The Role of the Manager

Managers stand at the intersection of company commitments and employee need as members of their teams struggle against cancer. While you may have little preparation for facing the many demands of managing through cancer, you cannot avoid the responsibility. You are the gatekeepers on many issues that make dealing with cancer considerably easier or harder for your employees. Among the matters facing you are:

• Maintaining compensation in an equitable manner
• Adjusting work schedules over the course of treatment
• Setting and managing the expectations of co-workers
• Enabling effective flexible schedules
• Working out appropriate forms of communication
• Dealing throughout with the morale of the person and the team

If the only thing expected of the manager was that you would interpret black and white policies in each of these areas, the extra workload and fine-tuning would be taxing enough. But these policy and procedure matters are seldom so clear cut. And when policy does exist in areas such as time tracking and comp and benefits, its limited flexibility may put you in the position of balancing orthodoxy with long-term people management. Indeed, the role of managing an individual and a work group through cancer is one of endless balancing:

• Striking the balance between work and time off as treatment progresses
• Seeking a balance between company procedures and employee need
• Finding a balance between too little and too much communication
• Balancing the impact of the employee's time off on the team's workload
• Maintaining one's commitment to all aspects of the manager's ongoing role

Done well, the work of effectively managing an employee through cancer can prove invaluable to the employee, inspiring to the team and positive for the company. And for the effective manager, managing through cancer can prove personally rewarding as well.