Planning your work life

Peter: MS plus acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. We pay our respect to the elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today.

We also acknowledge our gratitude that we share this land today, our sorrow for the cost of that sharing and our hope and belief that together we can shift to a place of equity, justice, and partnership. So, I'm just going to stop sharing my screen now, and I will now pass you across to Jodi who will give you an introduction to Jeff and Andrew and get into the discussion.

So, thank you.

Jodi: And away we go. Thank you, Peter. Now I know most people feel. Hello,

I'm Jodi, my name's Jodi Haartsen. I'm Executive Manager of Client and Wellbeing here at MS plus. Prior to that I was an MS nurse practitioner and manager of the Eastern Health MS service for 20 odd years. So that's where my credibility coming from there.

I know many people feel very anxious without slides and, and it gives people a certain sense of, I know my information, but I can reassure you that that there are lots of slides about a lot of the things that we're going to talk about that we've already produced in the past. And if you've got any specific questions, we'll certainly be able to direct you to, after the webinar, we'll be so happy to direct you to the people who can give you that information or the slides that you that might be relevant to what your specific needs are.

But what we are here to talk about tonight is work and it's just so important when you are diagnosed with a, with any chronic condition. But in multiple sclerosis as well too, we know that it's diagnosed between the age of 20 to 40. You guys who attend this all know this all know this piece of information. And often everyone talks all of a sudden about your health and your medications. And certainly there's this little, well, there seemed to be a gap a lot, certainly in my experience in clinic, of talking about what was most important to a lot of us at that time in our life, which is work, family as well. But also work like that so much a part of who we are and how we see ourselves in the world often has a lot to do with what we do at work. And so that part of it, when you are diagnosed so many times, I couldn't count the number of times where I would see looks of horror on people's faces when they were diagnosed. And the first thought was, what are they to do at work? How am I going to be in workspace? What is this going to mean to me about work? And so, it's a really important topic and I'm so glad that we have the expert people that we had to talk about.

So, I'll introduce Andrew. Andrew currently works part-time as people and culture manager in the non-emergency transport industry. Andrew's had over 26 years working for General Motors, Holden, and Associates, which are large companies across the USA and Asia, in the variety of senior HR leadership roles in public, small business, and in the not-for-profit sector. Andrew is employing an organizational development industrial employee relationship, human resource management, superannuation, oc, health and safety leadership, and high potential employee coaching and mentoring. I like the high potential employee. Don’t know what you do with the low potential people, Andrew. But maybe I think that more reflects Andrew's actual belief and having known Andrew for some time, but he thinks everyone's got potential. And so, I think that's really good. In 2012, Andrew was the recipient of the John Study Award for in, from MS Australia. This award is MS Australia's most prestigious award given annually in recognition of outstanding, consistent, selfless provision of notorious service to people living with MS and Andrew delivered that through his extensive involvement in MS council advisories and the and chair of the MS advisory council and on the board of MS society as well too well as serving on a number of other boards. So currently he's also assisting people through coaching and mentoring as pro bono and also fee for service basis.

And I'm also joined by Jeff. Jeff Works has been in the disability sector for over 20 years and prior to those industrial relations, it's kind of scary when you say industrial relations, Jeff. It's kind of scary when you think who he is. IR he's worked for six years for MS plus is the employment support consultant in the employment support service. And he uses his training as an OT in the workers' compensation sector and also to really inform the services that we deliver as part of the MS Plus and the employment support service. And as we go through sections today, then I'm sure Jeff will tell us a little bit more about what the Employment Support Service does at MS and you'll get a bit of an idea of that. But as I said, reassuringly, there are slides somewhere you feel like you might need to.

So welcome both of you. Thank you so much for spending some time with us to have a chat about your experiences and also share the remarkable wisdom and insight that both of you have relating to people's work. So, Andrew I'm going to start at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about how your work journey started and how at that time of diagnosis, where were you at?

Tell us a bit about that.

Andrew: Sure. So, Jodi as you indicated, I have a long history in HR and some industrial relations and all of those areas associated with the people side of the business. Prior to that I worked in the federal government with the tax office for 10 years doing administrative work and it was where I found the roles in both training and development, but also HR as well. And that over time evolved into roles that showed me a door to the private sector and that was how I initially came across to Holden. Initially doing training and development in Melbourne and then over to Adelaide for five years running employee relations for Holden's manufacturing site in that period of time. And that's that right in the middle of that assignment was when I was diagnosed with MS back in 1993. Seems it's 30 years this year, I've racked up. So, it does bring to the surface a lot of issues and I know when I was thinking about this today, the things that I would characterize about it was there was great uncertainty about what was going to be the path ahead for me and how my MS would likely track over a period of time.

