Hi Julie,

 Thanks for reaching out to Cancer and Careers. It’s great to hear that your integrative approach has shown promising results and you’ve been able to keep up with your job while doing so. It sounds like you’ve been productive and able to fulfill your job responsibilities during this time of working from home. The fact that you received a positive performance report is really helpful as you explore how to continue this work from home set up.

 A few questions to steer your decisions and next steps: what does your job know about your current diagnosis? You said they’re aware of it but have you shared anything beyond that? Have you expressed any apprehension or concerns about returning to the office environment? Has your employer left any doors open for those who may be worried about returning to the physical office? It is certainly worth speaking with your integrative doctors about helping you with the paperwork. But based on what you’ve shared about your work performance, it sounds like you can make a pretty good case for continuing to work from home. How much longer will your integrative approach be? Could you request a temporary work from home arrangement with your job and plan to revisit in a few months to check in to see how everyone is feeling about the situation? This way, if everything is going well you can point to your positive work, but if there are some aspects they are taking issue with you can work together to address how they could be addressed.

 I understand you’d prefer a less formal arrangement, however, it’s important to protect yourself as best as you can. By getting certain conversations and arrangements documented, you will have the ability to point to these decisions in a more concrete way and not be as concerned about them changing their mind or saying they didn’t agree to something. With this types of situations, you want to make sure you’re protecting yourself the best you can, despite working there for 20 years and having a good reputation. What you’ve pointed out in terms of your personal responsibilities, for instance not managing others and working with external agencies that you communicate with primarily through phone and zoom, can really strengthen your argument for working from home.

So, first thing’s first, I would encourage you to create what you believe would be an effective plan for working from home, that touches on the points you’ve mentioned and explains why this would not only be acceptable, but would help the company’s bottom line. By pointing out your daily responsibilities, your positive work performance over the last year, and how you foresee this year going forward, you will be laying the groundwork for a really solid argument. I’d encourage you to familiarize yourself with the legal protections that are available to you as well. You can read more about them in our Legal & Financial section of our website, particularly the article focused on Requesting Reasonable Accommodations. Additionally, as you prepare for your conversation with your employer, take a look at our article on Creating an Action Plan, which can help you identify what you can point to in your discussion.

 Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any further questions or concerns. You can email us at cancerandcareers@cew.org.

 From what you’ve shared, it does appear that you are in a strong position to ask for what you need, it’s really about doing so in a way that will be effective and leave the employer feeling comfortable with the arrangement.

Best,

Nicole