An employer’s perspective

The Interview

1. Do you find that if an employee has a skin condition it affects their productivity? Does it affect the workplace?

Yes – when someone is experiencing challenges either physically or emotionally there is an inevitable impact on their productivity, which in turn can impact the wellbeing or productivity of those around them. In worst cases, this can lead to a situation where their colleagues may be unhelpful or unsympathetic, express feelings of unfairness, or react because they are expected to pick up the slack for a colleague who is unable to perform. Fortunately this is very rare and usually we can support to create a much better outcome.

In our environment, we actively manage this sort of situation to ensure that teams pull together to help each other out. We build communities and peer networks at all levels (middle management, graduates or within disciplines) so that everyone feels a part of at least one group or team that they can call on.

2. If an employee has a severe skin condition, would you want them to discuss it with you? What would you talk about in this kind of discussion?

I would encourage the employee to talk to someone. We have a range of people available in supportive roles, and everyone has a different person that they might feel comfortable talking to, which could be someone from HR, their line manager or another senior member of their team.

If someone talks to HR about a severe skin condition, I’d want to ascertain some key pieces of information about what we can do in order to make their working day more comfortable for them; whether that is a ‘reasonable adjustment’ to working environment, hours or role. I would seek to confirm that they are doing all that they can do in terms of getting the right medical attention, and encourage them to see their healthcare professional. A skin condition can impact someone’s state of mind, so I’d also be looking for ways to support them in terms of their happiness and wellbeing.

4. What information would you need from the employee to be able to support them with managing their work and skin condition?

We would need to understand what they think we should be doing to help them. This is key because everyone is different. We would need to know how their condition impacts their ability to work. We’d need to know if they have any specific medication that we should be aware of, purely from a health and safety point of view.

5. How can you assist an employee with managing their work and their skin condition?

My view is that if a valued employee has a condition that impacts their work or makes them unhappy then we should support them to improve their quality of life through any ‘reasonable adjustments’ that we can make.

There are a number of things we can do – we can reduce work load, we can offer flexibility, we can arrange for work to be done by someone else, and we can inform their team of their needs in an appropriate way.

6. In your opinion, what are the benefits of an employee being honest and open about their condition, both with their colleagues and their employer/manager/boss?

They’re huge – being open and honest about something that impacts your work enables people to understand. If you have an off-day, need to make an appointment or have some other requirement that would be easier to meet if your colleagues or boss understood, give them the best chance of understanding what you need.

7. What advice would you give to someone who has a skin condition but is afraid to discuss it with their employer? How should they approach the matter?

If there is someone else who can support you in having that conversation then engage them – perhaps a colleague can accompany you to a meeting or help you to establish a conversation.

Remember that if your condition is impacting your ability to perform in your role then explaining the cause of this is a good thing.