It was very emotional for me as well. I had a young family, two very young daughters when I was diagnosed, I was 35. And I, it also brought up issues for me around, the role that I was playing, I was the employee relations manager for a site that had five and a half thousand people on it at the time. Largely, probably 90% of them were covered by awards or enterprise agreements. So, a lot of industrial work and I was very concerned about the implications for that role and doing it properly at the time is a, it's a very challenging time, I think.

Jodi: Mm-hmm. And was it high on the top of your list, the worries when you were diagnosed?

Was it, you know, was it the top thing that you sort of went straight to work? Mm-hmm?

Andrew: Yes, for sure. I felt a little fortunate in that I had a connection to what was then the MS Society. I had an aunt who'd done a lot of fundraising work with the MS Society and was well connected to the doctor at the time. So, I knew a little bit about MS. But it was also a time when there was not, certainly not the degree of knowledge of MS that there is today, nor the amount of medication support. And there was a basically methylprednisolone available at the time and that was it. So, my concern was really would this, would this go off track very badly and derail my career totally. And what would that mean for my family and supporting my family? And so those were really the dilemmas for me. And then it became a matter of then saying, well, what do I do with my employer? Do I talk to them about it? Do I do it now? Do I wait? What will happen? Will I have severe relapses? My early relapses were relatively, they were significant, but they were relatively mild in the week to the lead up to the diagnosis.

Jodi: Mm-hmm. And what did you decide to do to tell your boss or not to tell your boss?

Andrew: I decided to tell my boss and I think there were a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, the culture in the business and the culture of leadership in the business and my direct boss and his direct boss were people that I had confidence in, that you could have a discussion around this issue without the whole thing derailing very quickly. So that was one driver. The other driver was that I had been sent into this role as a development role. And it was a high stakes role in that if you had industrial relations problems on the side, you could shut the manufacturing facility down, just like that. And my concern about that was, if I let the business down because I had a relapse and I had no control over that, what damage would I be doing, not only to my reputation and my capability, but also prospectively to the business. So, I felt some responsibility to stand up and have a discussion with them.

Jodi: Mm-hmm. And before we get to how that went, Jeff, what do you think about disclosure was that we've had quite a few questions come in before this webinar, and one of them was around disclosure. And in my experience that real, that question, how do I know if it's right or wrong to disclose?

In most cases, I know that you don't have to, but how, you know, and Andrew sort of reflected that it's, you know, for him it was the comfort in the people that the trusts. What other things have you found in, in the discussion of disclosure that are important?

Jeff: Sure. Firstly, it is without a doubt the hardest question to wrestle for each individual. There's no expectation that I have with anybody around the question of disclosure. And I think until you are in the position where you have to ask that question, do I disclose or don't disclose, disclose it's very hard to really understand the, the, the things that you wrestle with around it. The question about do I need to, well that's around the question of do you have the ability to perform the inherent duties of the role? And if you can't, then there is an obligation to disclose. But beyond that, it's a very, very personal question. As, as Andrew said, he felt that he was in a very safe space to be able to disclose. And it's a wonderful thing to have an employer in a workplace where you feel comfortable to do that and a good relationship like that.

There's a lot of people that I've come across where it's they have good relationships, but they don't want to because the symptoms might be invisible symptoms and they just don't feel it's anyone else's business. There are some cases where it's just, it's fear, pure fear about I, if I disclose well, what are going to be the consequences? Will I lose my job? Will I there be repercussions on whether I have, have career progression? If I disclose, will they look at me? Definitely will they judge me differently. But it's a, it's a very, very, personal question a very difficult question to, and sometimes it's also something that is not a straightaway answer. It's something that there can be some time needed to build up to the question of disclosure. I've had some people I've worked with where we've taken many, many months and many, many tears to build up to that point of, of being comfortable to disclose and, and getting some, some good reactions at the end of that too, that weren't expected or getting some interesting reactions.

Jodi: Mm I think that word safe is really important, that sense of safety. I mean, it's sometimes you get that wrong sometimes, but you often have a sense of how, how safe a relationship is. And in terms of that that sense of, I feel safe in this relationship, and I feel safe in my role to be able to be able to disclose this information. And I think fortunately, certainly since you were diagnosed Andrew and in my time. There seems to be more people who know someone with MS and the story's getting more positive. You can't always call that. But I do have a bit, a bit of a sense that there's a little bit more, a little bit more knowledge about it than there was when I was started working as an MS nurse 25 years ago. That people do say, oh yeah, I know someone whose got MS they're doing really well and it's all good. And you know, that's sort of say it's not always a negative experience when you disclose. Sometimes I have heard it as a really positive experience and people think, wow, you know, like I didn't expect to get the support that I got.

