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.

Ultimately, as a manager, you tend to form an opinion on the staff who seem dedicated and caring about their job and those who only ever intend to do the strict minimum they can get away with for the money. Illness is not that relevant compared to the above.

I’m so sorry I quoted you when I meant to quote someone.

My apologies.

As long as you are doing something about it, medication, counselling and working towards getting back to work no issue, however it’s difficult to manage if you go on holiday, go shopping, still meet up with friends from work and have a jolly

Whilst those things may help your MH because it’s not work, it will absolutely piss of the rest of the team who have been left carrying your work, and that can be difficult to manage

I am not saying don’t go out, shopping etc if that’s what’s needed, just don’t blast it all over SM, joyfully tell colleagues what you are doing etc

I didn't say I wouldn't be supportive and I do understand that what gives me mental health strain (overload of work which will just get worse if I was off) isn't the same as others. I am happy to sign off, put in place whatever company policies we need to.

I think people do get fed up with it. People who can't cope with the job but won't take a less responsible one or reduce their hours because they don't want a pay cut. I think its fine in the short term but not as an ongoing thing.

This isn't a straightforward question to answer. I'm a manager and a fair proportion of my team struggle with their mental health (it kind of goes with the territory in our field). I also struggle with my mental health and have done all my life.

I find that my younger team members are way more proactive about looking after their mental wellbeing than my generation. They'll, for example, ring me to tell me they're struggling and need to take the rest of the week/fortnight off to mentally recover and reset. They do that, they come back, they're all good for another period of time.

My generation (myself included) tend to try and push through (God forbid we'd ever admit we're struggling). This often results in a knock on effect for physical health which can end up resulting in a longer time period off sick. I recently had six weeks off after refusing to acknowledge that I was under a huge amount of personal and professional stress, which led to a really vicious cycle of almost constant migraine with severe vomiting, dizziness and partial sight loss. My body essentially said nope, not doing this.

I do suffer from chronic migraine anyway but I can usually manage this by working from home, working flexible hours etc. Acute, severe migraine brought on by stress was a different beast but I very much could have prevented it with better self care.

I know which option here has the least impact on the work place and to be honest, I probably have more respect for the bright young things looking after their emotional and physical health than I do for dinosaurs like me who've been raised and conditioned to push through to collapse. It's not easy to change that mindset though!

There is no denying that there has been an explosion in mental health issues in the last few years, particularly in young people. We should be asking why is this happening?
And yes I do think that some have jumped on the bandwagon. Too unwell to work but can enjoy nights out on the lash with their mates
(Damn you camera phones🤣)

Hmm, well that's honest of you but maybe try educating yourself a little?

@NoAprilFool im not saying it’s up to the manager to share, I’m talking about trust and openness within the working environment. Without that leads to gossip and speculation and a toxic culture.

I had a lot of time off for MH (NHS) and my manager was awful. Everyone knew why I was off. Why? I thought that sort of thing was meant to be confidential.

My friends tried to get me out. Someone from my work saw me in a pub "smiling, so can't be depressed", and I was called in to discuss this with my manager in his office. Just a "chat" he said. Two people from HR were there too. Turns out it was an official disciplinarily but I was given no letter about this so I could get a union rep (I was in the union).

I had weekly therapy that I had to leave 30 min early for to attend. I was not paid for this. My manager also gave me a letter to give to my therapist asking her to detail what we spoke about each week. He wanted her to ring him each week and break confidentiality. She told me to tell him to where to go. She would not even confirm I was in therapy as it was none of his business.
He tried to same with a doctor I saw in OH, and she did give a detailed account of what we spoke about. I put in a complaint about this and she vanished from the department.

Over the years, I gave to loads of collections and signed loads of cards when people had been off for things like bereavements, surgery, cancer treatment etc. Absolute silence for me. When I went back to work people would look away when they passed me. One person actually walked away to the other side of the corridor and was brushing against the wall to put as much distance between us.

One my my friends/colleagues was off with his bipolar. He was out lots as he was in a manic episode. The rumour mill was that it was just "stress" and many people asked why he would be stressed as he was just a hospital porter.

When I was in work, he would make my life really shit. I moved home when I was employed and he refused to give the letting agency a reference... as in he would not confirm I worked there at all. The letting agency said he was very rude with them. Absolute asshole.

