I’m looking at how we can appropriately use health surveys in our recruitment (i.e. asking the person we’ve decided to offer the role to share their health situation with us). We’ve historically avoided them as they feel intrusive and likely to create anxiety. However we used one recently because a candidate had already shared details and we wanted to put everything on a clear footing to plan reasonable adjustments etc. This was really helpful but relied on the candidate being confident to make that initial disclosure.
We’d like to build something in consistently that invites that confidence with a clear understanding of how we would use the info and without creating anxiety for anyone. Would love to find some approaches which balance the various rights and priorities here without corporate-blank-face approaches…
My group/organisation focuses on youth work. We have a hierarchical structure with strongly participative/dispersed leadership practice . We have 11 staff.
Hi Dave - Thanks for sharing this. I don’t have any direct experience of the kind of survey you’re describing, but really rate the thinking going into why. If you don’t actively invite this kind of info, it too easily lands in the category it would in most organisations, which is something for staff to feel scared of sharing. As you say, in order to make accommodations though, you need to know what each person’s broad situation, needs and preferences are.
As with most sensitive areas, I’d generally do three things:
Try to normalise talking about it openly, sharing examples of the kinds of steps the organisation has taken for others (as appropriate to share), even if not actively seeking input right away,
Provide multiple ways that someone can choose to engage with the questions (a survey, a 121 meeting, a contact person to reach out to, etc), as different folks will find putting this kind of thing on paper easier than a face to face interaction, and vice versa, and
Think about who is available to be the contact person and have any follow-up conversations, particularly if there is someone who might have any similar or shared lived experiences, to be able to speak to their own experiences with having those needs met in the organisation.
There are always a lot of layers of stigma for someone to overcome in talking about these things, given how discriminatory most organisations tend to be around long-term health and disability (even within the letter of the law), so it is likely to take a few steps and approaches to ‘get it right’ - and even still, will likely get messy at times.
The trickier piece, is trying to be aware, organisationally, about the kinds of limits you might need to have in place. This might be in sick leave or disability policies, but is often a really hard part of trying to do this kind of thing in a care-centred way. The hardest version I’ve seen for everyone, is trying to decide together what the limits should be (How many weeks/months off? At what levels of pay? How long will a job be held for someone who has to step away in a medium-to-longer term way? etc), when someone’s situation is pushing beyond what the organisation is able to support. Having this clarity in advance - and giving active encouragement for people to highlight if they think there are gaps in the support offered - can be important, in being able to have those early conversations in ways that can truly centre care and support, without promising (even indirectly) to be able to correct a whole wider system that is creating discriminatory situations for folks with disabilities and long-term health conditions.
Thanks, Liam, really appreciate that thoughtful and helpful response.
I agree putting a lot into the process can help build confidence that your information (and you) will be treated fairly and supportively. We can’t remove all the anxiety but we can surely mitigate it.
On the latter part we’ve spent the last year or so dealing with those challenges of balancing what an individual needs, impacts on colleagues of absences, what the organization can and should do to support. No easy answers but we’ve drafted a new Work & Health Policy trying to integrate that learning into new practice. Early conversations, as you say, are a key goal…
Thanks again
Dave