CKD in the Workplace - The silent Multi-billion pound Talent & Profit Killer!

Over 8.5 million people in the UK live with Chronic Kidney Disease - that's more than 1 in 8 of us, with the majority of working age, and many still un-diagnosed.

Most workplaces treat it as a "personal health issue£ until fatigue, dialysis, or complications quietly destroy productivity, retention, and the bottom line.

In this episode of Illness is not a burden, we cut through the denial to look into CKD in the Workplace:

- What CKD actually is and why it's accelerating fast.

- How it hammers individuals with crushing fatigue, presenteeism rates up to 50.8% in the UK, absenteeism, and long-term earnings losses of £14,700.

- The brutal cost to UK employers: millions in lost productivity annually, heading to a predicted billions by 2033.

- The mistakes employers make and fears that trap employees.

Illness is not a burden - ignoring it is.

Whether you are a leader watching talent drain away, or an employee pushing through exhaustion, this episode gives you the unfiltered truth and first steps to turn a silent killer into the competitive edge.

Links: 

Kidney Research UK report - Kidney disease: A UK public health emergency - Kidney Research UK

Kidney Care UK employer guide - An employer's guide to chronic kidney disease | Kidney Care UK

Equality Act Factsheet - worksheet30-equality_act_2010_factsheet.pdf

#CKD #Chronickidneydisease #workplacewellbeing #ukbusiness #illnessisnotaburden 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello everybody, welcome to the Chronic Edge Unleashed. Illness is not a burden. I'm your host, LA Evans, and today we are looking at a new condition in the workplace. But before we get started on that, I just want to apologize for not having a video um an audio out on Tuesday. Um anybody who's looking at the video at the moment right now, I do have conjunct um chronic conjunctivitis in one side of my eye at the moment. I couldn't actually see to do any recording whatsoever. Couldn't really look at anything really. Um wander around half blind. Uh but uh those things happen, and I do try and bulk a lot of these uh videos and audios together and everything, but I've been away and there's been other things going on and everything, and it's just been very difficult. Having multiple chronic illnesses and things like that to try and catch up on weekly uh videos with limited amount of time sometimes is incredibly difficult. But that's why these are really important because I'm not the only person going through that. All the other people listening to these and other people that you're working with will also be going through a lot of these kind of struggles that you've got to try and just get things in when you can, and that's why it's so vitally important to get this information out there to show other people that it's you can still get stuff done. It might not always be dead on time, um, but there's and things happen in life in general, not just to people with chronic illnesses, but we're still getting there, we're still gonna look at aiming for every week for a video out there until we until the day we can't. So uh really appreciate that. So on with the show. So today we're gonna be like we're gonna be looking at a new condition, we're gonna be looking at CKD or chronic kidney disease. Uh this is another condition that I have acquired in the last few years, and this one sucks. Uh, to be fair, they all do. Uh, and uh, but I'm kind of getting used to um this one a little bit different. Um, I've I've been ill for about nine years now, so I've been adapting to all of my different conditions with maintenance to I'm able to actually work and do other things at the same time. Uh, and I have a lot of things in place for those. Uh, kidney disease is kind of new um in essence, and a lot of the things that work brilliantly for my other conditions uh work dreadful uh for uh CKD, and vice versa. Uh, to give an example, um, I'm not a big fan of bananas, but bananas a lot of people have, you know, it's a full of potassium, it's really, really, really good for joint conditions and uh arthritis and things like that. Absolutely fantastic. And for general health, they always say, Hey, bananas, bananas, bananas. Unfortunately, for CKD, because it's full of potassium and other types of things, it is dreadful, dreadful for um CKD and should be not touched with a barge pole. So you you have issues like like that, where things that are absolutely brilliant for the arthritis and for the fibo and and for various other conditions, and then you look at the uh the CKD and it's sort of like it's no, no, no, you can't have that. But you can have this that is flair for you food for your other conditions, so it takes a little bit more, uh a little bit more maintenance uh to to work when when combining uh conditions and everything. But we're gonna be looking at that that one in general. Uh, we're gonna as we always do, we're gonna look at the data side of it, so the information on uh what it is, uh how it impacts. Uh we're gonna look at uh some of the strategies for uh the individual employee, we're gonna look at some of the things that will help the employer. So we're gonna start off with a little bit of the information first, as in CKD in the workplace, then we'll move on to the next one, which will be for the employee of strategies and things that you can do to help you cope. And then we're gonna go move into the employer and looking at your legal frameworks and things that will help you and why you should still keep people with CKD is not a death sentence, even though some of the things sound horrendous when you start getting all the levels and the stages uh and everything, the percentage-wise of actually keeping and retaining employees with or without conditions that are good for the company and want to stay. Um it's night and day for your