Life Works Well Spotlight: Life with Diabetes

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Raising diabetes awareness is one thing, but understanding the experiences of those living with diabetes is another. This month we interviewed Life Works Well’s very own Arshad Abbasi about his experience living with Type 2 diabetes. 

Arshad Abbasi has been living with Type 2 diabetes since 2010 and this week he stepped onto the Life Works Well spotlight to share his story. 

Countless individuals live with diabetes but it is difficult to fully understand the experience without hearing the insights of others. Keep on reading to learn more about Arshad’s perspective on life with diabetes and what organizations can do to help. 

Diagnosis 

When Arshad found out he had diabetes, there were many questions that raced through his head. When asked what his reaction was to the diagnosis, Arshad said:

“The only thing was that I could not understand what diabetes was. Why must I all of a sudden need to start eating green things? The funny part is that from childhood anything green was associated with Martians (people from Mars) and I wondered, why do I have to eat the food of the Aliens.” - Arshad Abbasi

Arshad’s response isn’t out of the ordinary when faced with new challenges such as diabetes. When people become diagnosed with diabetes it can come as a shock. This drastic change can create fear in employees as the majority of the time diagnoses come out of nowhere and there is little knowledge available in organizations about diabetes awareness. This can cause employees to feel alone trying to navigate what they can do to keep themselves healthy and safe but employees don’t have to face these uncertainties alone. Employers can help support their employees with diabetes by creating an environment free of discrimination. 

Creating safe spaces for employees to work by making it known in the workplace and even in the hiring process as well. According to Healthline, one thing that employees should know is that employers cannot use your disability as a reason to not hire you, not promote you or to fire you so knowing this information can help you understand just how your job will be able to accommodate you. 

Adapting 

Adapting to the workforce when faced with diabetes requires a learning curve. When asked about his experiences creating a work-life balance with diabetes, Arshad mentioned how he learned to adapt to a new schedule through self-control and A fun Disney phrase. 

”It is hard to control oneself. At least it is hard for me to resist myself from Double-Double Coffee. But over the years, I learned that self-control towards my emotions and eating habits is the best strategy for diabetes along with some healthy activities (even if I do not do them myself very regularly). One thing I learned from the movie The Lion King is to have Hakuna Matata! It is a phrase from the Swahili language and it means, “No Worries”. Every dark cloud has a silver lining. One must accept the fact of diabetes and have no worries as good always comes.” - Arshad Abbasi

Arshad’s positivity is a great example of learning to adapt especially because it can be challenging depending on the type of diabetes you have. Arshad also mentions that there are ways that your employer can help you to feel more confident working with diabetes. If you choose to disclose having diabetes to your employer, employers can take specific steps to make you feel more comfortable like creating accommodating work schedules, providing mini frequent breaks to maintain meal frequency, or even providing a med-room or private place to administer insulin or glucose blood tests. 

In relation to this, according to Aetna International, employers can help employees with diabetes by offering ways to support their overall health and mental wellness too considering diabetes can also affect the mind. When employers take steps to improve the mental and physical well-being of their employees, the organization benefits overall because of the boost in happiness and productivity in employees. Offering wellness programs can benefit your employees with diabetes by giving them the support they need to look after themselves and work to the best of their abilities.

For more information on diabetes wellness programs, click here! 

Growing 

Learning to grow with diabetes can take time. From Arshad’s experience, he states that he’s learned a lot from working with diabetes and what an organization’s human resources department can do to help. 

“Unless diabetes is at a very serious stage, it does not affect many employees’ abilities to perform their duties and many times employers may not even know that an employee has diabetes. However, it is a known fact that 1 in three people may have pre-diabetes or one of the variants of diabetes. So, in a workplace, logically speaking, 1 in 5 people may have it. So, human resources can have policies to accommodate persons with diabetes. They can arrange workshops for better diabetes management and can educate or provide guidance on a one-to-one basis.” - Arshad Abbasi 

It’s important for your organization’s human resources to take the required steps to make your employees feel safe in their roles. It’s an employer's responsibility to make employees feel protected and not discriminated against as well. Like Arshad mentioned, workshops are a great tool for diabetes management. In relation to this, employers can create a strategic approach to handling diabetes in the workplace like implementing an organizational assessment.

Having an organizational assessment can create workplace wellness by assessing the health risks being faced by your employees with diabetes. Implementing organizational assessments can help to gather critical data to see where to prioritize your resources. For example, a health risk assessment can measure the health of employees including their physical activity, nutrition, weight and family history to gain results and indicate the greatest areas of risk. A health risk assessment can also encourage employees to think about their overall health and understand what health-related programs they can offer for employees to focus on their health. 

Understanding diabetes and the role it plays in someone’s life can change your viewpoint on how to help them. Arshad’s experiences changed his views on life and helped him understand the importance of managing eating habits, stress levels, and creating a work-life balance. With this in mind, employers that can fully understand employees and what they face with diabetes will be able to move their organization forward in ways that are accommodating as well as supportive of their current and future diabetic employees. 

To learn more about Arshad Abbasi, connect with him on LinkedIn!