Factors Related to Employers’ Intent to Hire, Retain and Accommodate Cancer Survivors: The Singapore Perspective

Purpose Despite the growing importance of cancer and return-to-work issues in occupational rehabilitation literature in the last decade, academic discussion is largely limited to survivors’ perspectives and some exploratory studies from the employer side. This paper applies two classic theoretical models—Theory of Planned Behavior and Social Cognitive Theory—and key measures from previous studies to identify explicit relationships that explain employer factors to hire and retain cancer survivors. Methods Data were collected from online surveys with senior management executives and senior human resource specialists from various organizations in Singapore, with a total of 145 responses. The 72-item survey instrument included a series of independent variables: (1) Attitudes toward cancer and cancer survivors; (2) Employers’ efficacy; (3) Perceived moral obligation; (4) Employers’ experience; (5) Outcome expectations; (6) Employment situation; (7) Social norms; and (8) Incentives, and dependent variables: (a) Employers’ intention to hire cancer survivors; and (b) Employers’ intention to retain cancer survivors. Results Regression analyses showed that the top three factors related to employers’ intention to retain cancer survivors are perceived moral obligations ( β = .39, p