Travel companies urged to offer better support for employees with cancer

Working With Cancer has set a goal of getting 24 new travel companies to sign up to the pledge during 2024.

Many major travel companies have already signed up, including founding partners such as Marriott and Accor, while other supporters in the travel sector include British Airways, American Airlines, Airbus, Air Canada, Delta Airlines, Etihad Airways, Europ Assistance Group, Hotelplan, Qantas Airways, Red Carnation Hotels and Virgin Atlantic.

TTG Media is also supporting Working With Cancer in growing awareness of the pledge, and has signed up itself. People can also demonstrate their personal support – rather than making a pledge as a business – by visiting the website to create their own #workingwithcancer badge and helping spread awareness.

“In common with many companies, we have personal experience of people receiving a cancer diagnosis among our own team and wholeheartedly support Working With Cancer and this pledge,” said Dan Pearce, TTG Media’s CEO.

“We have made a start by signing up ourselves to say we will always listen and show care for any colleagues receiving such life-changing news, and we will work with them in a way that meaningfully supports them through treatment, listening to what they need and want.”

Solid principles

According to Working With Cancer, employers “cannot rely solely on the individual compassion and empathy of managers and employees to improve the experiences of colleagues who are navigating cancer treatment and recovery”.

Instead, the guidance is to embed solid principles of job redesign (in which work tasks are re-ordered to reduce workloads or work intensity) and to instigate a phased return to work and vocational rehabilitation plans within policies and practices to ensure all employees with a cancer diagnosis (and other chronic conditions) have the best chance of thriving at work once they return.

Clinical barriers such as profound fatigue, lack of stamina, the side effects of chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatment, frequent follow-up appointments and the need to avoid infection, for example, can interrupt regular attendance at work and make sudden and unpredictable absences from work common, the report by Working With Cancer also highlighted.

Some other barriers are psychological, such as lack of confidence, low self-esteem and a fear of what the next scan might reveal or a worry that colleagues see those with cancer as a burden or unreliable. Anxiety about being shunned at work; fear over the impact on job or career prospects; and colleagues not knowing how to talk to you are other common experiences reported by those with cancer.

On the positive side, research has also shown that almost 80% of those with cancer found employers had supported them ‘very well’ or ‘quite well’ as they returned to work and almost 90% reported good support from colleagues.

But only two-thirds of respondents had a phased return to work, and almost a quarter found they had been expected to use annual leave when receiving treatment.