And it's not, you know, that the fears were not, like you said, Jeff, the fears were not realized. And so Andrew, did you feel that once you've disclosed, you got the sort of, once it was out of the bag, do you feel like you got the support that you needed?

Andrew: Oh, very much so. I think a comment that I would make in relation to what both of you just mentioned too. I think that awareness thing is, is a big indicator. And I know in those days even people would say, I know of MS because of the MS Readathon. And they, they had link either directly when they'd been a child in school or via their children. So, people knew of that. The other comment I would make is that people workplaces have changed a lot in that 30 year period of time and that for many roles whereas it was seen that if you weren't there, you weren't contributing. There is a great deal, more focus on work workplace flexibility now, and I think. That's helping as well. But I think importantly, in my experience what that came down to was, it was interesting. General Motors is a global company, but very much had a sense and culture of family and they would look out for people that were struggling and that's in a large organization in some ways it's easier to do that because you have the financial and other resources to be able to provide that support. Smaller businesses more difficult. But I was very grateful for the level of support that I got and people, it was interesting, I'd be quite candid with you. I didn't want to talk to anybody for probably two years after diagnosis because I could not stop myself from crying when I talked about it. So, I didn't want to discuss it. And I found people were very respectful of that. They, if I did entrust my story to them, they respected my privacy, they dealt with the issues that needed to be dealt with. They didn't share the issue or the circumstances with a lot of other people in the organization.

So, it was a very positive experience overall.

Jodi: Good. The sense of safety and trust. Yes. Jeff?

Jeff: Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, if I can add an extra element to that, it's two questions about it. One is, do I disclose, or don’t I disclose? And then the other question is how do I ex how do I disclose? And the how do I disclose is not go to the manager and say, I guess what I've got MS. It's, as you were saying, Andrew, it's providing that education about what is MS and how is it affecting me, particularly because I've worked with like yourself, I've worked with many, many people with MS and no two people are the same. No two situations. There's a range of symptoms. There's a range of levels of progression. Everybody's situation is very different. And so how it's going to affect them in the workplace is going to be very different. And that's were making sure that there's an element of education about MS is part of that process so that they can understand what it is. And, and as you say, you mentioned sometimes people know someone else who's got MS and sometimes that can work against you because straight away the managers mind is going towards the idea that, well, you are going to be where they are rather than realizing the individual paths that, that people are on.

Jodi: Yeah, true, true.

Jeff: So, it's bring all the education with you that you can.

Jodi: Yeah, and I guess that understanding of the story for you too, you know, that narrative that you are telling and saying, this is my situation, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to do this A, B, C, and D.

Having that sort of, and it takes, it can take a while to get to that point of feeling like you can tell your story without crying. It took Andrew two years. And tell your stories so that people can, which is like okay to cry, but tell your stories so that people can more that sense that we all feel less anxious in an environment where we can, where we can say, this is what's going to happen A, B, C, and D I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this. So, despite MS can be very unpredictable, but there's the elements of it that you can kind of create for that. Yeah. Yeah. Good tips, Jeff. Good tips.

So, Andrew, thinking about now at work and when you were thinking about, you know, did there come a time when you needed to change what you were doing, or you needed to make any changes that you needed to change your workplace? And how did you go with that? How did you cope with that and how did you go about making those changes?

Andrew: Yeah, it was an interesting experience for me because there were probably two things, two streams, if you like, going on. I had and I'm very grateful for this, I had a lot of career opportunities over my, my career with General Motors. And they included assignments in the US for a period of time working out of Melbourne across Asia, from India to China, and just about everywhere in between, which were fantastic opportunities for me. But underlying that I was dealing with what was happening with my MS and I think the challenge for me was that I wanted to drive really hard on having my career evolve and be what I wanted it to be. But at the same time, knowing that I had to accommodate MS and ensure that I wasn't doing things that would cause me a huge problem.

So, over that journey I can remember experiences I was taking the earliest medication I had was beta interferon, which those of you that have experienced it, or similar interferons will know that you self-inject every couple of days. There are a couple of downsides to that. One was it was a pretty harsh drug to take, and I'd feel like every second morning, I would have an enormous hangover without having had the party the night before and you need to show up to work and that's a challenge. And also traveling a lot, I was doing injections in all sorts of unusual places on airplanes and in bathrooms and you name it, but that's what you had to do.

