WORK
FROM HOME
With Diabetes
Make your work come to you to avoid some of the
challenges of working in an office with diabetes
By David Spero, BSN, RN
D
iabetes can make working at a
job harder. Maybe the answer is
to have your work come to you. Might
telecommuting or starting a home
business meet your needs?
On Sitepoint.com, Alyssa Gregory
listed 27 advantages of working from
home. She can take downtime when
she wants, eat healthier food for less
money, and wear comfortable clothes.
She saves time, money and stress by
not having to commute. And, she
says, “I don’t have to worry about ‘big
brother’ watching over my shoulder.”
For people who have diabetes,
there are other advantages. To stay
healthy, people with diabetes need to
eat on a regular schedule. They need
breaks to rest and sometimes to check
blood sugar or inject insulin. They
might need to snack if blood sugar is
getting low. Managers do not always
like these self-care actions or allow
them, but at home they can’t stop you.
A 2011 survey by the office supply
store Staples found that employees
who worked from home experi-
enced 25% less stress. Employees
also reported that they were able to
maintain a better work-life balance,
as well as eat healthier.
A study by Ravi S. Gajendran, PhD,
at the University of Illinois found
that telecommuters performed as well
as or better than their associates in the
office. According to Ari Zoldan, CEO
of the company Quantum Networks,“Telecommuting can limit absences,
increase productivity and save money
[for a company].”
Of course, telecommuting is not
for everybody. You can’t do construc-
tion or plumbing or waitressing from
home. It only works for jobs you can
do by internet or on the phone and
a few others.
Even if you can physically do your
job from home, you might miss the
human contact. And according to
Sarah White on Monster.com, “Some
of us can’t fathom getting work done
with a TV nearby and all our comforts
of home surrounding us.” If you find
yourself taking too many breaks to
wash dishes or watch TV, telecommut-
ing may not be for you.
More often, it’s the employer who
needs convincing. Employers may see
your being offsite as extra work for
them or not trust you to work hard.
You can point them to studies like Dr.
Gajendran’s for support. You can offer
to check in with them by Skype or an
instant message platform as often as
they want.
You can also suggest starting with
one day at home per week and work
up from there. This allows you to stay
in touch with colleagues and maintain
relationships with them.
If your employer won’t go along
with your working from home, per-
haps you can find an employer who
will. The website FlexJobs.com liststhousands of telecommuting and
part-time jobs in over 50 different
fields. These include everything from
customer service to accounting to
training and many more.
One problem is that a lot of flexible
jobs don’t have benefits and don’t
pay much. Another is that when you
work from home, you are always at
work. Bayt says you have to create a
separate workspace. “If your ‘desk’ is
your lunch tray in front of the televi- Shutterstock/StockLite18 September/October 2019