Is your mental health your problem or your employers problem?

[donemeover]

Genuine question. At what point does mental health and well-being stop with the employer and become the responsibility of employee?

An person I manage has said now three times in the last few months said they cannot cope due to stress - so each time we have changed either their job role or working hours to accommodate and suit.

This person never says they are stressed or asks for help etc and then just comes and says they can't do it anymore.

I'm struggling with where to draw the line - as in, if someone is struggling and work, constantly offered support and asked if they're ok and never voice their struggles - is it their problem and perhaps do we need to part ways or keep bending to accommodate?

The person is a very valued member, but this keeps happening and I just don't know if I'm flogging a dead horse and perhaps we should (mutually) part ways, or at least have the discussion, or do we try and accommodate another role for them?

I think you should have followed up after the change of role OP, if not the first time then definitely the second. I would have thought that it was fairly unlikely that a change of role would help the individual unless it was work-based stress. I know you've said you constantly offered support but was that recorded anywhere?

It really needs to go through a formal procedure now, if you do have an Occupational Health department it would be a good time to get them involved.

This is such a tricky one and I think likely to become more prevalent. Mental health disability is one thing but you can still have good or poor mental health along with the disability and that is purely an employees responsibility. Unfortunately for some employees there is now an expectation on their employer to fix everything. Reasonable adjustments can only go so far and some employees want to use disability as an excuse for poor performance and to hide capability.

My advice - record everything, use trade unions and HR to ensure you are doing everything you can and then when they still fail it is entirely on their own head. My own experience has driven me to the brink of a breakdown due to an employee who lies constantly and then blames it on poor memory and dissociation. I hope you fair better than I did.

@donemeover - I think when someone is incredibly stressed or MH issues it is very hard to ask for help - bit of tunnel vision. I would agree with regular meetings - minuted and encourage employee to contact Gp - although as a PP said - this often does not happen until a crisis point. But 3 x request for change of working I would take as the employee is not coping - so where ever you can go for HR advice for this - I would.

@ChicCroissant we don't have occupational health and it's not something we would consider.

It's something we need to manage internally, we are very small not a big company that has these resources

[quote donemeover]@ChicCroissant we don't have occupational health and it's not something we would consider.

It's something we need to manage internally, we are very small not a big company that has these resources [/quote]
You keep saying you don't and won't consider it because your company is too small, but given you're struggling and have already had to make multiple changes, this is a false economy. Some external advice might be cost effective for the business in the long term, given you don't seem able to address this internally.

You can buy HR, OH and other support services off the shelf for relatively little. It would be sensible to at least look at costs and have a policy in place for at what point you would trigger a referral. Not doing this is a false economy if it all goes wrong.

You need to engage a HR Consultant who will review the situation overall and advice on a welfare meeting, stress risk assessment, occupational health referral as May be required, and a capability process as required. They can also advise should they be off the view that the working relationship simply isn’t viable any longer, or indeed if you would like to consider mutually agreeing to part ways. There is no standard, off the shelf policy alone that will resolve this for you.

It’s very unfortunate that you’ve found yourself in this situation but this is one of the liabilities you take on as an employer.

Those will cost at least £1000 to £2000 to resolve at least, unless you just muddle on, in which case you’ll be sapping your own energy and annoying the other staff.

Ring your local chamber of commerce in the morning and ask them for the numbers of their members who are HR Consultants. Make sure whoever you use has professional indemnity insurance and is ideally of a chartered member of the CIPD.

Apologies… typos!!

One to ones are even more important due to Siri from home & COViD. I Doyle suggest monthly meetings with each of the team and make well-being part of the agenda

Mental health disability is one thing but you can still have good or poor mental health along with the disability and that is purely an employees responsibility.

I disagree - employees can be subject to workplace bullying, mobbing, harassment by colleagues; abuse from customers; and rude and critical managers for whom nothing is good enough, and who blame junior staff for their own mistakes. IMO, this could impact on sensitive peoples' mental health - and saying, it's the employee's responsibility is victim blaming, if management won't do anything about it!

Oh, I forgot sexual harassment too.

This was me. I’ve since got ill health retirement.

However, lots of people saying it is on the onus of the disabled person to say something.

This is forgetting that they are ill. I had anxiety, I would never speak up. Anxiety stopped me doing this. Occupational health said twice that l needed formal reviews every six weeks to talk about where or if l was slipping. My employer never instigated this, and l just went off sick. I would NEVER have gone to them and said I’m struggling, it needed a formal process where l could flag things up before l became overwhelmed.

People with mental health issues (particularly anxiety) avoid stressful situations as much as possible. There was no way l could have just popped in and said l was struggling.

[quote donemeover]@ChicCroissant we don't have occupational health and it's not something we would consider.

It's something we need to manage internally, we are very small not a big company that has these resources [/quote]
Why not? You don't need to employ OH directly you can just buy an appointment when you need one. Less than £150.

The problem with making multiple concessions for one person on a small team is that you’re likely increasing stress for the rest of the team who have probably got their own stressful situations to deal with. I think you need to pay for advice about what process to follow. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect an employee to take some responsibility and to ask for help/ speak to manager when overloaded. I’d be suspicious if their only remedy is to take regular absences from work

@donemeover

Also, we don't have occupational health and don't plan to.

Legally where occupational health doesn't exist we are supposed to involve employee and their doctor.

They haven't sought medical advice/not on meds or taking treatment - so not sure what the doctor can do if they're not involving them.