So, I found peers and colleagues were really supportive of me when I travelled a lot. They would help me out a lot to do what I needed to do, not only with traveling but in the roles and the commitments. I was involved a lot in enterprise bargaining and your bargain into the night. And a lot of my team and my colleagues would look out for me when we were working long hours and things like that. So, there were practical implications that you had to try and manage, but at the same time, there were supports and adaptations in the workplace. Things like, toward the end of my career I sat down with my boss, and he said, do you need to come into the office every day? He said, from my point of view, you've got a role where you could work from the home quite easily a couple of days a week. And we set up an arrangement that worked fabulously and I think probably elongated my career by three or four years. So it was, those sort of combinations were very powerful.

Jodi: That was before, well before Covid Times.

Andrew: Oh, sure, sure.

Jodi: So, Jeff, in your experience a lot of what you do in your role at the Employment Support Services is helping people with those sorts of adjustments. And so, what other, you know, working from home is an obvious one. Andand has Covid changed that a lot in your experience? And what else can we do to help people?

Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. I actually, I know that that covid has been what it's been, but in many ways, I think of Covid as being serendipitous. Something good has, has actually come out of something bad. Where up until Covid we speak to many employers about someone being able to work from home and you get some hit and misses on that. And then Covid has come along and all of a sudden overnight everybody was working from home. So, all the issues around security, around WHS in the work at home, sorry equipment, all of those things that people had concerns about were went away overnight because everybody proved that they could work from home, they could work safely, they could work securely they could work productively, which was another big question as well.

And so, now one of the benefits that's come from Covid has been that we do have for a lot of places, they've got hybrid arrangements, a as a permanent arrangement for all staff. So, for a lot of people with MS it just fits in naturally to be able to work from home. So, a lot of people, that's been a wonderful, not, well, I won't say wonderful, but it's been a nice positive to come out of the negative thing that Covid was.

Jodi: But yeah. We've been saying this for years we've been saying this.

Jeff: I hate to say it, but yeah, there was a certain, I told you so in there somewhere, but nice. I think it was a nice justify there that, you know, people can be productive. And that's the thing is we are not trying to set up for people to be able to work from home, to just sleep all day at home or, or waste their time. The people we're working, we genuinely want to work, they want to be productive. These are the things that we put in place to allow them to be more productive. And that's the whole discussion with the employer is that any of these reasonable adjustments that we do look to do are all about maintaining that that person as the productive worker and that the employer wants. The person themselves wants, everybody wants that, that outcome. So other things we've looked at are things like making adjustments with lighting or even headsets to shut out the outside world and allow people to be more productive with the work and waste, you know not getting caught up in the outside noises and the energy that consumes with people.

Even looking at things like working with people to work with exercise physiologists or things like that so that they can be build their stamina, so they've got more energy in the workplace and not be affected by the fatigue as much. Looking at ergonomic chairs or adjustments like that in the workplace so that people aren't trying to hold themselves in weird and wonderful postures, in really archaic chairs. The, the chair holds are more naturally so that they're not wasting that energy. All of these things that help to make small adjustments to conserve the energy or make changes in the way they do things, do more cognitively demanding things in the workplace in the morning when they're more alert, whereas in the afternoon, they're affected.

Where's the sun coming in in the afternoon? Is it, is someone sitting right in the way of the sun so that those who go through heat intolerance are affected? Cooling vests, cooling, cooling garments, things like that, that can all affect with things like heat intolerance in the workplace. But building the employer's understanding about why these adjustments are needed and the difference they make for the individual with the particular symptoms that someone might be going through.

Jodi: What's the, what Jeff, what's the general response? Andrew had a really positive experience of being supported. What was the general response? And one question that came in before it was, what do you do when that's not when you are getting resistance in that, in that space.

Jeff: So, what was the last part there?

Jodi: One other question came in to say, what do you do when you get resistance from the boss? Okay. Resistance. Yeah.

Jeff: Okay. I'll answer the first part first. Generally, we find that most employers are actually pretty good. Most employers. The first part is they just want to know more. What is MS, how is it affecting the person? Because they as Andrew said, the only thing they know about MS was a readathon they did when they're about that big.

So, the first thing they want to know is how is it affecting the person? And, you know, how can we work with the person to maintain the productivity, keep them doing their job? Because they're a valuable asset. They're a valuable, skilled asset. They know the job, it's very costly to go and retrain new people to do jobs and things like that. They've got a good relationship with this person. They make a contribution in a workplace, not just in the work that they do, but in the relationships, they have with the other people in the workplace. So, they want to do the things that they can to keep that person going. So, they, they're quite happy. The problem is that often they don't know how. And that's where people like myself with the Employment Support Service or OTs or Return to Work people come in and, and they can help to look at options for different ways to make those sort of adjustments.

