Chronic Conditions: The Interplay of Work and Health

In every workplace, there are two parallel stories unfolding. One is easy to see: projects being completed, meetings attended, deadlines met. The other is often invisible: the personal health journeys that some employees navigate quietly alongside their professional responsibilities. For employees living with chronic illnesses, this unseen pathway can be just as demanding—if not more so—than their visible work.

Chronic illness doesn’t always come with outward signs. There’s no flashing light to signal fluctuating capacity, no clear timeline for when things will improve. What you see at work, if anything, might be a fraction of what’s actually happening. Behind the scenes, employees are managing medical appointments, adjusting to treatments, dealing with unpredictable symptoms, and recalibrating their capacity every day.

This dual experience—what’s seen and what’s unseen—can create a gap in understanding, making it challenging for leaders to know how to provide support. The challenge is that, often, no one realizes what’s actually going on. An employee might not ‘look sick,’ or changes in their work might be mistaken for performance issues. Without visible signs, it’s easy to miss the complexity of what they’re managing. This isn’t about spotting the signs; it’s about understanding that chronic illness can be invisible and that the signs we do see might not tell the whole story.
Let’s explore what’s happening at work and what is happening privately, how these two pathways intersect, and how they shape both the personal and professional lives of people living with chronic illness.

Navigating Overlapping Realities

Chronic Conditions: The Interplay of Work and Private Life

When it comes to chronic conditions, there are two experiences running side by side: what’s happening privately in a person’s life and what’s visible at work. These aren’t just parallel stories—they often map onto each other in ways that influence how someone navigates their role, relationships, and responsibilities at work.

The Private Reality: More Than Meets the Eye

Living with a chronic condition is rarely a straight line—it’s more like navigating a maze with unexpected turns. Each phase blends into the next, looping back or jumping forward in ways that can feel both disorienting and exhausting.

• The Diagnosis Odyssey: It often starts with a sense that something isn’t right. Maybe it’s persistent fatigue, unexplained pain, or symptoms that don’t fit into a neat box. Imagine feeling unwell for months, even years, without clear answers. You’re bounced from doctor to specialist, undergoing endless tests, with conflicting opinions piling up. Sometimes, you’re even dismissed—told it’s stress, anxiety, or nothing at all. This isn’t just frustrating; it chips away at your confidence and can leave you questioning your own experiences.
• The Treatment Rollercoaster: Finally, a diagnosis! Relief, right? But the journey doesn’t end there. In fact, it often feels like it’s just beginning. Treatments are trial and error—what works for a while may suddenly stop, or side effects might feel as overwhelming as the condition itself. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and each adjustment requires hope, patience, and resilience.
• Fluctuating Capacity: Just when you think you’ve found a rhythm, your symptoms can shift. One day, tasks feel manageable; the next, even simple activities are draining. It’s like planning your week around a weather forecast that changes minute-to-minute—unpredictable and out of your control. This fluctuation isn’t just physical; it affects your mental and emotional bandwidth too.
• Being Extremely Unwell: Sometimes, the shifts aren’t subtle. There are periods when your capacity plummets, leaving you sidelined entirely. It’s not just feeling under the weather; it’s being unable to manage basic daily tasks, let alone maintain work responsibilities. This can feel isolating, especially when it disrupts not only routines but also your sense of identity and purpose.
• Managing Reduced Symptoms: Then there are times when symptoms ease, but that doesn’t mean life returns to ‘normal.’ These aren’t ‘good days’ in the traditional sense—they’re periods when capacity expands slightly, making certain activities more accessible. Chronic doesn’t mean constant, but it does mean persistent. Even in these phases, there’s often a backdrop of caution: What will tomorrow bring?

These experiences aren’t linear. There’s no clear start or finish, no checklist to mark complete. Instead, people with chronic conditions navigate an ongoing, dynamic process—constantly adapting to changes in their health, their environment, and their own expectations.

• Deciding to Disclose: This can be the hardest part. Do I tell my manager? Will they understand? Will it affect my job security or future opportunities? There’s no easy answer.
• Adjusting to the New Normal: After disclosure, both the employee and leader are figuring things out. What does this mean for my workload? How do we adjust expectations without lowering them unfairly?
• Testing and Redesigning Work: It’s not a one-and-done adjustment. What works one month might not the next. It’s a process of trial, error, and ongoing conversations.
• Managing Absences: Absences might be unpredictable. That can be tough for teams and managers trying to plan. It can also create guilt and anxiety for the employee.
• Off Ramping (Temporarily or Long-Term): Sometimes, the best (or only) option is to take extended leave. This doesn’t mean the end of someone’s career—but it often feels like it in the moment.
• Returning to Work: Coming back after time away isn’t just about catching up on emails. It’s about reestablishing routines, rebuilding confidence, and sometimes renegotiating roles.

Where Leaders Get Stuck: The Chronic Confusion

Even the most empathetic leaders can find themselves stuck. Why?

• Fluctuating Capacity: One day, your team member is firing on all cylinders. The next, they’re struggling to get through a basic task. It can be confusing if you don’t understand what’s behind it.
• Tricky Conversations: No one wants to say the wrong thing. But avoiding the conversation altogether isn’t the answer.
• Performance Worries: One of the big risks for leaders and organisations is mistaking a health issue for a performance issue.
• Compassion Fatigue: Yes, leaders can experience this too. Supporting someone through an ongoing health issue can be emotionally draining, especially without the right tools or guidance.

Breaking the Cycle: What Actually Helps

• Get Clear on Capacity: Understand that an employee’s capacity isn’t fixed. They have a baseline and an optimal level, and those can shift. It’s not about being inconsistent—it’s about managing energy wisely.
• Have Real Conversations: Ditch the scripts. Start with, “How can I support you right now?” or “What do you need to make this work?” You don’t need to have all the answers—just be willing to listen.
• Design Work Collaboratively: Flexibility isn’t just about hours. It’s about rethinking how tasks are done, who does them, and when. Could deadlines be more flexible? Could responsibilities shift temporarily?
• Keep Career Conversations on the Table: Chronic illness doesn’t erase ambition. Employees still want to grow, learn, and contribute. Don’t assume otherwise.

Why This Matters

When leaders truly get this, it changes everything:

• Retention Improves: People stay where they feel supported.
• Risk Reduces: Open communication minimizes legal and psychosocial risks.
• Leadership Deepens: Navigating these challenges builds authentic, compassionate leadership skills.

The Bottom Line

Chronic illness isn’t going anywhere—it’s already in your workplace. The question isn’t if you’ll encounter it, but how you’ll respond. And that response can make all the difference.
It’s time to move beyond outdated ideas of illness and recovery. Let’s create workplaces where everyone has the support they need to succeed, no matter what their health journey looks like.