Employee with MH issues, please help!

[OutOfMyDepthHere]

I've NC to avoid being outed - not so much for my sake but for that of the person involved. I'm hoping some of you may have experience of this and will be able to help:

I've recently agreed to take on a team member with severe mental health issues. The person in question has severe OCD and has recently spent several months at an MH hospital. They're being re-integrated into the workplace by HR and have specifically been placed with me because I have a reputation as a fair and trustworthy people manager.

I'm a bit out of my depth here, though. HR is being as helpful as they can be - but they're not MH professionals and are of limited help when it comes to helping me deal with my employee's specific behaviours. I know their triggers and am going out of my way to avoid them. I'm also keeping an eye out for things I am aware are symptoms of their OCD. But I'm basically winging it here!

Can anyone talk to me a bit about how returning to the workplace after time off sick was for them from a patient's perspective? What did you expect from your boss, and what would you think they could have reasonably expected from you?

I'm not at all sure, for example, if excessive hand washing is a remaining symptom of an improving condition or a sign that my employee is deteriorating. I'm at a bit of a loss as to explain some of their 'quirks' to other team members, seeing as they are noticeable but that I'm meant to keep things confidential as per my agreement with HR. I'm also not certain at all just how strict I should be regarding basic expectations. E.g. the person currently works afternoons only because morning rituals are an issue - they also arrive late every afternoon, though, and I have no idea at all whether this is a question of discipline or an actual symptom.

I'm not asking for or expecting answers to my specific questions, of course. I would really, really appreciate some insights from the employee's point of view, though. I'm trying to do right by this person, and there doesn't seem to be a handy guide!

You have two questions to answer:

1. Can they do their job?

1. If yes, why am I asking this question. If no, fire them.

In fact it's just one question.

As somebody who's anxious probably through ASD and possibly OCD, do you have a simple method of "Oh shit this is what's happening now just so you know and I may be 10 minutes late or I may hide under the duvet and I don't want to talk about it and I might call you or I might fall apart but today's not good" method of communication? I panic when I'm physically ill and I much prefer to email in rather than talk to someone. I'm not good at phones at the best of times!

You're a man aren't you
A woman, and a quite classically feminine presenting one at that. But I'm in a heavily male-dominated profession. It's quite interesting to me that I read as male to you when speaking about my job. Might be professional conditioning.

As for your 2nd question: it's a clear case of 'yes, but only given some reasonable adjustments', IMO.

I'm not good at phones at the best of times!

Neither am I, and I'm a pretty neurotypical type A personality sort of person. I wish phones were abolished - except that would make video conferencing even more of a thing. Which would be massively worse.

So I’d say a couple of things.
First of all I would sit down with the employee and talk to them openly. Mental health issues are quite individual and the employee is the expert in their own condition and how it manifests itself. Suggest being open and ask them how they think it manifests itself and what they think the triggers are (even though you may already know the answer to these). Ask them, if they are showing signs of being unwell or deteriorating or having a bad day, ask them how they would like you to approach them and tell them. Ask them what language to use and how the conversation should go. Agree a way forward and write it down and give a copy of the ‘agreement’ to the employee.
That way, you can more confidentially approach and talk to them employee during these more difficult times.

I do think that you should address the lateness, but under the equality act 2010 I suspect this would be classed as a disability and so reasonable adjustments should be made. This might include being more flexible and having a greater tolerance for lateness, but again, I would be open and talk to the employee about this. You could set certain targets and meet regularly to discuss progress.

Finally, there are plenty of charities out there to offer support to employers because you are not expected to know what to do. Ask your Hr team to source a local support/provider and most of this would be free. Lots of materials online but much more helpful talking to a human being expert in this and getting bespoke advice and support yourself.

Good luck!

Do not, under any circumstances sit the employee down to discuss their illness. All you need to discuss is their performance in their role.

Unless you've recently graduated as an MD.

Here is another resource: the job accommodation network: askjan.org/

Or...

You could leave them with a case of constructive dismissal against your company.

While you discuss their health with them..............

ties As someone with mental health problems, married to someone with mental health problems and managing staff with mental health problems I completely disagree. To judge someone purely on their ability do do a job and firing them if unable to do it, without taking into consideration their mental health condition and making reasonable adjustments is illegal under the disability discrimination act. And you can't make reasonable adjustments without understanding what the persons condition is and how it affects them. All my own reasonable adjustments have always been agreed directly with my line manager only involving OH where necessary. I have been in a situation where I have been performance managing staff with view to dismissal and they have disclosed their mental health problems at that point. We have then made reasonable adjustments and their performance has improved dramatically.

OP you sound like a lovely manager, I'm glad someone has already signposted you to Mind. I am assuming that your staff member is on a phased return? If so expecting 4 hours straight off seems quite taxing after being so ill. I was very unwell last year, though not to the point of hospitalisation. I am 9 months in to my phased return and have recently started full time hours with adjustments to my start and finish times and no night shifts. When I first came back it was initially just to have lunch with my team, then for an hour a couple of days a week. My manager explained in the early days that she didn't mind if I even did any work it was just about being in the workplace. I started off with basic admin tasks and gradually built up my hours and increased my work load.

My understanding as a manager is that the staff member should be meeting targets with reasonable adjustments in place so I feel the lateness does need to be tackled. Either the hours and start time are too much at present and need to be scaled back (I'd been back a couple of months before I got to 4 hours) or you need to talk to her about how she is going to meet these. As others have said would it help to shift her start time earlier to allow for the fact that her rituals will likely make her late? Its something to discuss with her and OH.

As for her learning to self monitor her mental health, I'm sure that her MH team are working on that with her. DH and I use a scoring system out of 10 that we have agreed on to combat the many meanings of fine. I wonder if something like this would help. I have very little experience of OCD (1 staff member with mild ocd wjo self manages well) so am in no way an expert with regards to this.

Thanks again for everyone's input! I've had a meeting with our HR rep earlier today and your suggestions have been very helpful.

We've agreed on a 'as early as possible but we do expect you to be here at 1pm the very latest' policy now, and we're hoping it'll help improve the arriving at 4pm situation.

Being able to point out, as some of you have mentioned, that the 'be there in the afternoon' requirement may just be shifting my employee's rituals to later in the day helped a lot. Seems HR hadn't considered this possibility when they set the policy.

I would say that in this case the most important thing to remember is that you are dealing with a person, someone who would be mortified that you are discussing them on an internet forum and that if you are not sure how to support them best, ask them. I am really shocked about how much you have shared on here. You are talking about someone else's life.

I also think you sound genuinely caring and supportive. However I agree with others here who are concerned by the amount of information you have shared about a colleague. I don’t think it’s appropriate