National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) supports employees with cancer by ensuring assistance is readily available and communicated to its whole workforce.
The charity supports childhood deafness with expert help and assistance, as well as working with partners across the world to support deaf children and their families in developing countries. It has around 270 employees, with the vast majority based from home.
The benefits NDCS provides to help staff with cancer include 18 days of sick leave at full pay for staff with one year of service, increasing to 90 days at full pay, followed by 100 days at half pay, after five years’ service. Full sick pay is paid from day one of employment.
Employees can also take 10 days of compassionate leave on top of an annual leave allowance and can request up to an additional 20 days of unpaid leave each year. It also offers a week of unpaid carer’s leave after six months, and has a 24/7 confidential employee assistance programme, which offers counselling, advice and information on various subjects.
Through a partnership with specialist cancer support service Reframe Cancer, it offers 16 hours of practical support for staff affected by cancer. The charity’s employees also have access to cancer nurse specialists for advice, emotional support, information and guidance, a cancer support manager for appointment assistance and return-to-work planning, and online cancer awareness resources.
Deb Jones, wellbeing and engagement lead at NDCS, explains that the charity is committed to creating a supportive and compassionate environment for employees facing serious health challenges such as cancer.
“There’s a dedicated area on our intranet wellbeing hub, where we share resources and links, and a health and wellbeing group on Meta Workplace, where we post information, often linked to particular awareness days,” she says. ”In fact, the calendar shared by Reframe Cancer is an excellent reference point. We also encourage staff to participate in the webinars [it] offers.”
NDCS communicates the support, and aims to engage staff with it, by ensuring that all employees are aware of what is available and feel comfortable accessing it, believing this to be essential. All details about resources can be easily found on its intranet page, and it shares reminders about the support services via its internal newsletter and Meta Workplace.
The charity believes it is important to offer support of this kind because its employees are its greatest asset.
“Our culture is evolving, and employee wellbeing is now at the core of who we are as an employer,” says Jones. “We are aware of increasing cancer rates among younger people and the statistics for the population in general, and recognise that we need to take proactive action to support our people to stay in the workforce.”