There is more, but he ended up in a discinplenery himself in the end for how he treated me. I was "fired" for calling in sick to do overtime. Does not doing overtime count as a sickness absence? He said it did. I still had to work for 2 weeks notice, and he moved me into a role I had never done and was shit at because I had no idea what I was doing. My last 2 weeks were awful

Sorry for the essay. There are lots of other things he did, but bringing it up now is making me very angry so I will stop there. In hindsight, I really should have pursued some sort of claim against the NHS and my manager for how I was treated.

I was Band 1 NHS... a porter. Not a high stress job at all. There were no reasonable adjustments to be had, and I did ask about dropping hours but was told no.
Plus, MH is not always caused by what is going on in work. It could be stuff going on outside of work, or just an an episode in a longer term illness. This can stop people doing their job properly, hence why they get signed off.

I wouldn’t think poorly of you. But if it was work related stress I would be pretty worried about what I’m getting wrong / what the business aren’t doing well, for this to be happening.

I'm an employer and have had three instances of people being absent from work for long periods due to mental health. One was so unwell, he actually handed his notice in. We refused to accept it and let him run through his personal leave, annual leave, enhanced sick pay and statutory sick pay periods, before putting his role up for redundancy and accepting his offer of voluntary redundancy. We tried everything we could to keep him in the role along the way, including reduced hours and the offer of additional counselling, but he was too unwell.

The other two, we just see it the same as any other reason why an employee is incapacitated. Genuinely.

If your manager is giving you no reason to worry, take them at their word. It was your manager that told you to take the time. And there is no shame in struggling with your mental health, at all.

I hope you're feeling better soon.

In my experience, places that are badly managed and difficult to work in, have quite a lot of staff go off for mental health reasons, there is also a high turn over of staff and the atmosphere tends to be quite jobs worthy. In places where staff are happy and are treated well, very few do. Even if the job is demanding and stressful, if staff feel valued and supported they tend to come in.

Well for starters your line manager is simply going to say that you are off sick and not give specifics to your co-workers so you don't need to consider what they think unless you a) tell them or b) work for someone you know to be terribly indiscreet.

Then your manager is supportive and has actively encouraged you to take a break. Keep in touch when you feel able so they can plan around you. The worst thing as a manager is when you get a sick cert religiously on the morning someone is due back not having heard a thing for weeks on end and not feeling like you can contact them in case it feels like you are putting pressure on them to return. In most jobs, the world will keep turning, no one will die if you are not there [even if you are actually a brain surgeon]. It is so helpful to get a text to say, "I'm still feeling pretty awful and I just wanted to give you a heads up that I have a GP apt to ask to extend my sick leave" so that workload will be redistributed and prioritised.

Back to your original question:
I've been a line manager for a couple of decades and had 3 instances of this across maybe 50 people in that time. Probably more but dressed up as something else.

One had total burnout which I missed until it was too late. Star performer, rising quickly on mgmt track and very very capable woman. A few things came together at the same time, sick parent, other personal issue, big work project went badly not her fault at all but she held herself accountable and didn't escalate to me until she was at the end of her rope. Big lessons learned for both of us and I try to remind myself of that regularly as I am not a chatty person, don't enquire in any real depth as to what's going on in people's personal lives and would cheerfully remain oblivious. However, it has made me much more conscious that a) people who are high performers are fairly shit at saying it's all gone pear shaped and b) a minor work crisis could be the proverbial straw.

The second two were very work to rule, highly unionised in their approach, often took the max of their sick leave annually and in both cases had mental health issues when they were told they would be put on a PIP. I'm pretty sure both were making it all up as they eventually left the business and were miraculously able to start new jobs immediately having left with sufficient funds to take a healthy period of time off when voluntary redundancy became available.

Generally I am of the opinion that even if you are senior mgmt, it's just a job and people need to keep things in perspective. Please try to get well for your own sake, not that of your employer.

I don't know if that's always the case. I work in an industry that's known as high stress with high levels of burnout.

The ones run by the most compassionate leaders may have a happier workforce, but IME they don't have lower rates of sickness absence, just a workforce that feels more able to take time off. Which may be a good thing overall, but increases sickness absence rates.

