5 Tips for Employers to Encourage Productive Conversation Surrounding Disabilities and Chronic Illness by Hilary Jastram

* October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. To honor this, many of the Sound Wisdom blog articles this month are meant to educate about disability-related employment issues and celebrate the diverse contributions brought to the workplace by employees with disabilities.  

Last week, I led a call for the social interest group for The Good Men Project. We are called “Creating Success with a Disability.” The topic of the conversation dovetails perfectly with National Disability Employment Awareness Month (to my mind, anyway).  

Bringing awareness to the general population of people living with disabilities is a monumental task and that is mainly because this is a layered topic.  

Why don’t people want to look people in wheelchairs in the eyes? 

Because they are afraid of being rude and staring (likely), but more so, because they are uncomfortable. 

And why are they uncomfortable? 

Maybe the person’s disease or disability has more to do with their own fear of how they don’t want to see themselves. They are a voyeur from the outside looking in, making pronouncements about others’ realities. I was the same way. I did not understand the other side of the coin (yet). I didn’t know the range of emotions a person wielding a cane or using a chair or other helpful tool might feel. I didn’t understand that despite illness or disability, life could even improve on all levels. 

But there is definitely a range of feelings around the topic, which happens to be cushioned by the very way we regard and refer to people with disabilities. Words have power, and I am of the opinion that if we renamed “disability” with another word, we would find fault with it, too.  

Here’s one take on the definition of the prefix “dis-” from Merriam-Webster: “to treat with disrespect or contempt : insult; … [to] do the opposite of.” 

When we combine “dis” and “ability,” because of the way we have labeled this definition we create a person or state of being which is less than, which is the opposite of ability. 

Try being a person who has been told they are disabled. It is as if they have heard they are no longer able. Not only are they, for example, a woman, mother, wife, etc., but again, they are “no longer able.” Every time they receive a piece of material from the state or their insurance company, every time they have to explain their physical reality, they are repeating in their head, “I am not able.”  

This is not a far leap to “I am incapable,” and here you have the merry ride that leads us from perception to bias and fear, which feeds into our hiring practices. 

Societally, we have embraced that people who are still thriving, living, and participating in life are not able to complete tasks, to take care for or think for themselves, to get around autonomously, etc., simply because they have a disability. 

And this thought camp has been in effect for decades…since who knows when. 

Which is why the topic of disclosing a disability (or not) was selected for the first call for this new group. 

We had to wade into the weeds of how much to disclose, the liabilities of sharing too much, the responsibility we all have to educate people and change the perception of the chronically ill and disabled. We spoke of the desire to be open and explain without the resultant reaction of fear from a prospective employer or client, the need for accommodations. The need for real requirements to live, such as taking a nap during the day, or using a backup plan if plan A isn’t able to be implemented at the last minute, or moving offices, or allowing some work from home, exist. People who have disabilities and chronic illnesses are up against the stereotype that instantly befalls them upon diagnosis: they are lazy excuse makers; they are incapable of critical thinking (as if a perceived weakness in the body equals a frail mind). They want to just get by; they expect different (unfair or privileged) treatment. They will cost the company money because they won’t be able to meet deadlines, and on and on it goes. This stigma is emboldened by the people who do chase ambulances and who want to cave into their baser instincts to do nothing. 

But employers, you should know that chronically ill and disabled people are the poster children for work smarter, not harder…because we have no choice! We have to preserve stamina. We have to find the most efficient manners in which to complete our to-dos. If we don’t, we might suffer a setback. So many of us are parents who cherish making a living wage and who are overly proud of taking care of our families…despite our circumstances. 

Here are five tips employers/potential clients can implement during the next conversation with a person with a disability or chronic illness who is seeking a job/project. 

1. Listen to the accommodations needed with an open mind. Resist the urge to slam shut the door to more progressive conversation. Accommodations don’t mean lazy.  

2. Be open to more than one way to complete a task. Your new worker might need to finish her role in chunks, instead of in a marathon flash. He may need to rest to stave off his headache before picking up the ball again. That’s okay as long as your deadline is met. 

3. Speaking of deadlines, you can use several of them. Stating that you would like work turned in a little bit earlier than the true deadline when you need to implement a new program, etc., will give you a bit of a net. If that date cannot be met due to illness or other turns of events, then you are not sunk. You still have time. 

4. Your new employee doesn’t owe you a laundry list of their symptoms, and that’s all right, too. Treading carefully is no different in this case than in any other. Human curiosity doesn’t give us the right to pry into other people’s lives. If someone is not comfortable sharing, so be it. You can still discuss the accommodations needed without the dirty details of what may be embarrassing or a vulnerability. 

5. It is okay to question if there are any concerns that may get in the way of the job. Definitely check the laws and don’t proceed without doing so. But to move our conversations forward, we need to have deeper engagement. Would you hire a person who lived two hours away and didn’t have a car? If they weren’t sure they could be to the office on time, probably not. You can ask about the responsibilities the applicant or employee would be charged with and if they will be able to handle them. When I lost my job, the HR director and I had a similar conversation. It was open and honest, and it helped us both to make decisions. You have a job that needs to be done and you need a person who can do it. It is reasonable to talk about that. 

