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.

Obviously 🙄

I manage someone who has severe depression, bipolar, is known to be suicidal. There are periods they are off work for weeks at a time. They are on very strong medication. When in work, they’re zoned out, their eyes are blank like there’s nobody behind them. How can you say that everyone with severe MH issues should want to be keeping busy just like you? How come so many people can’t?

That page is out of date then as the 1st treatment for migraine is a 900mg dose of aspirin now (along with drugs like sumatriptan) not paracetamol or ibuprofen as the aspirin helps thin the blood and migraines are now believed to be triggered by lack of blood flow and they help the migraine meds which are generally vasodilators to work better

I think it’s a real thing and that if the employee ‘pushes on’ out of fear about how their employer will respond it generally makes the situation far worse- both in terms of mental health & physical health. I have experience in my team of a person concealing stress, not taking time off, out of shame/guilt/duty, and the result being quite serious physical illness that could have been avoided. Mind and body are connected.

Not even to touch on the the various legal consequences of an employer refusing to recognise mental health problems!

I feel very strongly about this. I’d caution those who think these people “lack resilience”… I used to think like that, and then it happened to me. In my opinion, there is great resilience and strength in recognising that you need to step back and put your health first.

I’m a manager now and I’m actually grateful that I have experienced what I have, it’s made me much less judgmental, and much more empathetic.
In terms of the impact on other employees, more managers need to get their arse up and get their hands dirty. Or at least be open enough that your employees feel comfortable enough to approach you with their concerns.

In my old job (before I was a manager), we had 4 people on long-term sick, and I started to really struggle balancing the massive workload with my own out-of-work issues. I asked my line manager if I could have a word with her (I’d quite obviously just been crying) and was told “no, not the right time. I’m buying new folders today.”
She left the office and came back 4 hours later with the folders (fair enough), and enough Topshop bags to fill a warehouse. And she had the nerve to question why I said “staff feel unsupported” in my exit interview…

We had a young woman off for 8 months last year, and I heard a “joke” made about how “bloody younguns can’t cope with anything these days. Probably off getting her nails done.”. They had absolutely no idea why she was off. Obviously, I did, and the poor woman had 3 traumatic events happen in close succession and kept it bottled up for months and months. Until her breaking point, you’d have had absolutely no idea what had happened to her and her family. Best believe I made a big point of not accepting those comments.

Her absence actually changed a lot about our workplace. It made me worry that I wasn’t doing enough to try and help my employees.
Managed to get rid of some work that took up quite a hefty chunk of time, that upon examination, was actually quite unnecessary. Frees up my time to be more hands-on.
Flexible/condensed hours introduced; monthly check-ins with all staff; all staff entitled to one “I really can’t be arsed” day a month. Officially, it’s called a “free day”, but they can call me in the morning and ask to use it that day. No reason needs to be given, no questions asked. Nobody’s actually used theirs yet which I’m surprised about 😂

It's a combination of things for me. I once managed someone who only ever had MH issues as school holidays were approaching. She couldn't afford childcare and had no one else to have her dc. We had a discussion and eventually agreed that a term time only contract was best for her. So, she did annoy me because she was lying and we could have helped sooner if she'd asked.

I am very sympathetic to people needing time off for MH, be it a day or 12 months but you are paid to fulfill a role and a permanent decline in MH may mean you need to be managed out of the business. So, there's no exact science but length of service, length and frequency of time off and job role all play a part. I will help explore every possible alternative first though.

Unfortunately I think there are so many people who just need a bit of resilience that it detracts from those, like you, who genuinely need help.

I dont know what the answer is. How do employers separate the piss takers from the genuine? As little as 10 years ago, the phrase 'burnt out' was barely in our vocabulary. You were just a bit tired and either cracked on or changed something. These days people are taking time off for mental health whenever they feel like it.

I feel for people like you who are already being challenged with your mental health but who are now being tarred with the lazy/entitled brush because far, far too many people have clicked on to the fact that claiming 'mental health' is a very easy way to have a few days off. I hope you are doing ok now.

You can’t control ppls thoughts.
If it’s a one off and I liked you, I’d feel concerned for you. If I hated you I probably wouldn’t pay attention.
if it’s continuous or frequent, I’d do an internal eye roll and move on after about 2 seconds.
yes, I have been through this personally myself, maybe that’s why I’d think eye roll. I never took off a day. Would have been helpful but I guess I didn’t realise I could.

OP I am so sorry to hear you are going through this. May I ask- are you also getting help in the form of say counselling? Have you maybe spoken to the Samaritans? Has anyone helped you draw up a safety plan?

Do you have family around you who support you?

