I didn't realise you were my doctor

What, when and how to disclose your chronic illness at work.

It is always something that goes through our minds when we are going for an interview for a new job - when do I disclose my chronic illness to work? Do I need to? What if they don’t hire me because I told them I am chronically ill? What if I don’t and something happens to me? 

Interviews and finding a new job are stressful enough without having to navigate having a chronic illness. Even before getting to the interview, more companies are asking for disclosure around demographic information, including whether you have a disability. If you are anything like me, you will think, "what are they doing with this info?” “Will disclosing this help or hinder my chances of getting an interview?” “Am I even disabled?” 

We will never know for sure what they are doing with the information; the standard HR line is “we are just trying to understand the demographics of those applying to our company, to ensure we can get more underrepresented talent applying”. Whether this is the full truth or not, we will never fully know, but I would suggest discretion when disclosing this information. It is fully up to you whether you do, but I will occasionally, especially if there is clear disclosure that this information is not being used in the hiring process.

The hiring process

Now the hiring process itself is another hurdle. Depending on your chronic illness, this can come with challenges. Luckily, a lot of first interviews are now online, which minimises some of the stress of travelling to the interview, getting all dressed up, managing symptoms that can often be exacerbated by stress and being able to easily have prep notes to hand. However, depending on the job and the recruitment process, there may be multiple interviews, possibly in person and even an assessment centre activity, which may last a couple of hours. 

Navigating these situations can be stressful and fraught with anxiety, which can impact your performance within the recruitment process. I would suggest only disclosing if you think it will be beneficial, for example if you are doing half-day/full day assessment centre and you have some needs, especially safety needs around your chronic illness, then letting them know ahead of time may be best. However, oftentimes this is a judgment call and very much depends on the company and how they react. Unfortunately ,there's no cut and dry answer to this, but just know you're not the only one struggling with understanding whether you should disclose or not throughout the hiring process. 

Once you've got the job

If you've managed to get through all the insane hurdles of searching and finding a job and going through the recruitment process and managed to secure a job, now there's even more stress. Especially when you start a new job, you very much don't want to be seen deem you incapable or less than because of your chronic illness, which means that you often may not fully disclose or disclose at all your chronic illness or illnesses. 

For example, someone like me who has multiple chronic illnesses, I often only will tell them about ones that I think are going to be problematic or revolve around safety; such as my diabetes, especially when I have been travelling a lot as a consultant and staying in a hotel in a way from home. Whereas, for some of my other chronic illnesses I often don't disclose them, unless they are in a particular back period for example when I return to work after my extensive endometriosis and adneomyosis surgeries I was struggling a little too manage symptoms around new medication and side effects. However, beyond this certain period of life I would be reluctant to disclose my endometriosis and adneomyosis, as well as my other diagnoses, unless I was going through a treatment for them and would need extra flexibility and maybe some time off.

Unfortunately, though, by not disclosing, you can also set yourself up for being at risk of being deemed unproductive and unable to actually access your legal rights, such as reasonable adjustments. I know within the UK and New Zealand, you are deemed disabled legally in the law in terms of the workplace when you have a condition that lasts over six months, which means you are legally able to ask for reasonable adjustments. What these look like often however, are often not very direct and concrete, meaning people often don't know what they can ask for or not ask for, as in what is “reasonable”. This is when knowing your rights is very important, and what you can legally ask for. I would suggest looking at the charity related to your chronic illness and seeing what they have available around what they would recommend, as often they can be a great source of information.  

When you do disclose

If you're feeling comfortable and if you feel like you need to disclose your chronic illness to get the reasonable adjustments you deserve as well as make sure that you are not deemed as unproductive I would suggest disclosing in a way that best suits you. You do not have to tell your employer your medical history. They are on a “needs to know basis”. They only need to know what you want to tell them and what you need to be able to access your reasonable adjustments. Beyond that you can be setting yourself up for unfortunately discrimination, bullying, hazing and other really unpleasant workplace behaviours.  

I am sure, like me, you have had your fair share of people when you have disclosed a diagnosis that they go a whole “but you look so healthy” or “I only thought you got that from this” or “have you tried doing yoga?” Even if they don't say this and seem very reasonable to your face, often times they can be saying these things behind your back. This is the situation I have personally found myself in when I first joined a company there were very accommodating and willing to accommodate me. However, when I changed clients suddenly my performance was being put into question, with my inability to be in the office more. It was suddenly a problem even though they didn't have any real strict guidelines and everyone else largely wasn't in the office. Instead of telling me that they wanted me to come into the office more or have a discussion around this where I could go to HR and have it noted as  actual official reasonable adjustment, I was having my name dragged through the dirt.

This means that I was now being deemed as unreliable, difficult, and the client was apparently worried about my ability to do my job. My need to take nine and a half days off over five months was being deemed as too many sicknesses, bearing in mind, I had an allowed sickness allowance of 40 days. I hadn’t even used a quarter in nearly half a year. Before that, I had barely taken any time off. I'm not saying that this will happen to you but please be wary that even if the workplace does seem very accommodating and willing to outwardly look like they are inclusive to those of us with chronic illnesses, please, please learn from my mistake and get the reasonable adjustments noted down. This way you are in a better legal position if anything does go wrong. 

Final thoughts

Unfortunately disclosure in the workplace is always going to be fraught with anxiety. there is not necessarily a best time to disclose and there is no guarantee that when you disclose you will not be faced with discrimination. But making sure you know what your rights are, being strategic about when you do disclose and only disclosing the bare minimum of information, so that you are able to get your legal reasonable adjustments means that you are in a better legal position if something goes wrong. 

Being chronically ill within the workplace is always going to be challenging even with the most understanding of employees and managers. Unfortunately,

this does not look like it's going to change any time soon, so we are better to prepare ourselves and be on top of it then waiting while around for someone willingly willing to give us the rights that we need to work.

If you would like to discuss how to best disclose information, or what to do when you have felt like your forced to disclose more information than you're like, please book me a call with me a 1 on 1 call with me and we can see how I can help you. 

Thank you,

M x