reinforcement, with the emphasis on self-awareness behaviour change, resilience, influencing techniques and impression management.
Individual coaching was based on a solution-focused methodology which centred on setting compelling and relevant goals and the focused attainment of these goals over a short period of time. The methodology is underpinned by insights from neuroscience and centres on decision action and learning from processes.