Last week I wrote about the appointment that saves lives. This week I want to talk about what happens when that appointment, or any other, brings the news no one wants to hear.
October is the month we speak about breast cancer, and rightly so. But in my years as an HR practitioner, I have learned that illness does not arrive in themes or months. It comes as breast cancer, as prostate cancer, as kidney failure, as a stroke, as HIV complications, as a heart condition, as a neurological disease that slowly changes what a person can do. The diagnosis differs. The questions the employee carries into my office are remarkably the same: Will I still have a job? Who will know? What happens to my family if this gets worse?
An employer who has answers ready, before anyone asks, has built something rare.
The first conversation matters most
People remember exactly how their employer reacted when they shared their news. Some remember warmth. Others remember silence, awkwardness, or a sudden change in how they were treated. Someone who has just received a serious diagnosis is already carrying fear and a thousand unanswered questions. Their job should not be one of them.
The first response should be simple and human: “We are with you. Your job is not your worry right now. Let’s work out together what you need.” Leaders do not need perfect words. They need sincerity, and they need to listen more than they speak.
Privacy is not optional
A diagnosis belongs to the employee. She or he decides who knows, when, and how much. Managers must be trained to protect that information, and HR must share it only with consent. Nothing erodes trust faster than an employee discovering that their health news has become corridor conversation. In some conditions, stigma makes this even more critical. Let people control their own story.
Build policy around the situation, not the disease
This is where strategy begins. If we write a policy for one illness, we will always be reacting to the next. A sound approach is a single, written Serious and Life-Limiting Illness Policy that covers any employee facing a prolonged, severe, or terminal condition. It should spell out:
Flexible work: adjusted hours, remote options, lighter workloads, and phased returns, agreed with the employee rather than imposed.
Protected time: leave for scans, treatment, dialysis, therapy, and recovery, without the employee having to justify or apologize for each appointment.
Clear leave and return-to-work pathways: sick leave, extended leave, and reintegration arrangements explained early, so no one negotiates them at their most vulnerable.
Health cover guidance: help understanding what insurance includes, plus advocacy where gaps exist, because families face financial strain precisely when income is most uncertain.
Counselling and psychosocial support: through an employee assistance programme or a partner counsellor, available to the employee and their family.
A named HR contact: one person who walks the journey with them, so they never have to retell their story to five different offices.
Focus on ability, not diagnosis
One of the quietest harms in the workplace is assumption. Well-meaning managers sometimes decide on behalf of an employee that they can no longer handle responsibility, a promotion, or a demanding project. Serious illness does not automatically end ambition. Many people want to keep working, because work offers purpose, routine, and normalcy when everything else feels uncertain. Ask what they can and want to do. Offer options, not conclusions.
When the prognosis is terminal
This is the part many organizations avoid, and avoiding it is its own kind of cruelty. When an employee’s condition is life-limiting, dignity becomes the guiding principle. Handle with care:
Honest, compassionate conversations about what the employee wants: to keep working as long as they can, to step back gradually, or to spend their remaining time elsewhere.
Financial security for their family: clarity on group life cover, medical benefits, pension and provident fund entitlements, and any dependants’ support, communicated early and gently.
Palliative and home-care support: connecting the employee to services and, where possible, flexible arrangements for those caring for them.
Dignity throughout: no pressure, no quiet side-lining, and no disappearing from their life the moment they are no longer “productive.”
How an organization treats a dying colleague is remembered by everyone who watches, long after the person is gone.
Remember the caregivers
Behind many sick employees is another employee quietly struggling: the daughter nursing a mother, the husband caring for a wife, the parent of a gravely ill child. Their performance, attendance, and wellbeing are affected too. A good policy extends compassionate leave and flexibility to caregivers, and it recognizes that illness never touches only one person on the payroll.
Prepare the team, with permission
Colleagues often want to help but do not know how. Where the employee agrees, brief the team: cover duties graciously, avoid intrusive questions, and resist the urge to share stories of other people’s illnesses. A check-in message, a shared meal, or an ordinary conversation about something other than the illness reminds them that they are still part of the team.
Why this is also good strategy
Compassion and business sense are not competing ideas. Organizations that support employees through serious illness retain experienced talent, protect institutional knowledge, and avoid the costs of rehiring and retraining. They also earn something no recruitment campaign can buy: trust. Every employee watches how the company treats its own in hard times, and every one of them draws conclusions about what would happen if it were their turn.
It is also a matter of fairness and, in many places, of law. Protection against discrimination and unfair dismissal is the baseline, not the finish line. The goal is a culture where no one fears that disclosing an illness will cost them their future.
A challenge to fellow employers and HR colleagues
You do not need to wait for a diagnosis to be ready. Ask yourself today:
Do we have a written policy on serious and life-limiting illness, and do our managers know it?
Could an employee tell us about a diagnosis and trust us to keep it confidential?
Are our leave and flexibility arrangements humane enough for treatment, recovery, and, if it comes to it, decline?
Do we have a return-to-work process, or do we improvise each time?
Would the families of our employees be protected if the worst happened?
Does our health cover work for the people who need it most?
If any answer is uncertain, there is work to do, and it is far easier before a crisis than during one.
Last week I asked women to make a decision about their health. This week I ask employers to make one about their humanity. Whether the diagnosis is breast cancer or any other serious illness, the person in front of you should find an organisation that stands beside them, not one that quietly steps back.
Awareness may start with a pink ribbon. Compassion is what we do when the ribbon comes off
Jemima Ngode, CHRP (K) Group HR Manager, Radio Africa Group