But true.

I have suffered anxiety attacks and depression intermittently for much of my life. Still managed to have 2 successful client facing careers and now run my own business. Sometimes I dragged myself into work feeling like death. However a cup of coffee and a chat with the cleaners and I was ready for whatever the day brought. When I hear many people now describe what they mean by "mental health issues" they are feeling what I would describe as anxious or a bit low or unmotivated. But then I belong to the so called Boomer generation (dreadful term that) and we just got on with it.

Depends. Your child/very close relative dies. Understandable. Anything else I’d say they don’t have much resilience.
That's compassionate leave you're talking about. Mental health issues aren't necessarily caused by one identifiable thing, or a thing that other people would not be knocked off course by. It's not just about lack of resilience.

I was way less sympathetic until my last employer overloaded me and I ended up needing 2 weeks off. I thought I was genuinely "sick" and then realised that what I had was stress and exhaustion from too much pressure on my shoulders. I am back in work for the same boss and have been perfectly mentally healthy since as she and I re-worked my workload and I got better at saying no (we are 5 years on now) but I don't feel I am as resiliant as I was. I encourage my team to keep a healthy work life balance to try and head issues off at the pass. If you did need time off I'd feel sorry for you and look to help you return to work with sensible adjustments once you were feeling better. If it kept happening I'd be frustrated that you weren't working with me to keep your workload manageable.

Yeah, people saying mental health issues are basically a lack of resilience are way off the mark, and I think it is a pretty offensive thing to say. It just feeds into the myth that mental health issues just mean low level depression and anxiety. It is so much more than that. Someone off work with mental health issues could be extremely ill. But people always jump to the conclusion of it being stress or a bit of anxiety.
I know people who live with mental illness who are the strongest and most resilient people I know. If they were not, they would not be here.

I agree with this. I think it's vulgar to post pics of holidays/days out/relaxation when you're off sick with your mental health. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. If you're going to treat yourself (which Is a great idea to improve MH) have the decorum not to rub it in people's faces at work who are picking up your slack. It also encourages "if it's good for one...." Mentality.

We do have far too many relaxed rules when it comes to sickness from work. People don't seem to feel any sense of embarrassment if they're seen out looking well when they're off work. It's quite bold and brazen. I do think the UK has one of the weirdest work ethics : our hours are long and breaks are short (neighbouring European countries have 1-2 hour lunch breaks ) yet at the same time our sickness as a nation is horrendous and we collectively feel no sense of "I best get back to work". I think the threat of losing your job isn't there anymore though

Where I work (large organisation, very "woke") you'd practically have to take drugs to work and sell them to your colleagues to get sacked. And even then you'd probably get another chance and an occy health referral.

This is why it is a bad idea to have colleagues on SM. But people can post what they want.
Would it be better if people were posting about the self harm, A&E admissions, crisis team visits etc instead?
I was seen out and about when I was off sick. Nothing was on SM at all. I was still accused of faking for that alone. Apparently, depressed people never smile and should stay at home and not see anyone.

Why the fuck should someone who is off sick be embarrassed about being seen out? Are we not allowed outside when off sick? Of course, if you were off with a bad back and were seen moving furniture then yes, questions will be asked. Same if you said you were bed bound with flu. But if you are off sick with MH issues, the worst thing you can do is shut yourself away at home. I still had to go food shopping, I still had to go to appointments. My friends tried to get me out. I would meet then in cafes... but I was hauled into work to answer why I was seen smiling in a pub.

And recovery in MH is not a case of suddenly feeling better and going back to work. It takes time, and you build up to it (hence phased returns). Being seen out does not mean someone can do their job the next day.

People get signed off sick from work, not signed off sick from life.

Agreed. A friend of mine is a probation officer and says that it's almost expected that at least one person in a team at any one time will be signed off with work-related stress. It's unofficially part of planning and managers will build in contingency for it (unless they're off sick themselves...!)

Believe me I've suffered terribly with my mental health. I get it.

I'm just saying that I think it shows poor judgement to post pics online whilst you're off sick. I know it's not intentional, but it will rub colleagues up the wrong way. Some people may not care about doing that. I just think (rightly or wrongly) it's in poor taste.