If you're a manager, what do you honestly think of staff going off on mental health sickness?

[CarrotCrusader]

I'm off at the moment, hopefully only short term but I'm really fretting of what my colleagues and bosses think of me.

The problem with anything MH-related is that so many people use it as an excuse now if they CBA to go to work or do just, yes, lack resilience for the normal ups and downs of life.

There's a huge difference between someone who is seriously mentally unwell and someone who feels a bit down, bored or fed up, but it all gets lumped under the same umbrella now, which I think is unhelpful, particularly for those with serious MH conditions.

It is irrelevant whether the employee has physical or mental health issues. Both deserve the same supportive and lawful treatment...

As a manager you just need to follow the correct procedures. You are not a healthcare professional and it is not up to you to assess who is ''worthy'' or not...

I am a senior manager and all I care about is that the employee correctly reports that they are off sick and provides the right fit note from their GP.

Then we can do a back to work meeting on their return and look at reasonable adjustments and/or referral to Occupational Health.

If the absence is long term again I need to make sure I follow the right process if there is no sign of the employee being able to go back to work.

Anything else and you are putting your organisation at risk of an employment tribunal claim...

I always find it so bizarre that people think it is OK to suggest that staff who struggle with their mental health are by definition not genuine or not ''resilient'' enough.

Depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD are conditions like any other and the person who experiences them can just magically wish them away.

Also so many work places are toxic and push people to the point of burn out due to inappropriate staffing, bullying and so on that they only have themselves to blame if their employees are suffering.

So sad that in 2025 so much stigma and ignorance remain around mental health.

It depends. Someone with a diagnosis and who declared their disability, I wouldn't have any issue with - like with any other type of illness. We recruited them knowing what that would potentially entail, or if they disclosed it when they joined, so I would ensure there is sufficient handover notes and that the rest of my team could cover critical daily tasks.

Someone who is signed off by their GP 2-3 weeks as a one-off due to MH, related to work or not, I wouldn't have any issue with either. It happened to me once, it could happen to anyone. Personally, I used my Annual Leave, but I guess i could have used sick leave instead.

But someone who calls in sick 2, 3 days a month here and there, with no warning, no medical notes or diagnosis, and do that repeatedly over months/years - that I would have a problem with.

If they are unwell then they are unwell. Mental health is just as important. Work survives, the cogs keep turning no matter what. Managers don't really care so much as they don't own the business, the people that will look at the costs to the business overall such as FDs and the owners will take a view but it won't be personal, it will be based on their impact to the bottom line.
Although some managers are not kind people so it depends on if your manager is a decent human and if the business is allowing them to find suitable cover while you are off so everyone else isnt overworked and ends up with their own mental health problems.

It totally depends who they are and what their mental health issue actually is, really.

I’ve only ever managed one person who was signed off due to a mental health condition and I was very sympathetic to her. She was a lovely person and good at her job, and I had no doubts whatsoever that she was genuinely unwell and struggling.

I was glad she was able to get the treatment she needed, and more than happy to put any support in place that she might need when she returned. Her condition wasn’t actually related to work stress but obviously I wanted to make sure work didn’t make her worse.

I’m sure there are people out there who do just need to be more resilient and/or are taking the piss, but I’ve never managed someone like that. My employer is pretty good at looking after its employees and dealing with mental health in general.

Depends entirely on the situation. You seem concerned so I imagine you will be perceived as a considerate person by your fellow workers so it is likely they will treat you with compassion.

Not a manager but I once worked with a person who had several months off work with mental health troubles. I carried her entire workload and had to work way longer than my normal working hours to ensure I did her job as well as mine. When she returned she showed us photos of her home. She had spent that time off redecorating her house herself. It was good for her mental health and helped her overcome her struggles apparently. Everyone congratulated her but I was raging with anger on the inside and tight lipped on the outside.

In my absence training we are taught not to judge someone’s reason for calling out by the way you experience or perceive that illness. An easy example is a migraine - you may be able to pop a paracetamol and get on with it, but for some nothing works but drawing the curtains and staying in bed for days. The same with MH. Some will be triggered by noise on the tube to the point where they spiral, some will put noise cancelling headphones in and be fine. As managers we are not there to judge or diagnose.

My role is to find out what the employee is doing in order to help themselves and ask relevant questions. So are they working with a doctor, are they using all the benefits we offer, are they in some sort of counselling. Have they had an occupational health assessment, have they asked for accommodations to help them be at work. Managing absence can take a long time if done correctly, however sometimes the road must end if the person is not able to meet the needs of the job.

It's ridiculous to say someone suffering from acute psychosis or paranoid schizophrenia does so due to 'lack of resilience'. They've clearly never seen someone having an MH crisis. It's terrifying for the patient and those around them and can be fatal.

All of this. I can usually tell if someone isn't right and if they are generally a solid employee then I would encourage them to take time off to get themselves "right".

We have also had employees in the past who are off constantly for a number of shite reasons (including one who did fuck all day to day and then got signed off with work stress 🙄). With these ones I'm less sympathetic as they just want any excuse to not have to work.

When you say the road must end, how would you go about that if the person's condition is protected by employment laws?

I'm terrified my colleagues think badly of me and that I might be let go because they think I'm not resilient enough.

I’m currently off with MH issues that stems from my manager bullying me, currently building a case for grievance
I don’t give two shiny shits what he thinks of me being off

As a manager it is usually fairly easy to distinguish the hard workers from the ones trying to do as little as possible.

