America’s companies have a cancer problem.

In less than 50 years, rates of cancer in the country have exploded. As of Jan. 1, 2022, there were about 18.1 million cancer survivors in the country – about four times more than in 1975. Patients and survivors are everywhere within your organization. 

These survivors are missing work, struggling to get back to work, and not returning to the quality of work they once took for granted. 

Companies large and small are seeing this happen and reorganizing their human resources teams to serve this growing need. There are now cancer-focused HR professionals at some large companies, and HR-built workbooks, procedures, and seminars for managers at many firms. (Full disclosure: I conduct a seminar for managers of cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers.) 

Thousands of companies also offer third-party resources, from cancer-specific groups like AccessHope, or more general health firms like HealthAdvocate. I personally used HealthAdvocate repeatedly for the last decade. 

If your company isn’t providing these resources and you are a survivor or patient, you should ask why. 

Still, this work isn’t doing enough given much of this cancer work is still too focused on current patients. Only recently have companies really started to think about survivorship. 

One of those thinking about survivorship a lot is Hasbro, the 100-year-old toy company based in Rhode Island (though they are moving to Boston soon.) 

Part of the survivorship focus stems from what they’ve seen from their workers and what a focus on survivorship could mean for their medical costs. Many companies are seeing the impact of cancer on their costs. In a just released survey by the Business Group on Health, more than 120 companies said their healthcare costs for the past year well exceeded expectations, citing the impact of GLP-1 drugs, cancer care and screening, and mental health services. 

For Hasbro, it’s also personal. The company’s longtime chief executive, Brian Goldner, lived with prostate cancer for seven years before his death in 2021.  

There are about 5,000 workers at Hasbro on the company’s medical plan. As they’ve refocused efforts on health after treatment, they’ve seen a benefit to their workers and their bottom line.

“It is really easy to see that the easiest way to manage the cost of our health plan is to make sure we have programs available so that when people get sick, they can get healthy fast,” says Noora Garnett, vice president of global benefits at Hasbro. 

More specifically, Noora says Hasbro has focused its efforts on three specific goals: resources, communication and engagement. And they have focused on these goals before someone gets sick, so that it is obvious where to go when they do get sick. 

“It’s evident we can’t just focus on after the diagnosis. We don’t get enough awareness that way,” she says.

Hasbro has also chosen to partner with a cancer specific resources group, Color Health. 

Color began as a genetics company but has now grown far beyond a genetics testing firm. It is largely focused on the entire cancer experience, including you, the cancer survivor.  

Color has built a virtual cancer clinic for patients and survivors that helps with cancer screening, treatment and survivorship. For patients, this can mean helping find a second opinion or connect the recently diagnosed with local or national treatment centers, and clinical trials. 

For survivors, Color’s system helps you and your medical team with ongoing monitoring of symptoms. It helps with recommended treatments for side effects and complications. It can also provide answers to general health concerns given it runs its own medical group with imaging sensors, treatment centers, community clinics, oncologists, primary care doctors and counselors. 

This broad and often virtual offering can be particularly helpful for those who live in medical deserts, away from larger hospitals. 

“We are not the treating oncologist but we provide a bunch of other services,” says Othman Laraki, the company’s founder and a former board member of the American Cancer Society. 

Color Health’s offerings go beyond health. It also partners with many companies to help build return to work programs for survivors. And has built a peer-based model for people in similar places on their post-cancer journey to connect. Cancer is lonely, connecting with others can often help. 

For those in HR looking to engage Color or AccessHope or any third-party, Noora has some guidance. 

Think engagement and trust building first, offerings second. People already have full time jobs so adding more and more offerings can feel like a burden and backfire. 

“People have more and more barriers and illnesses. And there are so many services out there. If it feels like a burden because you have to spend on time on it, people won’t engage,” she says. 

On the surface, this is a fascinating story from The New York Times recently about the rise of fatal falling among older Americans. Among the reasons cited are rising rates of prescription drugs, with falling as a common side effect.

The lead anecdote is an older man who’s taking drugs for prostate cancer and it’s those drugs that are making him unstable. He tells his doctor and they make a change.

For survivors, the takeaway here is not be careful if you are older and taking cancer drugs. The takeaway is that he spoke up.

Too often, survivors pretend they are doing fine or simply forget about their side effects in the few minutes they talk to their doctor each year. Write it down and speak up.