Welcome to Living Well with MS, where we are pleased to welcome Yasmin Neves as our guest! Yasmin is an HR professional and recently joined the Overcoming MS team as a facilitator through our ‘Train the Trainer’ programme. In this episode, she talks to Geoff about topics to help you with your work: navigating work with MS, how to talk to your employer about your MS, taking time off work for MS and the pros and cons of being self-employed after an MS diagnosis.

Watch this episode on YouTube here. Keep reading for the key episode takeaways.

01:11 Intro: Yasmin’s MS journey.

04:10 Yasmin's new role as an Overcoming MS facilitator.

08:14 Navigating your work with MS: when and how you share your diagnosis with your employer.

13:40 Job interviews and MS: should you disclose or not disclose?

18:50 Taking time off or leaving work with MS: practical considerations for you to think about.

26:32 Self-employment after an MS diagnosis: weighing up the pros and cons.

All the adjustments you can ask your workplace for.

17:23 “In terms of adjustments whilst you're at work, it could be adjusting your working hours, it could be adjusting to working from home more or working at a different location. It could be changing your setup or how you sit on a chair or at your desk. The list is endless. They have to be tailored to your MS, how your symptoms affect you and what is needed as [part of the] job. It's all about making sure that you are given the support for you and your role.”

Keeping motivated and having a purpose when taking time out of work.

19:46 “How are you going to feel if suddenly you've got a whole year off? How are you then going to find your purpose? How are you going to keep motivated without having that thing in your life that maybe was once important? That can go either way.”

Weighing up the pros and cons of working for yourself.

28:21 “Work-life balance is very important to me because I'm my own boss, I can decide my own diary. There are obviously cons because I don't get things like sickness benefits, which might be quite helpful with a condition like MS. But then I do get other perks, like I can decide who I work with. Stress is so important with this condition, if there is a client or a project that doesn't quite align with my purpose and it causes me stress, I'm fortunate enough that I can say actually, this isn't for me, and I can turn it away.”

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