How To Support Employees With Chronic Pain: Bring About Positive Change In The Workplace

?Chronic pain is a type of pain that continues for more than 12 weeks, regardless of medication and treatment. Chronic pain can be caused by an ongoing problem after an injury or a condition (many of which are not visible!).

Research shows that 34% of the UK population experience chronic pain, and at times, there can be a real lack of support for employees with chronic pain in the workplace.?

Not only is supporting employees with chronic pain the right thing to do, but it will actually benefit the company too – employers will feel more respected, appreciated, and productivity with likely improve.

?So, in this article, we’re going to take a look at how you can support employees that deal with chronic pain in your workplace.

?8 Ways You Can Support Employees With Chronic Pain In The Workplace

Have a look at some of the tips below (and attempt to do them all if possible!), and learn about how you can support employees that deal with chronic pain in your workplace.

1. Create A Specific Policy For Chronic Pain

A fundamental part of supporting employees that deal with chronic pain is creating a specific policy that does just that! The specific chronic pain policy you create is up to you, but generally, this kind of policy includes information about time off, sick leave, communication, assistance, and health support.

Once you’ve created this policy, make sure to fully communicate this policy to ALL of your employees and actually activate, uphold, and continue to update this policy over time.

2. Remember That Not All Illnesses Are Visible

When it comes to dealing with chronic pain, it’s first incredibly important to understand that not all illnesses are visible - you may have employees on your team that are dealing with invisible illnesses and chronic pain. Therefore, keep that in mind when you’re creating policies and supporting employees!

3. Nurture A Trusting and Open Relationship With Employees

As well as creating a bullet-proof chronic pain policy, you need to nurture a trusting and open relationship with all of your employees. Ensure you support an open-door policy surrounding everything (including mental health!), regularly check in with your employees, make sure everyone knows that the workplace is a non-judgemental space, and truly listen to and get to know them.

4. Be Ready To Support By Listening

Sometimes, people simply need someone to listen to them. So, be that listening ear! When someone comes to you to talk, it can be useful to ask, “do you need me to just listen, or do you want advice and help?”. This helps give an employee the control to either ask for what they truly need from you, or simply vent or open up to a listening and non-judgmental ear.

Employees may also prefer to talk about something so personal to someone outside of the workplace, so you may want to consider offering the option of an external counsellor.

5. Support The Health of Employees

Supporting the health of your employees, even the ones that haven’t opened up to you about whether or not they have chronic pain or illnesses, is incredibly important. You can support the health of employees in a variety of ways, from promoting group wellness classes to offering free healthcare.

Or, by using Juno, your employees can make use of their wellbeing budget towards supporting a specific health need.

6. Create A Comfortable and Healthy Work Environment

You can directly support employees within the office by creating a comfortable and healthy work environment - provide ergonomic desks and chairs, designate a specific space for relaxation and breaks, add comfortable soft furnishings and plants, and provide amenities such as a kettle so that employees can make hot water bottles, etc.

7. Offer Flexible Working

If you have the ability to provide your employees with the offer to work flexibly, do it. Offering flexible working to those who deal with chronic pain can be incredibly beneficial - for example, some employees may need to be at home to deal with their pain, they may have more pain at certain times of the day, or they may need to work at times that fit more appropriately around them and their needs.

8. Provide Education To Your Team

Education can be one of the most important and powerful factors when it comes to dealing with illnesses and specifically chronic pain. So, make sure that you’re offering and providing continuous and up to date information to your entire team about dealing with chronic pain. Educating employees can help them feel more courageous and confident about dealing with their pain.

Support Your Employees With Their Chronic Pain Now!