In 2020 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer and there were 685,000 deaths resulting from breast cancer. 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.
October is breast cancer awareness month. It’s an opportune time to honour the survivors and support the patients with breast cancer in your workplace. Bringing awareness can be both fun and sombre. There are likely people in your workplace who have lost loved ones or are suffering through the stress of having breast cancer right now. So it’s important to be sensitive to that fact.
Last year, we put together some ideas for supporting breast cancer awareness in the workplace. Here are a few more to add:
Offer Education and Support Resources
Provide your employees with information and statistics on breast cancer like these myths and facts. Consider hosting a screening drive. Educate your employees on what their insurance will cover and which providers nearby can take care of them. Offer additional time off for screenings.
Fundraise Together
Have your team vote on a breast cancer charity and then brainstorm ways to raise money together. Ideas for fundraising might include hosting a 5k, crowdfunding, t-shirt sales or any number of other events. The key is to let your team generate the idea and then implement it into a plan.
Design a Shirt
Host a t-shirt design competition. The winner’s design can go on a t-shirt that can be used to raise money for breast cancer charities or for an in-house support system for those undergoing cancer treatments.
Create a Board
Install a bulletin board in a visible place and invite people to post pictures and stories. They may want to use it to honour survivors or to grieve losses. They may want to bring awareness to an existing struggle. Allow this to be a place for people to express their feelings on the subject.
Give Flexibility
For anyone in your workplace diagnosed with or supporting someone with breast cancer, consider either formally or informally giving them more flexibility in their schedule. Some companies offer unlimited time off to their employees as long as they’re getting their work done. This can help people undergoing the stress of cancer or caregiving to create schedules that work for them and get the rest they need to keep up with their lives and work.
Whatever you do, keep in mind your objective. That can be to create awareness, make your employees feel supported, or make changes in your benefits plans to accommodate people with breast cancer. Make sure your efforts support your objective. And get feedback from your team so you understand what they’re going through and how you can improve your culture in the future.
Find out how you can implement a holistic support programme for your employees diagnosed with cancer. Contact us today.