You do occasionally get issues in the place in the workplace where you do get resistance. And often if you do get difficulties with resistance in the workplace, I tend to find quite often that that's it might be the person immediately above the individual that's been told. And often that's where you might bring in other parties into the discussion such as the HR team or other parties like that have a bit more of an understanding about reasonable adjustment and what it is and why it is. And so that it's not just a one-to-one discussion with the individual and their manager, but there's a couple of heads on the table that are all coming together to be able to look at how we can make those sort of adjustments.

Jodi: Mm Thanks. So, we know that research has shown that most people with MS leave work cause of cognitive function.

And one of the things that that can happen in MS is that cognition gets deteriorates over time. And I think that that's often compounded by facts, like not having a good work environment set up and fatigue is a big one that makes that worse.

So, Andrew was there a time for you when you thought, I'm just not being able to achieve what I am able to, required to do? And how did you sort of take control of that situation? Because there seems to be sort of two groups of people, people who take control of the situation and are able to sort of say, this is the plan, this is what I'm going to do who understand their superannuation and insurance. And then there are people who sort of feel like they're being benched or pushed out. So what was your experience of that time when you thought, I need to change I need to, you know, like it's time.

Andrew: I think Jodi there were a couple of aspects to that. I would say to you that I experienced multitude of times where I thought, this is it. Okay, I'm done. I can't do this. And sometimes it was simple as I would get out of bed, the alarm would go off in the morning and I'd swing my feet on onto the ground and I was just having a terrible day and it was hard and I was struggling to get through my morning routine. And I would just say to Julie, my wife, I can't do this any longer. It's too hard. I can't push hard enough to go and do this again. And that happened a number of times. There were also times when I would go into a relapse and it would knock me out for a period of time. So, the worst situation I had, I think was I was on a business trip to China, and I managed to get some food poisoning, which put me in hospital for a week in China and then brought back to Melbourne after that. And I thought, this has to be the end. It can't possibly go on. And certainly, what came out of that was a discussion about, well, what can you do as a role going forward? And as I recovered and got stronger the organization found a role that was important for them, but was also a lifeline for me and was able to fit me in.

And I worked for a good three more years in that role. When I got to the end I'd had a new boss come into the role of executive director at the time, and he's both, he and I had worked for the same woman in the US and he said to me, I want to talk to you about the process for what we do in the event that you feel things are not working the way they are now. Right now, it's not, it's working fine and it's not a big deal. But can we talk about what might happen if it gets harder and what might happen if you can't do it anymore? And what we agreed was we stepped out of the day today and talked about a process, and it allowed me to firstly modify the way I was working and the way we discussed before. And then eventually I went to him, and I said, Mark, I don't think this has a terribly long future to it. I am really struggling, and I think I'm going to have to call it. And what we did at that point was we agreed a six month window for me to transition out and for people to transition in behind me into the role. And we paced that out over the six months and at the end I left.

And so, I felt like I had a lot of control and support in that, that process. But it, you know, the organization was equally very good. I had on one occasion that I remember vividly, I had the head of engine manufacturing who had known me for a long time. He came to see me, and he said, can I get you to help me with this issue? And they had a young tradesman who was a very good maintenance tradesman down in the engine plant who'd been diagnosed with MS. He was presenting a risk to himself and to the organization because he was starting to have a lot of falls and he said, I don't know what I should do with this guy. And we talked for a while and I said, let's talk about his knowledge and his skills and how else they might be able to be deployed in the business.

Long time went on, but what we were able to achieve was that that young man who was just a super trading, was able to be redeployed into the purchasing group and was involved in purchasing parts. And his career was extended for 10 years. H was a Turkish guy and had a very traditional family set up where he was the breadwinner. And his wife worked at home, obviously, but not out in the workforce. And so, the income for that family was vital, but it showed by, in the way Jeff described by working collaboratively, there was a way to provide him with a different opportunity, which was great, and the end didn't come for him as quickly as it might have. That's good.

Jodi: I really liked the fact that you talked about process, but I'll park that for a minute and just go over to Jeff because I think one of the questions that came through before the webinar was the sense of what if I can't do the job? And that was certainly true for, in my experience, tradesman in particular was a difficult one because the way MS can affect balance and even in really subtle ways.

So that kind of sense of what do I do now? How do I, you know, reinvent myself, you know, this guy had a big organization. But what's your experience with that, Jeff, and how do you sort of help support people through that?

