Your Workplace - a monthly newsletter about workplace trends

Mental Illness: Managing a Common Workplace Ailment

Recognizing Mental Illness at Work

As a manager, you cannot diagnose depression yourself. However, you can recognize when an employee shows signs of a problem that affects his or her productivity, ability to work with others and overall job performance. Depression, one of the most common mental health problems in the American workplace, can have an impact on all of those performance indicators.

Symptoms of depression in the workplace include:

Complaints of unexplained aches and pains
Alcohol and drug abuse
Decreased productivity
Morale problems
Lack of cooperation
Taking risks
Having accidents
Absenteeism
Frequent statements about being tired all the time

If your company has an Employee Assistance Program, you can refer the employee there. Otherwise, you might contact your HR department or even the EAP yourself to find a counselor who can suggest how best to approach this employee.

You can also discuss changes in work performance with the employee, but any discussion must be kept confidential. The National Institute for Mental Health suggests starting the conversation like this:

"I'm concerned that recently you've been late to work often and aren't meeting your performance objectives. I'd like to see you get back on track. I don't know whether this is the case for you, but if personal issues are affecting your work, you can speak confidentially to one of our employee assistance counselors.

"The service was set up to help employees. Our conversation today and any discussions with the counselor will be kept confidential. Whether or not you contact this service, you will still be expected to meet your performance goals."

If an employee voluntarily approaches you to discuss his or her illness, remember these tips:

Do not diagnose the problem yourself
Recommend that he or she contact the EAP hotline or seek professional help.
Recognize that a depressed employee may need a flexible work schedule during treatment. Find out about your company's policies.
Remember that severe depression may be life-threatening to the employee (but rarely to others). So, if an employee makes suicidal statements, take it seriously. Contact an EAP counselor or other specialist to get advice on how to handle the situation.

Perhaps it's most important to remember that depression is a treatable illness. As many as 80 percent of people afflicted with depression are treated effectively, generally without missing much time from work or needing costly hospitalization, according to the National Institute for Mental Health.

Until her breakdown, Susan Taylor was among the best employees in her publishing company. She was very productive, met tight deadlines and was friendly and well-liked by her co-workers. Gradually, however, things began to deteriorate. Taylor's work slipped, she seemed withdrawn and distracted, and she was frequently absent.

Then one day she came to work and started crying — for hours. Nothing her co-workers did could help her stop. It turned out that Taylor was suffering from severe clinical depression. Her promising career was put on hold while she got the mental help she needed.

Taylor's and her co-workers' experience is far from unique in the American workplace. Depression is the third-ranked workplace health problem in the nation. In fact, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates 44 million adults in the United States — about one in five — suffer from some form of mental illness, everything from acute stress disorder to schizophrenia. And mental illness often strikes during workers' most productive years, between the ages of 25 and 44. In the workplace, such mental illness is conservatively estimated to cost employers $70 billion annually.

"There is no longer any doubt about the link between the mental and emotional health of employees and such things as productivity, absenteeism, disability, employee turnover, workplace accidents and workplace violence," said Dr. Norman Clemens, a member of the American Psychiatric Association's Board of Trustees. "All of those effects have an economic impact on employers. Managing employee mental health has become a top priority of many of our nation's employers," he added.

In the wake of 9/11, the American Psychiatric Association joined with Fortune 500 companies and leading non-profit and government agencies to form the National Partnership for Workplace Mental Health. The Partnership's goal is to provide U.S. employers with materials, training and other tools to meet the mental health needs of their employees, particularly in these trying times of economic uncertainty, terrorism and disaster.

A common misconception is that treatment for mental illnesses is ineffective. It's a view that the Partnership is trying to combat. Particularly in cases of depression, some 80 percent of sufferers can return to the workplace after receiving treatment and continue to lead productive work lives.

For an increasing number of workplaces, a first step in addressing employees' mental health is the inclusion of Employee Assistance Programs or EAPs in employees' benefits packages.

"Such programs can help an employee who is experiencing a highly stressful situation as well as one who is dealing with a serious mental illness," said Gail Jern, Human Resources Representative for Westaff. Potential stress factors might include dealing with family issues such as finding child care or elder care, or even resolving conflicts with co-workers.

"If a manager sees someone struggling emotionally in the workplace, they can recommend them to the EAP hotline, which can then direct them to a practitioner or support service," Jern said.

