Medical reports - bane or boon?

The fear of being written off keeps many senior executives from revealing an ailment.

What can undo even the toughest of negotiators? Not the thought of the billion dollar deal falling through, but the whiff of a medical ailment doing the rounds. Keeping a medical condition under wraps is not uncommon — such news pertaining to a head of state or a celebrity always makes headlines, and closer home, if it involves the managing director, chairman or vice president of a company, then it’s ‘classified information’, not to be shared with team members or even top management.

The fears are many. Of being pulled off important assignments, of plum assignments falling into the lap of a rival, or being written off as a ‘has been’ once the initial sympathising is over — reasons enough to make medical history a closely-guarded secret.

Nothing undoes the carefully cultivated perception of a corporate leader more than a medical impairment. This could be something as major as a cardiac bypass or an easily ‘fixed’ borderline high-blood pressure or an unnamed ailment which acquires shape as details get leaked through a secretary, snatches of a telephone conversation, glimpses of a report lying on the table or through an ‘informed’ source.

With the exception of the omniscient ‘viral fever’, anything that impacts the body for more than a couple of days indicates that the person is either crumbling under pressure, becoming a victim of his or her lifestyle or has contracted something serious. This situation leads to hushed whispers: “Do you think she can handle the German partners?”; “Is his whimsical team finally doing him in?”; “Can we bank on his being available through the year for the project we just bagged?”

So how do professionals deal with such situations? A common strategy involves denial, hedging and obscurity. And while it may be easy to shift from the organisation’s panel of doctors to a private set-up, it is not so easy to fool a professional HR team.

The other day, a former colleague narrated how her workaholic boss came down with something that had to be “very serious” for he was in hospital for several days, incommunicado. While they were contemplating possibilities, he strode into office a few days later wearing a flashy pink shirt, dismissing polite queries about his health with studied nonchalance and leaving office early on the pretext of going to the gym. All this would have been convincing had it not been for the fact that his wife watched everything he ate and drank at the office party the following weekend, before bundling him up and taking him home when the party was just about warming up.

Why do companies view ill health, especially among the management cadre, with such suspicion, especially when it is unrealistic to expect perfect fitness 365 days a year?

The problem arises from the perception associated with a successful career graph. Not only are they expected to flaunt perfect power points and profit and loss statements but also put in 12 hours of work, attend networking dinners, power breakfasts, working lunches, self-development seminars and mentoring sessions. Such unrealistic expectations are bound to play havoc with one’s health, and individuals go to great lengths to protect their image, lest it jeopardise appraisals, increments and promotions.

In the armed forces, results of the Annual Medical Check feed into the Annual Confidential Report. The officer is checked for medical and physical fitness and if found wanting, placed in a lower category. This determines postings and assignments. In professions where there is a high premium on physical fitness, regular checks are mandatory but in other sectors, it is mostly lax unless the organisation has a “watch the health of the employee” policy.

In many cases, medical reimbursements and leave for medical reasons are routinely misused. This makes employers and insurance companies look suspiciously on all medical reimbursement claims. If employees exhibit dysfunctional behaviour that could be triggered by health conditions, management is well within its rights to initiate counselling or to recommend treatment. However, most companies prefer not to get involved in employees’ health matters though it may be time to review that.

[Taru Bahl is a Delhi-based freelance writer]