Employees returning to work after cancer must be given a voice

Many people affected by cancer continue to work, but current support mechanisms are not enough, according to research from NEOMA Business School.

Professor Rachel Beaujolin (NEOMA) collaborated with Associate Professor Pascale Levet at IAE Lyon to explore experiences of returning to work after a cancer diagnosis and/or treatment in an action-research project involving 25 organisations and nearly 200 people.

Their findings show that support structures such as recognition of disability status (RQTH), therapeutic part-time work, and remote work fail to recognise that a cancer diagnosis profoundly changes how people experience their professional lives.

It is not simply about going back to how things were before: returning means relearning to work in the context of fatigue, cognitive challenges, reduced concentration, and sometimes a transformation in how individuals relate to time and their own bodies.

The researchers worked closely with people whose lives have been affected by cancer to identify common narratives around the career challenges it poses.

They identify participants’ experiences of time out of work due to cancer with “abduction”. Upon their return, once simple tasks can seem unexpectedly challenging. According to Beaujolin and Levet, this can act as a learning driver, opening the way to new work practices.

Presenting these experiences in a narrative way allows them to be implemented in workshops, turning individual learning journeys into collective resources.

The individual nature of how each person experiences a return to work after cancer makes it difficult to provide universal solutions. However, Beaujolin and Levet suggest a more reflective approach to offering support based on listening to the experiences of those affected offers a step in the right direction.

“It is not about proposing a standard protocol, but about learning to think from real situations, to recognise the knowledge being built there, and to create spaces where this knowledge can circulate,” says Rachel Beaujolin.

This research project was published in Revue Française de Gestion.

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For more information, a copy of the research, or to speak to Professor Rachel Beaujolin, contact Jamie Hose at BlueSky Education on jamie@bluesky-pr.com, or call +44 (0)1582 790 706.