Employers

Coaching

We offer confidential 1-2-1 coaching for your employees and their partners/spouses, over the phone or face to face. At the same time we offer unlimited confidential advice and guidance to the coachee’s line manager and to HR to ensure the best outcome for all concerned.

We use a variety of coaching approaches to address the physical and psychological impact of cancer. Our coaching significantly complements and enhances EAP and Occupational Health services.

These are some of the issues* we typically discuss with individuals during coaching.

Watch a short film showing one of our coachees, Mandy Goodman, talking to Barbara Wilson about the benefits she derived from her coaching.

The coaching process

Coaching is tailored to each person’s specific needs. It’s flexible and is arranged on a session by session basis but typically involves:

• A coaching needs assessment 
• Briefing meetings with manager, HR and team (latter if requested and agreed by coachee) 
• Up to six 1-hour coaching sessions working principally with the coachee to facilitate the most realistic and practical work-related outcomes. These sessions can be held face to face at a suitable location, or over the telephone or by Skype, Facetime or equivalent.
• Unlimited advice and guidance to the line manager and HR
• Further follow up sessions, as required, as well as telephone and email support
• Follow up with the employer (if sponsoring the coaching) and employee after 6 months to monitor the effectiveness of the coaching
• Each coaching relationship is documented in a coaching contract outlining the coaching objectives and services to be provided
• Access to WWC’s Best Practice Guides, and other resources 

Coaching typically covers:

• The cancer itself and managing its side effects while working
• Handling initial and continuing conversations with others including boss, work colleagues, suppliers and clients
• Dealing with changes at work to people, processes, systems, workload etc
• Making and changing ‘reasonable adjustments’
• Social interaction at work and outside work
• Family and financial worries

To find out more about our coaching services, please get in touch

Training

We run training sessions about ‘work and cancer’ for managers and employees on a bespoke basis depending on an organisation’s needs.

We also run Train the Trainer programmes for employers/HR teams keen to run an employee programme themselves. As part of this we provide a Train the Trainer manual of materials including relevant case studies, and can also provide access to our Best Practice Guides for Employees, Line Managers, Carers and Colleagues.

Typically, our training programmes are 1 hour, 90 minutes or half a day in length with the longer programmes being highly interactive, using relevant, sometimes bespoke, case studies. We also run sessions as part of wider events on health and wellbeing, or employment law.

Our programmes on work and cancer normally cover:

• What cancer is, how it is diagnosed and treated
• The challenges of working with cancer
• The Legal framework – Equality Act – as far as it applies to those with cancer and working carers
• Making reasonable adjustments
• Talking to an employee and their colleagues about cancer: key stages
• Managing an employee’s return to work
• Dealing with bereavement
• Supporting a carer for someone with cancer

These sessions can also be supported by WWC’s Best Practice Guides.

You are welcome to join one of our Open Workshops on managing cancer at work. Visit our Events page to find out about when the next Open Workshop is taking place.

If you would like further information on the training we provide, please contact us.

Consultancy

In addition to providing a variety of training workshops and webinars, we provide tailored consultancy services for employers, advising on:

• Introduction of work and cancer policies and processes
• Audit of policies related to managing other chronic/long-term conditions in the workplace
• Development of carers’ policies as well as those relating to special leave and bereavement
• Buddying schemes and support networks (see below)

Cancer Network/Cancer Buddy Support

If your organisation is considering setting up an internal cancer support network or buddy scheme to support employees affected by cancer then we can help. We can provide guidance and advice as required on setting up, and managing, a cancer buddy scheme or network whether that’s helping you create a framework for your scheme, considering what you need to do and how, or recruiting and training buddies or facilitators. Providing cancer buddies with the tools and confidence to fulfil their role successfully and support colleagues is key. Our training typically covers:

•Understanding the role, expectations and qualities of a cancer buddy
•Boundary setting
•Self-care
•How the cancer buddy scheme will work
•Communication skills and tips for handling difficult conversations.

If you would like to find out more about how we can help you develop or improve your support for those with cancer or other long term/ chronic health conditions, please contact us.

Drop-in Clinics

We also run ‘Drop-in Clinics’ for employers providing advice and guidance to employees with cancer, to working carers and to colleagues. 

Each ‘Clinic’ is normally half a day in length and held on client premises with employees pre-booking a 30-minute appointment during working hours.

The advice we give is strictly confidential and includes signposting to useful resources or sources of additional advice and guidance.