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.

Thank God you're not my manager. Maybe some management training, particularly with regards to mental health would help you work better within your position. And I say this as as someone holding a senior managerial position. Christ.

Thanks everyone. I'm having a total meltdown about what people at work might be thinking about me being off now and the thought of going back to the workload. I don't know if this is the anxiety and depression causing this but it's a sinking feeling.

When people don't show up to work in a high stress period for the entire team, yes I judge. Who do they think is covering their work while they're not there? Do they think the rest of the team can handle the additional load no worries and with no toll on their well-being?

So do you expect that person who is at rock bottom, possibly thought about suicide to rock up to work when they're clearly not well?

It depends.

There is a huge difference between someone deciding they can’t possibly attend work, despite only being in the role for 2 weeks, because their 2 day a week commute is sooo hard and they thought they’d be allowed to WFH FT despite the job being hybrid, compared to someone who has 10 years service, no prior issues, and has a breakdown after a series of shit life events. The first is a lack of resilience, the second is the exact opposite. Both of these are real life scenarios. And unfortunately I work in an industry when you can’t really afford to just crumble under pressure.

Glad l didn’t work for you.

My old boss was the most amazing calm supportive person. She had mental health issues too. She was very understanding of mine, and fought my corner against management.

You've clearly never suffered with any mental health problems.
It's debilitating. I remember sitting in the corner of my bedroom crying for several hours straight. I felt suicidal and that I was a worthless piece of shit to everyone around me.

But it's ok, if I ended up harming myself and ending up in hospital, you carry on being pissed off that the rest of the team have to do some of my work whilst absent. How inconvenient for you.

I encourage my team to regard mental health as being as important as their physical health. Totally fine with mh sick leave. Just need to be careful that they are supported when back at work.

How do you know your work colleagues aren't having suicidal thoughts themselves? You don't.

Teams pull together and support each other. People bailing in adverse circumstances stays with you and you know you can't rely on them when it counts.

She can only worry about herself.And her colleagues have to worry about themselves.

Op why would your manager have told people why you are off?Sick

Oh Christ, I feel awful now for detailing my own shite experiences about my own arsehole of a manager.
Believe me, yours wont be as bad a mine. He was really something different.
Try and focus on your own recovery. Forget what work are thinking. If they are overworked because you are off, well... that is not your problem. That sort of stuff is literally what managers exist for.
Put work out of your head. This time off is for you.

If someone is off sick, then it is up to the manager to sort out workload etc. The person off sick is not in a position to even think about it.

I meant this in the nicest way possible.

Your focus right now needs to be on you and your recovery.

Work will continue on without you and that's your manager's responsibility - not yours.

Work can wait. Your mental health can't so you really need to prioritise it.

You have to be fucking joking?

Its not about teams pulling together. Its about a black miasma of dread and despair that stops you from doing anything at all. It chains you inside, steals your energy and motivation, and leaves you a black withered remnant of yourself. It’s sinister and malevolent, seeps into your brain like a black shadow. You can’t move, never mind bloody pull together.

Is this some sort of joke?

Hahahahaha! My "team" just judged everyone off with MH and treated us like we had the plague when we came back to work.

Yep. If you died, you would be replaced within a month. They don't care about you.

I hope you aren’t a manager!

OP if a member of my team has mental health issues I am sympathetic and hope they are getting the proper medical treatment.

like any decent human being.

please don’t worry what people think. Concentrate on getting well and taking care of yourself. Hopefully your manager is reasonable and informed. Most people now understand mental health issues can be as crippling as physical health issues:

No job is worth your mental health

I say that as someone who's job previous to this one triggered a suicide attempt that not only literally did kill me (kind of in the respect that only 17% of people who experienced what I did lived through it) but also cost me said job and the following 3 years of my life I spent trying to recover

That said it depends on whether we are talking genuine mental illness or someone using mental illness as an excuse. Unfortunately the latter does happen (and I've know people at work who have admitted as much to my own anger).

My workplace know I absolutely will not call in sick for MH reasons unless I am in genuine crisis. Believe me to sacrifice an entire week's wages (as would only get SSP for one day, I total £30 for the week) I have to be literally suicidal to call in sick. So they know I don't take the piss and they know if I call in it's because I am genuinely experiencing a crisis.

I know mental health seems a bit of a wolley reason for many but I'm not talking feeling a bit sad or anxious. I'm talking 25+ years of chronic mental illness and me being at the point of being suicidal to call in sick. My employer have thankfully been supportive for the last 12 years.

Do you not believe anxiety is a real MH condition then? Just because you go into work feeling unwell doesn't mean others are always able to.

I had a month off (paid) after burning out a few years ago. I was working with a very difficult group of stakeholders and had returned from maternity leave into this new role. It was hell and after about five months I was having panic attacks throughout the day. When I came back, everyone was brilliant. The problems were worked through and I haven't needed time off again.

i think it depends on the circumstance. People who go off repeatedly, especially when there are questions around performance, invite concerns around what's going on.

OP, sorry about all the horrible replies on here - can't bring myself to read the whole thread as it will upset me too much, the first few (or at least the horrible ones among them) sickened me enough, but I just wanted to say, OF COURSE any functioning adult, apart from those with a near psychopathic lack of empathy and compassion, fully understands these days that mental health is a health problem like any others, and if your dr signs you off long term sick, that's what you need to do; or if you decide to self certify short term, again, that is allowed within work place policy and utterly fine, just as with physical illness.

Gone are the days when it is seen as "weak" or "workshy" to struggle with one's mental health. And I absolutely despise people who carelessly bandy these views about, perhaps thinking it's funny, or that because it's only on the internet it doesn't matter? They'd be sacked in many workplaces for expressing such hateful views, and rightly so. Please don't listen to them OP.

Or perhaps they would rather you stayed in work until you became so miserable and unwell you did harm to yourself? At least you wouldn't be "work shy....".

Thank you very much.

I work really hard. I'm so worried that they're going to think I can't cope. When I'm well, I can cope wonderfully.

I had a manager a few years ago who was regularly off with MH issues. It was clear to everyone that they were not suited to be a manager, but nothing was ever done about it. The pattern continued, to everyone's detrimental. The organisation should have worked with them to find something more suitable but it was easier for them to ignore it.

Organisations need to work harder to support employees, and their colleagues, with MH.

I've been in this situation - I was handed a very large role with no notice, no notes from the previous role holder and a suggestion to "try and contact her and see if she'll help". She had no obligation to help, her overall role had come to an end and she'd gone to do something else (they should have got her to write a role description before she left, but nobody thought of that), so didn't, and I asked for help or for a reduction/share of the role with someone who knew what they were doing, was told "you just have to be professional about it" and went off sick for 3 months.
The GP told me "I'm definitely writing work stress on this, they need to know how badly they are managing you".

So if I had an employee who was doing this, I would think I might not have managed them well. However, I tend to manage people who do one small part of their role for me and others for other people and so what tends to happen if they are generally overwhelmed they let my part drop (or it could be someone else's - not just mine). So that's very difficult to manage - they aren't off sick but I have to spend time chasing them, and other people find them OK. Or they are doing the same function for a large number of people at management level (say, appointment bookers, or HR colleagues who advertise jobs) and then they end up with massive delays in that role because there are too few people doing that function, so we all get shirty and they go off sick so NOBODY does it, because the organisation let loads of people go...)

Been a manager over 20yrs. Mental illness is very real and if someone needs time off then that’s fine. Focus on getting better.