Most EAPs work via a telephone system. Employees and covered dependents can call the number provided in their benefits package and reach an independent EAP administrating agency. The calls are confidential and generally require only that an employee identify his or her company as a subscriber to the EAP service.

The EAP professionals can then direct callers to specific community-based services, such as a local chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Health. NAMH has 1,200 state and local affiliates across the United States serving people with mental illness as well as their families and friends. An EAP agency can also refer employees to local practitioners. In some cases, the EAP can direct a caller back to his or her own benefits administrator to determine if the caller's medical benefits will cover specific mental health services.

Another resource for companies seeking to manage employees' mental health is the launch (January 2003) of a quarterly newsletter called Mental HealthWorks. It's a free publication distributed to 25,000 corporate human resource professionals. The newsletter is designed to facilitate the dialogue between psychiatrists and benefits administrators regarding workplace mental health issues. A copy can be viewed online at www.workplacementalhealth.org.

Helpful Web sites:

www.nami.org
www.psych.org (Web site of the American Psychiatric Association)
www.workplacementalhealth.org

This month, Dear Readers, we are hit with the perplexing problem of office privacy. As with all dealings in close quarters, we need to use a little common sense and consideration for others. Whether you drop in uninvited at your neighbor's cubicle, or read the onscreen e-mail over a colleague's shoulder, it can be just a little too close for comfort. So try not to be nosy, and you just might avoid putting someone else's nose out of joint.

It's that dog-gone prairie dogging... It's bad enough that we all have to sit in cubicles, with artificial walls that don't block the noise enough. But what on earth can one do when one's co-workers decide to invite themselves in on every discussion, whether they have an involvement or not?

— Dog Tired of It

Dear Dog Tired:

Isn't cubicle culture wonderful? The best we can say for it is at least it's given us these wonderful terms like "prairie dogging." Of course, prairie dogs do that lookout maneuver for the good of the pack, so the other prairie dogs can get down to business. Unless this person is alerting you to an approaching predator, they need to tuck that head down and invade your cubicle only when invited.

Stacy Brice, the president and chief visionary officer of AssistU, a virtual assistance firm, and a professional business coach, suggests this problem be broached at a staff meeting. People need a gentle reminder that many in the office work best uninterrupted. It might also prompt a discussion about respecting each other's space, a lesson that is often sorely needed.

If the gentle approach doesn't work, it might be time to approach a supervisor. Brice adds: what boss could resist helping a worker who says, "I'm here to do my job and I want to do it to the best of my ability and make a serious contribution to this company. But I can't do that because of the interruptions from X. Can you help me solve this?"

That approach should get your supervisor's attention, and maybe even get the cubicle culprit exiled to another area of the office.

Electronically Yours,

Ms. Carmen Courtesy

I have a co-worker who is a snoop. Nothing is sacred. I have left my desk for a few minutes to get coffee, only to find things moved when I get back to my desk. Or, this person will read documents on someone's desk, then share this private information with others. This person also has no qualms about reading information on my computer screen and making comments and/or suggestions — even when it is my e-mail!

— Privately Peeved

Dear Peeved:

It sounds like you have a triple threat there — this co-worker's not just a snoop, but a gossip and a spy too. And trust me, what they are doing is just plain wrong. Unfortunately, this kind of person is not unusual in corporate America.

The problem, says Brice of AssistU, is that the corporate culture in some organizations allows this to happen. They don't have a privacy policy in place, or even if they do, they expect the employees to police themselves. And some companies even do this themselves, by explicitly stating that they monitor employees' emails, internet usage and phone calls, which can subtly send the message that snooping is ok.

Few want to confront a co-worker about wrongdoing, but that is exactly what is necessary in this case. You need to take a deep breath and approach this co-worker directly, Brice suggests.

State gently but strong that you know they've snooped at your desk. (And be sure you do know who it was.) They will likely deny it and you may have to show proof. Or you can say, "I'll apologize if I'm wrong, but I want to make it clear that it is not okay for anyone to go through the items on my desk."

If the message still doesn't get through, it's time to go to your supervisor about this problem. And the supervisor should handle it, because invasion of privacy can be grounds for a hostile and unsafe workplace complaint.

Electronically Yours,

Ms. Carmen Courtesy

Ms. Courtesy will read over all your inquiries, select questions that will be of general interest, and do her best to answer them in a timely manner (keeping in mind that her column runs monthly). She is looking forward to hearing from you.

Call Westaff - we can fulfill your quality staffing needs.
1-877-WESTAFF.

Past Issues

Go to westaff.com