Managing someone struggling with stress

[TheUndoing]

I’d be very grateful for some advice about managing one of my direct reports.

An individual I line manage has been asked to take on a new piece of work. This is new to them, but is straightforward and is absolutely the sort of work expected of someone at his level. It should only take a few hours every month or so. It’s not something generally considered particularly stressful eg public speaking.

He has been given tons of support with this work - advice, examples, shadowing etc. He’s now completed the task for the first time himself, and has come to me saying it’s too stressful and is negatively effecting his wellbeing and mental health.

I have suffered with stressful work situations myself and really want to be support and sympathetic. But I also can’t help but feel he is taking the piss a bit. He has a track record of claiming less desirable work is too stressful and successfully having it reallocated to peers. He doesn’t really have enough work to fill his hours as it is.

How should I approach this? I want to be a good, kind manager but I also feel his performance fundamentally isn’t good enough. It also feels unfair on the rest of the team who have to pick up the slack. I’m a new manager and am concerned about having grievances raised against me if I push back.

Can you tackle it by supporting him with his MH so he is able to perform the tasks? Discuss what support he needs etc.

So you are not dismissing his feelings, but not going with the ' this is stressful so I shouldn't have to do it' line...

Can you offer refer to occupational health for a full assessment?

So he just expects everyone else to do the work he doesn't want to do?

I can't give you chapter and verse but i have dealt with similar situations in the NHS in the past.....one of the reasonable adjustments that employers can make is to move the affected person into a job more suitable to their emotional and mental health capabilities in order to reduce the workplace stress. Alternatively they can reduce responsibilities in the existing role....in both cases this does of course mean an adjustment to pay for as long as the adjustment is needed, although a really kind employer might give a period of time first....say a month....of supported working (aka REALLY close supervision) in order to help the affected person to manage their time. Its amazing how often this kind of conversation effects a miraculous cure!!

Normally my first thought would be providing more support with the task, but I’m genuinely not sure how much more support it would be humanly possible to provide.

I agree that framing it as “what support to you need to be able to complete this task” so that “just not doing the task” isn’t an option on the table might be a helpful way forward. By not just removing the new task am I failing to make reasonable adjustments though?

He sounds like a complete pisstaker

From a HR perspective- look at stress management policies. We create a stress reduction plan. We make it clear to the employee the piece of work is in their job description so needs to be done but provide support for the stress. We also offer counselling and if all else fails occupational health.