How Do I Support My Employees Undergoing Fertility Treatment?
For employees embarking on their fertility journey, it can be a stressful and exciting time – requiring a number of trips to the fertility center for blood work, monitoring, the embryo transfer and follow-up consultations. However, treatment schedules can become unpredictable at times, and it can take anywhere from months to years for fertility treatments to be successful. With all of this uncertainty, employees may become overwhelmed trying to balance fertility treatment, work, and their overall mental wellbeing. How can you as an employer better support them through this process?
Managing Treatment
Your employee will work with their Reproductive Endocrinologist and the team at the fertility center to create a schedule of visits, including how much time each visit will take. Some appointments may need to take place daily or every other day, which can put added pressure on employees when managing their work schedule.
Fortunately, many fertility centers, especially larger practices, have satellite offices that can complete the monitoring required throughout treatment, making it more convenient for people to get to their appointments. Some fertility centers also have early or late hours, as well as weekend appointments, to help patients avoid missing work as much as possible.
WIN takes factors like these into account when matching members to a high-quality provider that meets their unique needs, making it easier for them to balance treatment and work. Additionally, WIN’s nurse care advocates apply their extensive clinical experience to serve as a personal resource – helping members navigate their treatment plan and ensuring that the highest clinical standards are met throughout their care, all while providing emotional support and education, ultimately improving treatment outcomes and employee satisfaction.
Balancing the Workload
Depending on your company’s policy regarding medical absences, you may have more or less flexibility when working with your employee to accommodate their treatment schedule. Additionally, the employee’s work may need to be distributed among other coworkers to make up for time spent away. When discussing these arrangements with coworkers, keep the employee’s privacy in mind and don’t mention specifics about why they will be absent.
If your employees work remotely or have a hybrid schedule, there may be more flexibility in creating a schedule that works for everyone. An article in Harvard Business Review found that working from home during the pandemic made it easier for employees to manage treatment and made absences less visible.
Whether an employee is working in-person or from home, the WINFertility mobile app delivers a variety of features to make the path to parenthood easier. Members can stay organized with appointment and medication reminders and read educational materials that relate to their journey. Additionally, the WINFertility app provides 24/7 access to a dedicated nurse care advocate through the 1-click nurse call feature, making it more convenient to quickly access one-on-one guidance without having to make additional trips to the fertility center.
Providing Support
Each year, more and more companies across all industries are adding family building benefits to attract talent, improve DEI initiatives, and increase retention. However, when it comes time for employees to actually use those benefits, they may become overwhelmed from the physical and emotional toll of fertility treatment, causing increased stress and decreased performance. While many employees will lean on their family and friends for support during this time, the expert guidance of WIN’s behavioral health care advocates allows members to develop healthy coping strategies that can improve their mental wellbeing along all of the ups and downs of fertility treatment.
Ultimately, employers who provide enhanced support by giving employees the tools they need to balance family building and work can expect to see better performance and increased loyalty.
Reach out to solutions@winfertility.com to see how WIN can provide enhanced support to your employees through the course of their entire family building journey.