business and everything. So we're gonna go through that anyway. Uh, then from our next episode next episode, we're then gonna move back into uh Behind the Edge, where we're gonna be thinking we're gonna be looking at um autism and aid AI. Um, I use AI. Um, obviously not on this video, this is quite clearly me, but uh you know it in some of my stuff. I don't use it for all my data, I research my own data, but I use it to check off some other little bits and structure. Structure helps me quite a bit. If I was to write my own sort of thing uh and everything, my grammar with my dyslexia and things like that, it can be a bit off. So uh is I use it good for structure and some good additional stuff, and then I in fact check it myself with everything else as well. So um the but there are some really great benefits to having it. There's some absolute dreadful drawbacks, but um you know for diction purposes and things like that, absolutely dreadful. But we're gonna look at the good and the bad in that next episode, and then we're gonna go back to um to this uh illness is not a burden, and then we'll follow on uh going back to the workshop. Uh, a little bit of another update as well is uh gonna uh gonna be getting the newsletter up and running again. Uh so we'll have a written format of these uh pod podcasts and some other bits of information in there as well. And the community is still being looked at. And I'm doing some additional training to uh, you know, even though the majority of people in chronic health and neurodiversity and things like that and everything who are lived experienced don't tend to have a lot of the qualifications in there. Though there ain't that many qualifications, you you have it and everything, but there are certain some qualifications that are help you to help businesses and things a little bit better and everything, and uh I will be looking at one of them in September if they come back to me. That is, and say I'm on it, uh, and that lot, which will be uh brilliant, it'll help with a lot more of the courses and things like that that I want to do to be able to help you guys a lot better. So I I've I've gone on a little bit too much about the beginning bit, so let's get back to CKD. So, what is it? What is it, CKD, chronic kidney disease? Well, about 7.2 million Britain people in Britain, sorry, and Elisa Brit, so I hate that word, um, have chronic kidney disease, and that's about one in ten. Uh, most of working age. Yet workplaces do tend to pretend that it doesn't exist until someone is sat there with their dialysis and the productivity starts tanking. Today we're gonna rip off that bandage and what CKD actually is. We're gonna look at the hidden multi-million pound cost to the UK businesses, the mistakes that both employees and employers do make, and those proven fixes that turn burden into retention fuel and profit growth. Illness is not a burden. Ignoring it is is, but let's fix that. Okay. As you know, just in case you're hear me, uh you you're new to this and everything, I do read off my notes because I do have brain fog, so it is very difficult sometimes for me to retain that all that information straight off. Sometimes if you get me on subjects, I can go straight and I can just fire away and everything, but I do tend to tangent off, so it's important I read off my notes and uh and again, as I said, AI structure and everything that does help. So if you occasionally, if you're watching on video and you occasionally see me flipping my eyes to it and everything, that's what I'm doing, or occasionally stopping because you know I misread what I wrote. Uh, but anyway, so kidney disease, simple definition looking at NHS verification. You're gonna be looking at CKD, is a long-term condition where your kidneys kidneys even gradually lose their ability to filter waste and excess fluid from the blood. It is diagnosed uh via an EGFR blood test where the healthy is looking at around 90 ml milliliter and CKD starts below that. And a urine ACR test, and there are five stages. One to two, most people well, not most, but a lot of people are on one to two. You don't tend to get told about it in the doctors or anything like that. Uh, but then when you get three to five, that can be progressive. Most people will only know about their kidney disease once they hit stage three, in which the doctors will say, by the way, you got stage three, and you're like, What happened to stage one and two? Uh but um that's usually what happens. Your main drivers are looking at diabetes, high blood pressure, aging, family history. Um, it's not just old people, there are about 3.2 million people already at moderate to severe stages, and another 3.9 million undiagnosed early. By 2033, it expects to hit around 7.61 million. Kidneys fail slowly, then you're suddenly failing facing dialysis or a plant transplant, and there is no cure, it is only management to slow it down. Now, how how that is is that um uh while why a lot of people don't get it is obvious obviously, like I said, a lot of people don't find out until stage three. Uh, but they also it's unknowing what things are in your food. Um, what I learn over what since being sick is looking at a lot of management stuff of looking what's in my food, but obviously I was eating foods that that say KD hates and things, and it's interesting when you start breaking down a lot of the things that's in foods, what actually can impact uh certain conditions and things like that. So it is important to be looking at that, always be looking at what's in your food. Uh, pure food is always the best, you know. If you're gonna do plant-based, whatever like that, and everything, the less the less ingredients on the back of the pack, the better. If it's got like 1500 bloody things on the back of it and everything with e-numbers and all this lot, put it down, put it down, it's not worth it. And especially