It’s really not as simple as ‘we don’t like that you’re off so we need to let you go’. The employer must show that they’ve done everything possible to support you in being at work. This can take months, I’ve even sometimes seen years before someone was let go. There is a whole ‘incapacity’ process that needs to be followed in order for someone protected by the disability act to be dismissed.

www.gov.uk/dismiss-staff/dismissals-due-to-illness

If your condition is a disability (protected?) then they need to work with you to find reasonable adjustments that enable you to do your job. This doesn't mean you are allowrd unlimited time off and the adjustments have to work for the employer as well as for you.

They can't "let you go" because they think badly of you or believe you lack resilience, but they can follow the sickness absence management policy to manage your absence, which will end with dismissal, but doesn't need to go that far.

Have a look at your policy.

Honestly from personal experience as a manager, it depends on the person. Some are lead swinging some are not, same as a physical illness.

We have a "migraine" sufferer. Goes off sick usually on Mondays and Fridays and averages one sicky per week. Seems to manage ok with the internet whilst suffering with said migraine. Nothing seems to get done about it. I don't think it's mental health related either. I think it's work shyness. The person in question has an obvious protected characteristic though (a very "current" one) and I'm pretty sure management are frightened of it being weaponised if the person is pulled up on their sickness. It's a real shame as I genuinely like the person,but it is so frustrating when you know there's a 50/50 chance of them not being in and so have to plan your own day around that possibility.

Genuine mental health burnout/overwhelm/crisis i think most people wholly sympathise and wish the person well. It's the "usual suspects" that always seems to be off sick (as above) that grind people down.

no job is completely protected by employment laws. If the person is too ill or disabled to be able to fulfil the requirements of the job and the options of reasonable adjustment have been exhausted then the final option is medical severance. Employment law is not about keeping someone employed at all costs, its about ensuring a fair outcome. The process should be operated without regard to your colleagues' opinions about your resilience.

I was coming on to say this. I'm a manager and have had two staff booked off this year on stress. In each case, I was 100% supportive but it was bevause we are understaffed. I've raised the issue constantly with higher ups but they don't give a shit. As a result, one has resigned and the other is openly jobhunting, as am I.
I think any decent manager would have no problem with people taking off with mental illness related sick whrn it's genuine.
And a company who isn't supportive is going to lose valuable staff.

Currently off on long term sick, due to a cancer diagnosis ( my 3rd in 2 years)

Treatment is gruelling, the cancer pain is challenging, navigating my way through potential welfare benefits as my pay reduces, is scary, researching ill health retirement options is tiring and not what I had planned at aged 54. My MH has taken a huge hit. And you talk about lack of resilience!

I see a lot of staff struggle after a series of life choices that have, in my private opinion, predictable consequences. Particularly about picking certain life partners, making certain choices around marrying or not, having kids or not, and then ended up in precarious positions. Then eventually taking time off for mental health.

Or people who maniacally pride themselves on not having boundaries. Then end up in burn-out.

I don't think they are faking it. Equally, I do think usually there's more agency than these people are able to discern themselves. It's rarely a surprise, and it was usually preventable.

Personally, I wouldn’t judge anymore than I’d judge someone being off with cancer or a broken leg. I’ve seen first hand the impact poor mental health can have on a person so would always give benefit of the doubt.

Broadly in our office though, you’d be being gossiped about and there are at least a small group of colleagues/management who would be unhappy with you being off. This is partly (I think) ignorance, but it’s also partly because there are people in the office who have been quite open about how they take a few “mental health” days/weeks a year and just had to tell the GP they were feeling down/stressed to get signed off, so that feeds into the attitude that everyone who does it is taking the piss.

I can understand your viewpoint.

I have suffered with my mental health all of my adult life. Sometimes I have really bad bouts of feeling like I can't cope with life. But I tell nobody and work would have zero idea. It's often very painful trying desperately to pull myself together off grid with no support. But deep down I know nobody can really help in any meaningful way. It's down to me.

I've had bad experiences in the past when confessing mental health problems to GP. Unfortunately you are labelled and stigmatised. Maybe not to your face, but definitely subconscious bias occurs. A broken leg would probably be put down to "anxiety".

Anyway, I've never ever used mental health as a reason to go off sick (although there are times when I probably shouldn't have been at work ) and my absence is negligible. The last time I went off sick was a couple of years ago and I was in hospital with an abscess.

It's frustrating when people go off with "anxiety" "my mental elf" and the people doing it are usually using it as an unprovable reason to go off sick for as long as they want. Meanwhile people like me get the stigma reinforced because of those people.

@NoAprilFool agree it’s not their business BUT if working as part of a team then it is. There is no team if you aren’t working closely, aligned and supporting each other. An effective team will pick up the slack when somebody is off for a genuine reason, and support the return, but there needs to be transparency and honesty for this.

It really does depend on the circumstances. I've had staff who have had horrific family situations and I've urged them to take time off and supported them during their time off and on their phased return to work same with those who have burned out, though those who burn out generally didn't stay in their original role due to stress levels.
I've also dealt with piss takers who need a MH day for the most basic life challenges including a missed bus, bad hair day (yes that was 1 colleagues excuse), didn't get tickets to a gig they wanted to see etc. Those staff I always managed out asap.
So basically if it's a genuine MH issue the staff member is supported in everyway possible with no judgement and supported back into the correct role for them even if that's a temporary demotion or part time return until they are truly ready to take up their old role without further damaging their MH whilst piss takers who just need to grow up/learn resilience are managed out.
As far as I'm aware most places have similar unwritten policies to a lesser or greater extent

Bereavement isn't a mental illness.

Would you feel the same about a physical illness? You could argue their bodies weren't resilient.