Jeff: Sure. Firstly, I'll take that on two levels. First level is saying, well, what if I can't do the job?

First thing I'd look at is explore all the options around it. Me doing the job I'm doing now, am I having difficulty with it? Yes. Feeling like I can't do it? Have I spoken to all the people around me to see about what changes might be able to be made? For example, this is part of what we do in the ESS team. Employment support services. Look at how someone can if the problem is you mentioned before about cognition as being an issue. Well, there's any number of devices out there that can help with issues like cognition, like smartphones, like iPads, like any number of devices like that can help in areas where people were having difficulty with cognition. And it might be changing the way you do it, rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water. That to say that I'm having difficulty with it, I can't do it, jobs out. It also, the problem, I was talking to someone before about this too, that a lot of people hold themselves to a very high standard cognitively, and they have the cognitive ability even when they're being affected to do the job, but it's just not where their head was at before, where their feeling, their cognition was and they're holding themself rather than where the job requires. They're holding themselves up here where they can actually do what's required for the role and maintain it. Just their expectation of themselves is so high that they feel like that that writes them out and that's where it's changing your expectation that I can do the job. I may not do it to how I used to be before I was diagnosed with MS, but I can maintain that. So that's the first place I'd sort of look at with that is try to look for all the adjustments that can be made. And if you are having trouble with that, get someone in who can help with that. Who’s got the experience around looking at that, that reasonable adjustments. Cause I hate seeing people move out of a workplace where they've built up that experience and that if they don't have to and they still want to do that job.

In the event that it does reach a point where being able to do the inherent duties of the role is difficult and it can't be achieved, is unable to look for an alternative duty within that same employer where you've got experience in that workplace and knowledge in that workplace. If you can't find an alternative to that then there may be other options like you know, we've got someone in this team who helps people to find alternative roles. And it might be looking at an alternative role that is not the same sort of job that you were doing before, a different sort of job. But it's, there's a lot of transferable skills that you might bring with you from what you were doing and all the knowledge base that you brought up with that to bring into another role. It's a different role and you've got to be open to the idea of different roles but bring all that skill base and the knowledge base and the things that you brought from you. You didn't start life today, you started life and experience all the things you've done before now and everything you have, you bring with you the same as you go from any job.

When you move from one job to another to another, they're all there to come across with you. But question is, if you want to work, look for other ways that we can do this. Just more adapted to where your abilities are now and, and where your knowledge base is at the moment.

There are other options there as well too. I'll throw in quickly that if you look at options like your superannuation, you may have options like income protection to be able to reduce the number of days and that might, those sort of breaks in your day might working less days might give you an option. Or there are also options like TPD if that is a, an option that it comes to as well.

Jodi: Which is for those who don't know that's total permanent disability.

Jeff: That's my bad. Sorry.

Jodi: Those things get you. I think you're focused on something that that Andrew has talked to me in the past a lot about, which is value proposition and understanding your own value and that can be hard. And I also found that a lot of times that decision making part is filled with so much anxiety that you forget that you are actually, you know, anxiety makes that you are thinking so much clearer. It's not always just MS that's affecting that cognition, it's the anxiety that there is, you know, we're so much sharper when we're free of that anxiety and that can really have an impact as well too.

So how important do you think Andrew is, understanding your value proposition and, and how do you get to that as a, as a person?

Andrew: Yeah, I think Jodi, we have talked about that over time, and I think it's a really critical element. And Jeff's certainly touched on the elements of it as he's spoken just before, but a value proposition is one of those nice terms that HR people like to come up with from time to time. But it captures, as Jeff said earlier a picture of you in total. And one of the things that I would say about it is, first of all, take your time. Don't, it's good for people to start thinking about early, so you may not be in a situation at all where you feel your employment is under threat at this point in time. If you can start to think about your value proposition and what that looks at is your values. What do you as a person value? What do you like to do in a working environment? Your skills that you have that can be deployed in a number of ways. The example of the young tradie that I gave before, he had trade skills, but they could be deployed in a very different way in an administrative purchasing type role.

Think about the knowledge that you have and also think about your behaviors and, and the way that you work in the team or interact with other individuals. Because if you have a set of capabilities and you are able to use them in one work environment, you will very likely be able to use them in a whole range of different work environments. And I read recently that people that are entering the workforce today will have seven careers over their lifetime. And if you think in that context for everybody in general, we don't do today what I did in my day, in my day, you left school or you left university, you went to an organization and you worked there for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. What happens now is people expect to change more regularly. So, if you think about your value proposition, it can be deployed in a number of different ways. The other thing I'd throw in there is find someone who you trust. Might be the service that Jeff and his team offer, might be a wise friend that you've known for a long time. Might be an excellent nurse at your neurologist that you can sit down with and just run through what you are envisaging and get a broader perspective about where you are at and how it might affect you and what your options might be going forward. It's really valuable, I think.

