The Spearhead doesn’t normally cover business related topics, but I saw an article on this issue recently on Forbes.com and this is too important not to cover. The article covers the special needs of employees suffering from BWV syndrome*. BWV is a genetic condition and those who have it must deal with it their entire lives. In the past many employers avoided hiring people with the condition, or limited them to positions which didn’t cause them undue stress.
Now employers know they can and should hire people with BWV for every role within the enterprise. The problem now is that employers are making the mistake of treating employees with BWV as if they were any other employee. This isn’t fair to employees with BWV, because they have special needs which the employer needs to consider. Chief among these is the problems those with BWV experience when forced to make trade offs between competing priorities, or when they are forced to make and stand by long term decisions.
For example, someone with BWV syndrome will be caused undue stress if they have responsibilities both inside and outside the workplace. A normal employee could handle say a position as account manager while also performing common tasks at home such as yard work, painting, and basic repairs. However, those with BWV would find such an arrangement unbearable. Employers must take this into account with BWV employees, and work with their caretaker to make sure their combined workload isn’t excessive. While a BWV employee may have no trouble handling basic office work, if this is compounded by adding tasks outside of work such as dusting and vacuuming this will often cause them undue stress.
The special needs of BWV employees must also be considered when looking at their motivation for working. BWV employees function best when their employment is purely optional. Unlike your other employees it is important that they not feel compelled to work to meet their financial needs. HR departments need to take this into consideration when devising BWV friendly policies.
Another area where traditional HR policies cause undue stress on BWV employees is in the area of vacation time. Other employees are able to plan ahead and arrange to take their vacation time as needed. However, this kind of policy puts the BWV sufferer in the position they are least able to manage. It forces them to make a decision between two competing priorities, and also forces them to engage in long term planning. In the Forbes article the author (who herself suffers from BWV syndrome) described the stress this caused her when her family moved:
Years ago, as a corporate VP in a large national marketing firm, I was “put down” by the head of HR for my choice to take a week off to move my family, including my husband and our two small children, to another city. This HR leader said to me, “I moved to another town with my kids last month and only took a half day off.”
Clearly the normal policy of having the employee schedule their vacation time in advance was not a BWV friendly policy. This forces someone with BWV to both plan ahead, and to make an excruciating trade off in whether they would rather take their vacation time to relax vs to make their life outside of work go smoothly. This kind of thoughtlessness by employers must stop.
She gave another example of how well intended HR policies can be downright cruel to BWV sufferers. One firm had a policy which allowed those with BWV to take time off when needed to focus on their home life. This would seem to be extremely BWV friendly because it removes the need to make a decision requiring trade-offs. However, those with BWV who took this option found that they weren’t given credit for the time they weren’t at work when it came to career advancement. So the promised avoidance of making a tradeoff decision was in fact a lie. Only if companies pretend that BWV sufferers were in fact working in the office while actually not working can we offer an equitable solution to BWV sufferers. If you run a business, you need to talk with your HR department immediately about this and the other issues mentioned in the Forbes.com article (H/T Uncle Elmer).
*”Born With Vagina”
Handicap image from Wiki Commons.