when you get a bit older and everything, it's just not worth it. So, how does it impact people? So it physically, fatigue, makes you feel like the 9 to 5 is a marathon. You've got swelling, itching, breathlessness, bone pain, higher heart attack, stroke risk. You can have 12 hours once you well, if you hit slightly stage four or five and you're on dialysis, you can spend about 12 hours um hooked to a machine. Uh yeah, endless appointments, dietary restrictions, brain fog, you know, uh, as we say off there. Uh a lot of mine uh the last week, uh the my fatigue levels have been insane. Uh I've been struggling to get out of bed uh really, really bad. I I it's totally self-inflicted this last week and everything. I'm not gonna try and sugarcoat it and say, you know, oh well, it's all bad and I'm the perfect fit of health. I am absolutely not. I am prone to the cream cake. You know, it's uh I I love I love chocolate, I love sweet stuff, I love hamburgers, you know, it's I love pizza, I love things that you should not be eating. I don't drink much alcohol anymore at all. I I've I've I've got over the alcohol addiction many, many years ago. I don't I can I can go months without having a drink. But um, you know, I probably could go without ever having a drink again, I absolutely have no issue. But uh in relation to sweet stuff, I know life's too short and everything else, but you know, um when you go a couple of days and you have like you know so for example I was away last week and everything, and I I had like a burger, I had chips, uh I had a cream cake, uh, I had some biscuits and and all all the great stuff, all that beautiful stuff that looks absolutely amazing. That your body's like, what are you doing with your life? You know, no, put it down, and um and I didn't and and I paid for it. I I had a good few days of absolute exhaustion um without being crude in and out of the bathroom. I was in the bathroom for an hour um for over three days. Um and I absolutely thing, and and it's uh it's knowing you've done it, so I'm having a bit of a cleanse this this month of no alcohol, no sweet stuff, or anything else like that, or at least massively limited uh to see how it how it impacts and things, and have to change some bits around and everything. So it's totally self-inflicted, but it is easily done. It's massively easily done. That's why it's important to be looking at it. Moderation is key. So on the mental side of it, you can be looking at how it can impact on your anxiety, depression, your identity loss. As an example, I used to be the reliable one and that, uh, and now I'm I'm not, and how the people are having to uh to help me and work with me and things like that. UK data shows that CKD patients hit around 50.8% in the presentism. Not the bit above where we said about absentism, but the presentism where they're in work, I think we mentioned if you were there for the um benchmark inside of it, is that's the uh presentism is where people are at work, but they're not at work. So they could be looking at their phone, they could be talking at the water cooler, they could be making a brew, they could be looking for another job, you know, all of those types of things, not doing the actual work, they're doing something else completely. So uh that's the part of the presentism. They're they're there at the office, but they're not physically or fully physically or fully mentally there because of all the other things going on. And you've got about 21%, maybe 22% of absentism, which is the highest in Europe. Uh, carers lose about 20 days per year, too. You know, trying to help out. The brutal truth regarding that is people hide out of fear, they push themselves until they break, then face financial toxicity and fine and career derailment. It's not a weakness though, it's a broken system that forces people to choose between their health and the job. Now that isn't just in CKD, that is across the board. We see it all the time. Uh, where people will just push and push and push. I'm gonna go to work, I'm not right for it, but I'm gonna keep going, and then they crash, and then people go, Well, why didn't you say something? He's like, Well, I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to lose my job. And fear is a big, a big element in in this type of stuff. That with the reason why we do this thing in the workplace and everything is to look at the adjustments to actually keep you more in work and have your less worry about if you have to take time off and and less worry for the employer as well to uh to understand how to get the best out of all their employees. You know, it's better to have uh to have pet spent a little bit of extra cash. Sometimes it doesn't even cost that much, if anything, to put some things in place to have the staff that run your business well and have them looked after, than having to replace them with people that you know if the next job came along, they'd be out that door. So, you know, it it's it's these types of things to to to really look at. It's gonna a lot of this is gonna sound really bad, but we're gonna get to the good the good bits as well, and the retention part of it is is vital. Cost to the UK workforce. Okay, now directly from Kidney Research UK 2023's report, uh you can cross that check with the NHS and the ONS. The total UK economic economic burden is around£7 billion per year, with the NHS picking up about£6.4 billion, which is 3.2% of their entire budget. The workplace, you're looking at about£372 million lost annually in productivity from dialysis alone, and that is projected to be around£2 billion by 2033. On a per person basis, employment dialysis patient is looking at about£12,600 annually in productivity loss, an average of about 20 days off per year per patient and carer, with post-hospitalization around 14,700 drop in earnings over a five-year period, and a 9.4% drop in employment. And