Therefore we have to deal with this directly with the employee

I would hire the services of occupational health, absolutely worth it in scenarios like this, for your sake and for the employees. Generally their reports will be what you can back your decisions up with, and should form part of a fair process. If they are not seeking any sort of medical help then honestly if they aren't helping themselves then you shouldn't just keep rearranging their role to suit them, it has to be give and take. On the plus it would be hard for them to cite discrimination if they are purely self diagnosed. Reasonable adjustments are just that, reasonable, but it sounds like this is going to keep spiralling if you don't get a handle on it.

Even if you don't want OH involvement why haven't you at least thought about Access to Work?

You need to prioritise regular meetings with all of your team. Half an hour each, once a week is only one catch up per day. In those meetings discuss how they are going, if they need anything from you to do their job, what their workload is like. You should also do regular team meetings so everyone can discuss their work and things can be shuffled around to even out workload. Meetings are very easy to do via zoom, WFH is no excuse not to do them.

Once you have established regular support for your team (that's your role as a manager), then you should be able to pick up these workload issues before they become big dramas. If a drama is raised, ask why the employee didn't flag it before now. That is their responsibility of you have enabled them to communicate workload issues.

As noted above, asking the employee what they think shoul happen / what would help / what they want from you is better than you providing the solution. Obviously changing tasks isn't helping. What would help? If it happens again I would note that I've suggested and implemented a number of changes, what do they think is a reasonable adjustment? I'd be mentioning that if they feel unable to meet the requirements of the role (I'm assuming you have clear position descriptions outlining what roles do) perhaps it isn't the position for them. There are only so many allowances you can make and you require the role to do the tasks it's there for.

Mental health does not mean that the person gets a lighter workload etc Unless they have medical advice, even if they do, when they come to work they are expected to meet the requirements of their role. The only exception is where medical advice indicates otherwise.

I've had these conversations in recent times with our health and safety team. How much could I expect from someone with mental health issues, did I need to make any allowances to duties etc Depending on medical advice some have needed reduced duties, others normal duties on reduced hours eg 3 days a week, not a full week.

So, if they claim mental health again, I'd be strongly suggesting they seek medical guidance and treatment.

[quote donemeover]@NotAnotherPushyMum that's a fair point. You're right, it could be me.

I've gone over an analysed this many times. I still feel that someone should speak up when they cannot Cope?

My job is to manage I'm not psychic.

I felt they were overwhelmed at times (the nature of the jobs is stressful) but I offer support constantly - in terms of do you need someone to delegate tasks to etc etc

They've never once ever asked for help, I find that strange and bizarre [/quote]
It takes a lot of guts for someone to speak up when they're not coping with workplace stress, and imo it's incumbent on the employer to create a climate/culture where they feel safe in expressing their difficulties.

I don't find it strange at all that this person keeps quiet about their difficulties until things have got to the point where it all feels unmanageable.

with work from home and Covid, one to ones specifically to ask about well-being have been few and far between I'm all honesty.

you're the manager here so manage - at least offer a weekly one to one by phone, zoom, teams, whatever. You have to help them. If you won't help them and they don't seem to be able to help themselves what is your next step?

What is your, and the team member's, goal here?

You seem to be just sweeping it under the carpet or ignoring it until it goes away, but that's not a manager's role. It's no wonder they don't feel they can discuss it with you.

They've never once ever asked for help, I find that strange and bizarre

That’s fairly normal for someone with a mental health issue.
They don’t want to bring attention to themselves
They don’t want the spotlight on them
They don’t feel well enough or are too scared to ask for help
They don’t want to highlight the fact that they have a mental
Illness
They need to feel safe to discuss stuff in an unthreatened h environment.

If you think it is up to them to contact you then you have no understanding of mental health. You are expecting them to behave like a well person. You have to have reviews with them at your instigation and make them feel safe.

Not just leave them to flounder and explode.

I was meant to talk to a specific person when l was going under. Yeah l felt just like going to seek her l out when l felt like crap.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow & other posters I agree with this - those with MH or stress related conditions are probably the least likely to ask for help. (probably not always ) but I would take the initiative

@xksismybestletter

Are you having regular 1-1s with the employee where you talk about health and wellbeing? I would be doing that and then writing up notes of the meeting including a statement that "I asked xx about their well-being and they raised no issues" etc and keep doing it, (for everyone as part of normal business) and regularly ask and note down about how the adjustments are working out. If they keep saying fine fine all fine then it helps to clarify that you are offering support which you deem to be meeting the need. If they don't raise issues then you don't need to solve them. If they do you ask what change they are seeking

Get them to agree the written notes. I do this with all staff and they very often come in handy down the line

I would also recommend OH too as it takes the pressure off you directly and gives an outside perspective. You can buy one offs if you don't want to contract /employ.

This is good advice.

I have been struggling as well, on the employee side. I changed my hours in 2020 and this went some way to being helpful. Not having reliably working technology tipped the balance the other way (despite spending a lot of time trying to do something about it). At this point now, a change of work location (planned for a long time) has been a difficult aspect to take on board and it has also made the tech issues resurface, as well as showing me that the hours I am now doing will make the travel costs a financial struggle. So I have given it a shot but all of these things have continued to be stressful.

It would have been helpful to have had ongoing opportunities to talk specifically about how things were going, but most of my 1:1s were shortened and often rescheduled for some time later (at least another week). I completely understand that my manager was busy and overloaded, but as this goes on, it feels more and more like many barriers get between being able to talk or to evaluate progress.