Maria asked me to respond to this question:
What do you recommend if someone is struggling at work and wants to discuss this before getting fired?
This is such a great question because it is so common. In fact, it’s a common problem for healthy people as well as people living with Lupus or any chronic disease. Why?
Because anyone, healthy or not, can struggle with their performance at work and wonder about losing their job. Notice that she didn’t say “struggling with work because you live with chronic illness”. Because it’s not chronic illness that makes work difficult. It’s what happens because of illness.
So before you start any conversation at work with anyone — your colleagues, supervisor or direct report — consider these 5 steps:
Step 1 : Figure out why you are struggling. Is it because:
Your disabilities are unpredictable making you unreliable,
Your disabilities make it difficult or impossible to do the job properly,
Medication changes make your mood or abilities unpredictable,
Healthcare appointments conflict with work schedule, and so on.
It’s critical to identify what the problem is before you discuss it because it’s tempting to blame it generally on illness. And that’s not “fixable”. But maybe your work challenges are.
Step 2 : Develop some ideas for how this could be improved.
There’s no reason to talk with anyone about this if the situation can’t get better with some tweaks (aka accommodations!) . Too often, the tendency is to go into your supervisor and lay it ll out there. You’re thinking honesty is the best policy. And maybe your supervisor will come up with some brilliant idea.
But now you’re placing your problem in her/his lap and it becomes his/her problem even worse, his/her burden. Healthy employee or not, that’s never a wise move. By offering your suggestions, you are demonstrating that you want to make this work and burden others as little as possible. That puts a better spin on a difficult conversation.
Step 3 : Make an appointment for this conversation.
Treat it with the respect it deserves rather than doing it “on the fly” when miscommunication can easily happen. Also when you ask for this time, you’re communicating that this is important to you. You might say, ” I want to discuss some performance issues that I am having – get your input and share my ideas for improvement.”
Step 4 : Prepare for the meeting by documenting what is happening and when.
Also write your ideas for changes that might help and, depending on your supervisor’s personality (if he/she is a control freak, he might not like that you’ve discussed it before this), note any conversations you’ve had with others that support your ideas.
Step 5 : Take notes regarding what you’ve agreed upon.
Offer to write it up and email a copy so you’re both on the same page. You might also suggest a follow up meeting at a later date to discuss how things are going.
This isn’t a path to sure success. But it surely will make success more likely. Remember – these suggestions don’t ever even mention illness. That’s because this isn’t about illness. It is about your ability to do this job well.
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Rosalind Joffe is an amazing resource and friend! She is a chronic illness career coach ( cicoach.com ), authors both a blog and her newsletter workingwithchronicillness.com . In addition, Rosalind has her book Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working Girlfriend and accomanying workbooks that offer a great deal of practical advice in successfully designing your life, your career and your health management needs. You can also find her on Facebook and on Twitter as @WorkWithIllness.
