Workplace ‘mental health lead’ is not a nice person

[Moonbourbon]

Wondered if it’s just me, or my workplace, but our mental health lead nominated herself for the role and I really don’t think she’s the right person for the job. Could it be that taking on that kind of role attracts the wrong kind of person?

She will use any excuse in meetings to somehow mention mental health. ‘We need to remember x, y and z’ Sounds innocuous but it’s annoying and puts a downer on everything.

Nobody would want to go to her for help. She constantly tries to throw people under the bus. I’ve seen her deliberately make another already stressed woman cry by pointing out her ‘lack of confidence’. She gossips. She deliberately tries to make people feel inadequate in meetings. Of all the people in our group, she is the least helpful or collegiate.

I’m dreading the day she gets a promotion and gets to lord it over us. She’s fine with men, but it’s other women she has a problem with. I keep my distance.

I’d go as far as to say she has a personality disorder. Should these people be allowed to take on a role that involves kindness and understanding?

Whilst not anywhere near anything like yours, our mental health person is not someone I would go to either.

I cannot put my finger on it, but I have always had a bad vibe about her. Everytime she talks to you about anything, you feel like she is just trying to extract information for her own gain. Just cannot put my finger on it.

A mental health lead at work is basically signposting to resources.

If you need this, HR/ Google/ intranet will be just as helpful

Ignore and continue to keep your distance. She sounds like someone whose radar you do not eNt you be under.

If she nominated herself for the role is it a voluntary one? Did she undertake mental health first aid training? Was it endorsed by management? If so, perhaps approach management in the first instance. I don't think you should say anything about personality disorders though.

I wouldn't bring any MH issues to work unless I could possibly avoid it. I think I'm just very cynical about these kinds of initiatives and would use an anonymous EAP if I really needed it. I've never quite understood what mental health leads are meant to achieve tbh.

No I wouldn’t say anything about personality disorders of course! In fact, I can’t say anything at all. It’s not really a safe place to do so.

She nominated herself and was approved by management. Management are all male so probably thought ‘oh how lovely’.

Oh and yes she did all the training. It was announced she was the mental health lead and then she followed up with ‘so if any of you have any mental health difficulties, you need to come to me’

I think everyone thought ‘no bloomin way josé’

The way it was announced implied she is the first port of call, rather than line managers.

It's a tick box exercise which also alerts employers to potential issues or liabilities.

Agree and I feel the same way about menopause initiatives given that ageism is rampant in the workplace.

It sounds as though you can bypass her. She doesn't have any right to be a first port of call. Any employee struggling with their mental health at work can self refer to mental health access to work anyway.

She's simply there to point you in the right direction, let you know what resources are there to help, and remind you of the Employee assistance programmes. That would be my understanding of it? If she's a right pain in the arse then go through HR and find out what you need yourself! It's obviously just a tickbox for management to say 'look at us looking after your wellbeing!' I'd just ignore her when she talks about it if I were you.

When I worked we had outside companies that could be contacted for mental health, financial and legal problems so that no one in the workplace would know unless you told them. But we had a new manager come in who threw all the information away and we had a young man who was struggling with all the COVID stuff, retail so not a pleasant time for any of us but he was especially struggling so I asked where the info was to give him and arsehole manager said he'd chucked it so I managed to get what he needed from another store and reported twat manager higher up. They got rid of him for other breaches of protocol.

I’m very sceptical about workplace initiatives, particularly around mental health after being told by a former colleague that her so called confidential counselling had to be authorised by her line manager. She had contacted the employee helpline to make an appointment and was told that until it had been approved she couldn’t access any suppport.

There are mental health first aiders at my work. The poster showing who to talk to is an absolute rogues gallery, and I’d rather talk to a wall or the neighbours dog than trust any of them to be actually helpful in a moment of need.

I think these self appointed roles do sometimes attract very strange personalities.

If you were keen, you could point the higher ups to a very thorough HSE review that showed that mental health first aiders have no impact whatsoever on mental health in the workplace.

Yep, I'll had the same in a previous company I worked for. The woman was up her own arse & the power went to her head. She'd march around like she owned the place

That will often be the case if the manager has to authorise funding from the departmental budget. It doesn't affect the confidentiality of the actual counselling process. Brief case notes are usually sent to the EAP provider the counselling affiliate is contracted to work with but managers have no access to these.

Personality disorders are one of the most common mental illnesses & often classed as SMI (severe mental illness) so people with lived experience of personality disorders absolutely do have the lived experience for something like that.

Personality disorders like EUPD have very little to do with 'personality'. Think of it more like a complex adaptation to severe ling term trauma (often but not always prolonged childhood sexual abuse)

People with mental illness can be nice/nasty, polite/rude, gentle/aggressive, easy/hard to get along with etc etc

If she's actively pushing mental health needs in the workplace then is that such a bad thing? A mental health workplace lead is not there to provide treatment or diagnosis - it's more about making sure policies etc are inclusive, employee mental health is considered along with preventing physical risks etc

I got asked to do it and said no because honestly, I'd be terrible at it.

They just say yes to anyone who volunteers to get the box ticked so I agree the whole thing is often pointless.

We don't have mental health leads but we do have mental health first aiders, which is possibly the same thing. I am one. You may not bring MH issues to work but many many do. All we can really do is signpost to resources and provide a listening ear where needed.

Yeah we had a designated head of the staff wellbeing group and she could be a bit of a c**

We’ve got 2 I think you naturally connect and gravitate to dome people others you don’t
I’d go to one the other one is a twat
I do think they should interview for this rather than say yes to whoever puts there hand up

We have four or five self appointed mental health first aiders in my org and they're all seriously inappropriate for the task! V interesting, isn't it?

IME this is the norm. Anyone involved with official ‘wellbeing’ initiatives has tended to be a dreadful person and often a notorious bully.

Seems this role attracts these people. I'd only share something with ours if I wanted it spread across the business at speed.

A bloke I worked with was a total creep and he was our mental health lead. There was absolutely no way any woman would approach him. He was sacked after being convicted and jailed for CSA.

I think a large amount of people who put themself towards lack ability for self reflection as a minimum.

In my husband's career he has had someone who was employed to manage staff out of the system spend his first session that was for finding him another role in the company instead tell him a sob story about her disabled child and how hard her life is. My husband thought she was lovely and was going to help him but my Spidey senses were tingling. Second session she broke down crying on him and I advised him to keep his cards close to his chest and never be alone with her.

In a different company it was oh I'm disabled so I'm protected from all the horridness I'm about to put you through as someone who became victim to the Bradford calculation.

Then there was the woman who threw all her colleagues under the bus during a particularly fraught project. There was a conspiracy of silence as each thought it was just them. Eventually she was moved to HR and she said 'oh you'll have to be nice to me now it could affect your jobs'. Thankfully my dhs manager was able to rebuild staff trust once someone had managed to describe what she was doing. The woman wonders why no one speaks to her in the lift.

Yes, these people are slippy and dangerous but also frequently give themselves away. They often will first try to get you onside by over sharing.