Jodi: Mm what did you, I just want to go back to something that you talked about before, Andrew, which was about that there was many days that you thought that this, you know, that you got.

How did you get through those days? What happened? You know, what happened after you flung your legs out and said to that's it not doing it anymore. I can't do it anymore.

Andrew: I think usually it was a matter of Jule calling work and saying, he won't be there today, but he will be there tomorrow. So, there'd be that sort of discussion. And I think I like a different model that I've come across, it's called Forcefield Analysis, and basically it shows that you are on a journey and with MS. MS is pushing you down. Most of us hope that that journey is on an upward trajectory. And what you can do when you do force field analysis is you've got certain things pushing you down. They might be health issues, they might be finances, they might be relationships, but they're also things that push up. And one of the things that's important to me even today is that I look at things that push up on that line and they are things like exercise. They're things like nutrition, they're things like learning. They're things like connectedness and so on. They're things like fabulous medical support that I've had over, over many years that keep the line stable and at times going up. Sure there are going to be relapses and they push down. But if you do those things, it helps you, I think, to prolong that career outlook. And it's, it's really valuable to be investing time and effort in those sorts of things. And I think this is a lot of criticism of NDIS, but I think now NDIS is here, there's more resources potentially available to help you to leverage those things that push the line up as well.

Jodi: Yeah. That force, I really like that force field analysis, so I like that. We'll all be going home to do a force field analysis now. It sounds so very technical as well.

So, Jeff we haven't got a whole lot more time left, but Andrew talked about the importance of a process. And I think in my experience as well, that really having that sense of process, knowing what, knowing what you need, where to go, what are the next steps, is just so much a key in feeling in control. I mean, there'll always be, or for many of us though I no doubt they'll regret leaving your job, but the more you can kind of feel in control of that tell me a little bit more about what your experience is with that.

Jeff: With, when someone steps away from the workplace or with?

Jodi: Approach leaving, rather than just getting up one morning and saying time to go, the process.

Jeff: It's, look, it's a very difficult thing. Someone steps away and it's something that's been a part of them for so long. This is part of why we do what we do in here because that point where you step away is not something someone's wanting to move towards you. It's something that the process that they feel they need to. It's, but this is that void that you've had from going into work all the time and that's where if you do step away from that, you want to try and fill it with something else, something that'll be able to keep you occupied and using your time valuably in the way that you were contributing to the world, in the way when you were at work. We all like to have that sense of being able to contribute to things and feel like we have a value. And now that the, if you walk up to anyone and say, you know, hi, my name's Jeff. I'm an occupational therapist. We feel like we, that that's who we are, and that's part of what we do. And rightly or wrongly, I mean, there's debate about whether that it should be that way, but it is part of the contribution we feel like we make. And my suggestion is that if you, if you do get to that point where you step back from the workplace, you want to be looking for other ways to be able to make a contribution and be able to feel like you've, you've making that value, your value recognized in the work outside of the workplace, I should say.

Jodi: Yep. And what about the financial planning element of that? Of leaving the workforce Jeff.

Jeff: Well, that's where before you step away from work you definitely want to look at all of your options. And that may be looking at, as I said before, with your superannuation, do you have income protection or total and permanent disability as part of your super that you can tap into? Or if you don't have options like that available, it might be looking at something like a disability support pension or options like that. If those things aren't part of the equation for you, then obviously you want to try and pre-plan as far ahead as you can so that you do have options to be able to tap into. If you do need to there's options where you can tap into the super itself. But you need to be able to make put in a special application to be able to do that.

Jodi: Yeah, I think lots of people are terrified of the whole super superannuation and insurance and TPD and all those things that come along with it.

And so, I guess I would say that fortunately now there are lots of people, there are resources available and people are not alone. You know, like we do have the employment support service. There are also people who you can reach out to. It doesn't have to be chat GPT or Google. There are humans as well who will very much help people with this process help them feel that it will be tough for most people. We all knew retirement they're all tough things, but there's lots of resources out there to support people in this process and to help them understand. Most superannuation and insurances, in my experience, have been very unique to the individual and most workplace, what they're able to achieve is unique to the individual as well too. But you know, when you're lost, there is people who will sort of take your hand and say, hey, let's go this direction and we're certainly able to help you do that as well too. That's such an important thing.