With the rising number of people receiving all sorts of diagnoses of diseases and disabilities, these conversations and the need to be sensitive and more honest than ever before will be paramount.

The founder of Sick Biz, Hilary Jastram uses her experience with chronic illness to support other entrepreneurs with disabilities and invisible illnesses in their journey toward success and freedom. Her book Sick Success: The Entrepreneur’s Prescriptions for Turning Pain into Purpose and Profit is available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and other major retailers.

When Sickness and Purpose Come Calling by Hilary Jastram

In conjunction with the release of my book, Sick Success: The Entrepreneur’s Prescriptions for Turning Pain into Purpose and Profit, it’s important to address the sickly elephant in the room. Namely…that more people are sick and hurting than you think.  

Maybe you’ve heard the buzzword: invisible illness. It’s bandied about, seeming to have little weight or meaning, but I want to invite you into my world for a minute to illustrate that this is not the case. 

Over half of Americans are chronically ill. This data from the CDC was provided in 2014, and the trend is continuing upward, so I posit, truly more than half are sitting (or likely lying down) in the throes of suffering. They aren’t experiencing the type of illness that clears up after a few days of rest. The states and qualities of people’s lives have changed—not to mention the people who are sick for an extended period of time (not lifelong) due to cancer treatment, or shorter-term disabilities. No, we are not a well country. 

Around April 1, 2014, my body waged mutiny. First, my feet felt like they were asleep for extended periods of time. No position change would alleviate it. Then, I experienced the sensation of wet patches on my legs (quite confusing after drying off after a shower), and the symptoms worsened. I had vertigo for seven months. I lost my job. I lost my identity. I lost my self-esteem. It was a bleak and dark time and there was only me…lurking on the computer to decipher the words of the doctor. “Neoplasm,” a.k.a. tumor. I was terrified and instantly isolated amidst family and loved ones begging to get in. 
 
Then, thankfully, my transverse myelitis stabilized enough to meditate on the “why.” And not the usual meandering thoughts of “why me?” But I pondered on “why did this happen, and what am I supposed to do with my new reality?” I had known a gentleman with cancer who had held a high position in a large, national corporation, and from my outside view, it seemed like he threw himself into his work even more than he had before his diagnosis. I started to wonder what the gift was, and truly, I was tired of viewing my life as a series of obstacles. It was easier to walk toward gaining a positive position than to prepare to fight myself…again. 
 
Sure, a tough childhood, blah, blah, blah. Marriage-go-round, whatever. We all have STUFF. I didn’t want this disease to become just another excuse to feel bad. I wanted to draw near to it, instead of inching away. I wanted to immerse myself in my experience of rewriting the existence I desired, one of inclusion and comfort. I wanted to be a part of the conversation to remove the stigma that sick and disabled people face. And I found intense empowerment, not just in my own life, but in discovering that helping others to see and use their own superpowers was a different kind of growing stronger.  
 
This true vulnerability repainted my life in different shades I never would have chosen if presented with the palette. 

I wrote about being open, confronting fear, misbeliefs, values that hadn’t served me and that had hurt others. I was willing to be molded by this wrench in the works, and I wanted others to experience what it felt like to freefall away from control. 

I wrote some more. In fact, mere weeks after my diagnosis that came five terrifying months and two neurologists later, I became a contributor to The Good Men Project. 

I am so grateful to Sound Wisdom for allowing the sounding board to share my experiences so they might benefit others. We are on this planet to love and Sick Success is your guidebook to emerging into strength from vulnerability in all areas of your life. 

You can reexamine the moments you will never forget for all the wrong reasons and learn there are no accidents—that if we respect the detours life throws in our way and we veer with a graceful heart we may find our purpose. So many times we are afraid to not fight; we want to resist what seems to go against our plans in life, the flimsy control we have exerted in our careers and relationships.  

As I often share with readers, we have a choice as to the level of pain we will experience. If we remain angry about what has befallen us—say, a diagnosis or loss—we will stay in the misery because we condemn ourselves to it.  
 
I came out of the fire. In some regards, I was lucky. But in others, I was deliberate and finally shucked off the pity I’d heaped on myself for years. I couldn’t be accepted or loved for who I was. I was exhausting. I was talkative, too energetic. I had weird tastes, hung out with odd people. And internally I screamed for decades. But this was my fault. I chose to live like that. I selected toxicity as if I had merely plucked a chocolate out of a box.  

The instant I took back the control to choose my reactions and actions is when I was set free. 

Sick Success is about finding your freedom from judgment, physical imprisonment, and the glass ceiling where we trap ourselves. It is about walking into our triggers to discover our mettle and owning our brilliance and gifts, and it’s also about understanding our responsibility to link to others and extend our gifts to them. It is about doing it all without fear or the threat that someone will sweep in and take it away. It is yours. No one else can even compare.  

When you read the book, I hope you will share with me how your life has transformed, simply by altering your thoughts, simply by shifting your perceptions into personal abundance. 

The founder of Sick Biz, Hilary Jastram uses her experience with chronic illness to support other entrepreneurs with disabilities and invisible illnesses in their journey toward success and freedom. Her book Sick Success: The Entrepreneur’s Prescriptions for Turning Pain into Purpose and Profit is available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and other major retailers.