Stress

[Itscurtainsforyou]

My friend has had a tough time at work for the last 18 months. He's kept going and kept going, but in the last 6 months has had meetings with management telling them how tough he's found it (increasing demands of the job, people leaving and not being replaced, with them expecting him to pick up all the extra work). Their response was to take a minor task off him (saving him 3-4 hours per week which is nowhere near enough).

He's been off sick with stress for 5 weeks now, seen occupational health who have agreed that he's suffering from work-related stress (but haven't sent their report in yet), but they also said their notes from his employers said they weren't prepared to make any further changes for him.

Whenever he has to go over it all again he gets upset, he really is a broken man. He's contacted the union and is waiting for a response.

What can he do to help him cope? Counselling? He admits that all his confidence has gone and the thought of working full stop terrifies him now (and he went for an interview but his self confidence was in tatters so he didn't do a great job of selling himself).

And legally can they refuse to change anything despite making unreasonable demands which have caused him stress in the first place?

Financially he can't afford to not work, but his mental health is on a knife edge and he needs to be mentally ready to go back, knowing that things will be better. At the moment there's no indication that they will be.

Any advice?

He needs to be specific with employers about what the stress factors are.

If it is workload specific and having to work excessively over his hours, eg over 48 hours a week, there is legislation to protect employees from being rung dry (working time directive)

In general terms, he is more likely to get some sort of resolution if he makes a proposal on what would make things more bearable in his role. Employers rarely want a problem, they want a solution. It's tough but he will need to be crystal clear on what he needs.

Just to highlight, unless he has preexisting or current registered MH issues, they are not legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments, which can feel like sink or swim.

If he has access to any company funded counselling then it can be very helpful to talk to someone completely objective, to try to see the wood for the trees, as it sounds like he needs to be "unstuck" from his current situation and grasp onto a way forward, so he can regain control.

Thanks for your reply. He has made it clear that they need to replace the people who have left because he can't do it on his own.

He's asked them to make a prioritised list of tasks, which they've done, but then say "but we expect all of the tasks to be done, this is just the order you do them in" and wouldn't accept that he can't physically do them all.

I'm not sure what else he can do tbh. They've said that they're not prepared to recruit anyone else.

He is talking to a counsellor from the employee assistance programme at work, but doesn't really feel that it's helping much.

He's getting upset at the thought of going back as he's been treated so badly, plus there's no one doing his work while he's off so he's dreading what he'll be faced with.

Is he not entitled to a return to work meeting where he can discuss what he needs so he doesn't end up going off sick again? Or is that only done in some places and not others?

He's also concerned that if he's faced with a backlog of work when he goes back, he'll get sacked for the work not being done...

Thank you! I think he knows that leaving is probably going to be the only thing that resolves it, but at the moment he's a broken man and would struggle to get another job in the state he's in.

Frustratingly he gets on with his manager on a personal level, but professionally they're being so unhelpful/destructive. There's no other manager unfortunately.

I hope that he can have this meeting, ideally with the union rep there too, to try to get some things changed/in place before he returns.