And, I guess going back to the, the start of the story of the diagnosis time, which is I, I think I've heard myself say a lot. Don't panic, let's not panic yet. Straight away diagnosis. Let's just wait. And both of you have shared a story to me that says, don't panic. Don't panic yet, because your career will be, could well be long and prosperous as Andrews. And that there's people out there to help as well too. And that if you can rethink things as well too. because as I said, it is a sense of, so often it felt like a sense of being so overwhelmed by that threatened work identity and what to do about all of that. So, I might call Pete back on to see if there's any questions as well.

Is there anything else, Andrew, you wanted to say?

Andrew: The only thing I'd add, Jodi very quickly or really would like to leave people with these, I really encourage you to look at your own value proposition and spend a little time doing that, just get on your iPad, use your notebook, whatever works for you, and just jot down the things that you value that you are skilled in, that you know about and the way that you like to interact and behave with other people. Because if you are a bit down about the fact that I've ended up with MS and this is going to derail my career. Doing that can be a really uplifting thing to do, to get across for you as much as the people that lead you your skillset and what value you bring to that organization or potentially some other workplace. So really encourage you to do that and go well with that.

Jodi: Thank you. Jeff. Any totally agree, Andrew. It might change over time too, but so it's a good thing to sort of have and keep working on mm-hmm?

Andrew: Yep, for sure.

Jeff: I'd just say, look if don't look at stepping out of the workplace until you feel like you want to or at least until you've looked at all the options that are there don't just assume that I've got MS. I've got to step away. Look at all options. Talk to people, see what you can do around that before you look at that as an option.

The other thing is if you do look to step away be open to, to different options about other work that you might do, and as we said, bring across the skills, the value that, that we said everything you had before.

Now just another thing Andrew said before about you know, the things that you can do to take control of your situation are to outside of the workplace contribute as much as the things you do in the workplace, like working with someone to build you your stamina and control your fatigue levels so you've got more for the workplace. And then the other thing I think is when you do go to talk, managers or HR about these things. Try to come with solutions. Don't, don't just come with a problem and a, and an issue. I know I'm a manager, and anytime a staff member comes to me with ideas and solutions. That's always going to go down a lot easier than coming to me just with the problem. So, if you can go to them with ideas that you've already thought out about how to make changes in the workplace, they're going to be much more receptive to it.

And then the only other thing is have a good look at your super and just check that you've got options like TPD and income protection sorry, total and permanent disability insurance options like that in there. Because a lot of people don’t know whether they do or don't. And it's not until you're desperately after it that you really explore that.

Jodi: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Thanks. And I also know that we've got some we've got some separate webinars on the superannuation. Superannuation information as well too. That's plus the, what we do at MS plus, we do a lot of bit stuff at MS Plus. So, so for anyone, here's a little slide from Pete, threw that in there. So, to what we do at MS Plus, Pete, was there any burning questions or have we run out of time?

Peter: No, we've probably run out of time, but I think we really cover most of the main points to anyone that has sent in a question we will get to that in the, in the coming sort of week or two and Jeff has put his hand up to be able to respond to everyone. So yeah, thank you for everyone that's sent in their questions and thank you Jeff, Andrew, and Jodi. I might, I might just quickly go through these last couple of slides.

I'll only keep you all for a minute or, so this is just. All the services that we offer. And as you see there, there's, there's quite a lot of services that we do offer. And you know, we talked about the employment support service. You know, that's, that's a service that can really, and, and has really helped a lot of people. So, you know, if you want to reach out to them, if you want to reach out to a physiotherapist or a continence nurse and please do Ring Plus Connect they are the gateway to all our services. And just any support or advice or information. So please do give them a call or an email. And I will have those details in, in one second. And just quickly we do have a number of resources as well, webinars, podcasts, articles they're all on the resource hub on our website, so please do hop on there and have a look. These are the details for Plus Connect. If you don't have time to write them down now and you do want to contact us just hop onto to our website if you just Google MS Plus, and you'll be able to find those details there. So again, just a massive thank you. That was, that was a really informative and engaging presentation. And I want to say a massive thank you to Jeff and Andrew for coming along today. And thank you to Jodi for facilitating. I think that covered, covered all the topics that I could think of when it comes to work and MS. So yeah, and thank you to everyone that came along. And yeah, have a good night. Enjoy some dinner.

Jodi: Thanks Jeff. Thanks Andrew.

Andrew: Thanks. Bye.

Jeff: Thank you very much. Thank you.

Jodi: Okay, thanks.