I hope you will not worry about work. It sounds as though your manager is very understanding- I imagine that your colleagues want the best for you and would be horrified to think that worries about work are adding to your burden.

It depends on their character and usual work ethic to me.

If a member of my team is normally reliable and hard working, but needs two or three weeks off as they’re burnt out - no problem at all. Again, if they have a new or chronic diagnosis that they need time out for to get treatment underway or support put in place, again no problem.

If they’re flakey, with regular days off, general lack of engagement and with seemingly no attempts to get help, then it’s a pain and may make me feel suspicious.

Most people have low times where a chunk of leave will help. Whether they use annual leave or sick leave is up to them, but it’s about general respect. I had a staff member with us for 24 months before taking a promotion and leaving us. Half of his time with us was on sick leave with mental health issues relating to personal circumstances, and 3 months of an in depth induction. Have to say, it felt like a massive kick in the teeth and seemed unprofessional. Don’t use an organisation to take sick leave then leave when you’re feeling better (unless work is the source of stress).

I've had some dreadful things happen to me in my life and I can't understand why people can't just get on with it.

I know I'm wrong for thinking this but I can't help it.

I am a manager in hospitality. When people are off sick it isn't the case a workload is divided out - it's a numbers situation where we need bodies on the floor.

As such, when people call in sick frequently and last minute I will admit I sometimes roll my eyes regardless of the reason. Only when it's frequent.

If someone submits a GP note for mental health and takes a period of leave I wish for nothing more than the person to feel better soon. It will cause us a day or two difficulty to cover the shifts but as it's only the first day that's imminent, it's usually quite doable.

I'm also very happy to work with people for long term sustainability - reduced hours, change of role within the business, phased return etc etc. I'm always more willing to do this when they hold up their end - ie. Say we will stick to 3 shifts a week whilst they find their feet, and they do actually turn up for them, give a different role and they genuinely try their best at it.

Taking a day - and calling in sick on the day - for a mental health day, honestly I hate this. I can see in a crisis why it's needed, but it's much better to speak before the crisis comes. Ask can we change some shifts for the next week to arrange some breathing space etc.

Communicate, commit to your end of any agreements, and plan to avoid burnout and I will help all the way.

Ring in randomly and frequently for mental health days here and there and don't work for solutions, my patience will wear thin.

So being supportive of genuinely struggling with mental health but not of lazy game players is awful?

I never said people should keep busy. I said some people are too unwell to even try.

Again, its ignorance. Mental illness isn't always just about feeling down.

I think there’s three kinds of people/situation generally;

1st type get on with it and the issues slowly resolve and life moves on.

2nd type they go on with it and the situation deteriorates and they’re no longer able to function.

3rd type use it as a way of getting more annual leave.

If someone sits in the 2nd group, I’d rather they take a few weeks off than end up in hospital, a risk to themselves and their families, or utterly miserable. So long as they look to get help, whatever that may look like.

4th type.

Appears to have resolved it and then falls apart a long time later.

5th type. Had lots of adverse experiences in childhood. Will have issues that constantly flare up.

All people experience different types of “ dreadful things” so of course they are going to deal with these situations in their own way and sometimes, for whatever reason, they can’t just get on with it.

Then I think you didn’t mean to quote me, but the person who quoted me.

Except that is not what the pp said.

he literally defined the only acceptable mental ill health as bereavement of a very close relative.

and yes that is bloody awful.

In my profession, a significant number of people are off sick with mental health issues at any one time. Normally I think “there goes another one” or “yeah, I could see that coming”. I’m not a manager, though.

6th type Just take their own life one day and they were hiding the issues and putting on a brave face.

Ahh..the comment on my post suggested 'awful' in response to mine..

Totally depends. The two staff I managed with the most severe form of MH (at different times) were desperate to be able to work, and when they were able to, excelled at it. Very hard working. Sadly both ended up inpatient and one took her own life. It was very dramatic.

I also managed a few staff who frankly just seemed to struggle with resilience and appeared to be very pick and choose when their MH affected their ability to work. They were not dedicated employees who were keen to do their job and needed a lot of support to carry out their duties, even when supposedly better. They often seemed to have issues with anything that didn't benefit them directly.

I have tried to support all of them and I've never had a complaint, but yes, I did find it much harder to show empathy with the latter.

Migraines - recurrent persistent ones that negatively impact the ability to perform a job and lead to regular absence - are actually covered by the disability act. My DH had real issued trying to fire a poor performing employee. There was much more going on than migraines but his hands were tied because kept raising this fact with HR. In the end, he managed to make her redundant but it took years.

Or too scared to talk about them judging by some comments on here.