presentism absolutely multiplies the damage. Your quiet, you've got to look at it, your quiet employee with CKD is costing you more than you think, and scaling to billions nationally. Employers who bury their heads and uh are subsidizing national failure and their own bottom line. But termination does not have to be the result. But let's look at the issues that are facing the employees. It's important to be brutally true, noble small noble, no BS, all that type of stuff. Got hidden presentism costs, which are more than sick days. There's legal landmines under the Equality Act 2010, CKD will often qualify as a disability, and failure to make reasonable adjustments could equal a tribunal risk. There's a high turnover when talent walks because the support is zero. There is no awareness training. Managers often mishandle mishandle requests, productivity tanks, and morale follows. You then have that ripple effect where they go, Well, if they're not looking after Ted with his CKD, what they're gonna do when it comes to me, I'm going to. Bosses treat chronic illness as a HR box tick or personal problem. Resulting in losing skilled people, paying additional recruitment fees, and watch output drop while the competition picks up those people and run with them. And you see it all the time. See it all the time. Oh Fred's Fred's ill. We'll get rid. Could put down something. Maybe it's time to leave. Mutual consent. Maybe it's better for you to be at home. All those types of things and everything. We'll bring in we'll bring in Michael and Michael's rubbish. Michael's rubbish, he can't do the job. He's lazy. I'm not being offensive with this type of things, but you know, just in general, and that person can't do the job, and you're thinking Fred could have done I could have had I could have 50 Michaels and it's still been not comparable to one or half of a Fred. But why'd you get rid of Fred? Because I was worried that his uh his illness was gonna cause so many problems and everything. But now I've got ten times as many problems. You know, it's things like that. It's it's it's looking at what's you know, taking breaking it all down and everything, what's more important than that? Issues facing the employees, feel uh fear of disclosure. We've just mentioned it there, stigma, perceived weakness, promotion blocks, fatigue, and treatment schedules clashing with the rigid nine to five or shift work, discrimination, get passed over from projects, pressure to quit, as we've just mentioned, or denied adjustments. It's also a financial hit, reduced hours, so loss bonuses, pip, SSP bureaucracy, which is rubbish. The fact is, is that employees stay silent, they burn out, then they leave, or they get pushed out. Everybody loses. It's a system that rewards hiding illness until crisis. But let's look at some solutions. Snarl, doom and gloom here. How employers can support drives to retention and profits, practically low-cost wins, kidney care UK guide, employee guide, and the equality act. It's always best to look at. I will put some links in here as well. Looking at flexible hours, homeworking, phased returns, post-transplant, looking at reasonable adjustments, extra breaks, private space for dialysis, no heavy lifting, workplace assessments, I have in training in CK Day Awareness for Managers, Employee Assistant Programme, so an EEP, and peer support networks, and looking at your policy, inclusive sick leave, disclosure safe procedures or policies, and chronic illness champions in the team. A bit like your well-being champion, be more focused on chronic illness. The return on investment evidence shows that chronic illness studies and NHS staff retention data is where we've got some of this from. Is if you support employees will show a higher engagement, lower turnover intent. General chronic condition support. Now, unusual thing when you do your like uh return on investment, well-being is usually around four pounds, four pounds for every pound spent. When you look at it on chronic health, though, when you look at the things like this, CKD and things like that, you could be looking at£10. So£10 return or per pound invested can reduce absentism and higher productivity. Retention can save between ten and thirty thousand pounds per employer employee in retention costs. Like we said, when we've talked about the benchmarking side and the audit uh the audit stuff, the retention and replacement. You've just brought in Michael for Fred. It's cost you thirty grand to replace Fred, and Fred's worth fifty, Michael. Michaels. You know, you gotta look at these numbers. Gotta look at these numbers. Now support is in charity. It is ruthless competition advantage over everybody else. If you keep Fred, that means somebody else gets Michael. When it comes to talent, you know, companies treat who treat CKD employees as assets, keep institutional knowledge, slash it and costs, and watch their profit line rise because their engaged people outperform. And if you ignore it and you're voluntary funding, you're on decline. Early intervention and adjustments don't just retain staff, they turn potential liabilities into loyal, high performers. Now, as we said, CKD is not a burden, but denial is. So employers, you need to audit your policies. Employees, know your rights, ask for adjustments. I'm going to be adding the links for Kidney Research UK Report, Kidney Care UK Employee Guide, and the Inequality Act Fact Sheet. Download them, read them, look into them, share them, absolutely. And as I say, on our next episode, we're going to be going back to Behind the Edge, looking at AI and Autism, and then followed by strategies for the CKD employee. So I have been Elliot Evans. This has been The Chronic Edge Unleashed, and it's that time again. It is time to unleash your edge in your work, your business, and your life. Thank you very much, and I'll see you next time. Bye bye.