Managing someone who is depressed

[PippaFawcett]

I manage someone who is very nice and used to be capable. She had a very difficult and traumatic divorce two years ago under truly horrible circumstances and she has struggled ever since. Professionally it has been difficult and her work is patchy and I am now giving feedback each and every time and she is genuinely doing her best to improve and return to her previous standards.

However, my main issue is her demeanour which is depressed. I don’t think there’s anything else I can do that hasn’t already been actioned but I’m finding being around her full time to be really taking its toll. I also don’t think it is her fault but it is like working with a different person because she is a different person.

She has had occupational health support, work encouraged and has paid for counselling which she chose to discontinue as she felt it was no longer useful so I do feel at a dead end re professional support I can offer. Also, she is present and i do believe she does her best, it’s just that her best is not what it once was.

Has anyone else experienced this at work? How did you navigate it? I am now thinking of leaving just to have a fresh start myself and be around more positive energy. Is that what people do?

What type of work environment is it and can you create a bit of space from her?

Office and desk based, we are in the same shared space every day as we are the only full time members of staff. There’s a handful of part time staff which helps to dilute it on those days but their hours are short so it is me around the gloom.

I’ve thought about hotdesking a bit with other teams but it would be odd as it isn’t a thing already.

If your main issue is her demeanour then there’s nothing you can do about that. Sometimes you have to work with people you don’t love spending time with. And moving jobs won’t guarantee you won’t end up with someone else whose company you don’t enjoy.

The only thing you can do is manage performance issues. But it’s not clear whether her performance is inadequate, or fine but just not as good as it was?

To be honest, it depends on the day and the inconsistency is hard to manage too. But I can and do deal with that, but the atmosphere/doom and gloom convos is what gets to me. I’ve worked in much larger teams in the past which I think dissipates personnel issues.

I knew a GP who used to say you could measure depression by the white knuckles of the other people's hands. OK, it was tongue in cheek but it's true that depression takes a lot out of anyone trying to support the patient.

Are you sure she should be at work? She sounds in a very bad way. Maybe shee needs some time off sick?

Is she worse, better or on a par with your worst performing team member? I mean now, and for an extended period.

Your job is to judge her performance this reporting year.

I get that you want to support her in her difficult journey, but you are being paid to judge her performance during the current reporting year.

My post sounds (and is) unsympathetic to your team member. But you are doing neither the individual nor the company, any favours by accepting below par performance. If that is happening . From what you say, the person isn't performing as well as they did. That doesn't mean they aren't performing Ok.

I think she absolutely should be off work and we have excellent sick pay. I have advised her that mental health is important etc but she says her preference is to be at work as I think the routine of it helps her. It is also the cumulative effect rather than any single day being awful.

If she's performing at an acceptable level for the role, it may be that you need to adjust your expectations from where she once was performing above expectations as your baseline. It's really common for people who work extremely hard to be expected to keep it up indefinitely, and they then get burnt out when they have other things too. If she's not performing at the expected level for the role itself, try coaching and ask her what she thinks good looks like and what steps she thinks could help her get there. You say she's not attending counselling. It may be worth just letting her know every so often that there may be other options or types of therapy to explore (perhaps you have an a hotline at work, or the OH could suggest more options such as medication, diet and exercise tweaks, hypnotherapy, CBT). Finally, allow yourself to accept what isn't in your control and look at techniques for observing and then moving past the feeling that her mood is going to dictate yours. Sometimes we cannot control the input, but we can decide how we let it affect us. Depression is unfortunately something you can't just snap out of and affects something like one in three people during their lifetime, so any techniques you can learn now will help you going forwards.

She performs ok when managed tightly but is now by far the lowest performing team member. She was highly competent previously. It’s like the divorce has knocked her confidence in every area.

Thank you for the perspectives, it’s interesting. If I were her friend I’d tell her to take a chunk of sick leave to decompress and come back to work a bit refreshed.

Has she had an occupational health review? It sounds as if she needs a medication review and some more proactive medical input - everything she says sounds like the depression talking rather than a rational view, though I get the idea of work providing structure.

Could she have a junior person to develop/support? Could she have a change of office or desk?

Can you allow her to wfh one day a week? Might be good for her and you both

Occupational health was involved but it didn’t involve medication as I’m not sure that was within the scope. All recommendations were implemented and it was agreed it was personal circumstances not work causing the issues. No junior people or possibility of any, we are meant to be fairly autonomous in our roles. I have used ‘what would you feedback to a trainee re this task’ in an attempt to nudge her back to her expert view of herself and she makes the right noises but it doesn’t seem to stick.

@pottylolly this would be ideal but she declines saying she can’t be at home as it is now an unhappy place for her. My role is required to be onsite full time. I can wfh exceptionally but not routinely.

So, you need to have a frank talk with her about her performance. Maybe this means being put on a PIP. If her depression is impacting her to this extent then she needs to take steps to sort that outside of work. Otherwise you aren't really doing her or you any favours.

What does ''depressed demeanour'' mean anyway?

She is your colleague and there to do a job. I don't think it is reasonable to expect her to be chatty and smily all the time...It is better for her to concentrate on her tasks anyway if she is struggling with her performance than focus on interacting with you.

I think you also need to be a bit more careful about what you tell her. She has made it clear to you that she does not need to be off sick and that she prefers the routine of being at work. If her mental health issues are long term, as they have lasted two years and are still ongoing, she comes under a protected characteristic so you don't want to be seen as trying to push her out of the office.

What about using Access to Work to fund support staff? I know of someone who has this.

No I wouldn’t expect occy health to medicate but I would expect them to encourage ++ a GP review as it sounds like whatever medication she is taking (if any) is not really cutting it?

You say you’re the only two ft in the office, but do you have full support yourself, from a line manager or someone else you report to? I’m assuming they, and hr, are aware of all of this? Have you approached hr yourself, and/or your higher up, and what support you might be getting for yourself as to how to further manage this member of staff? I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you (obviously without taking anything away from her own difficulties in iyswim), especially as you’re at the point where it’s making you want to find a new job, so I think you need the support personally from your company, as well as professionally to find ways of managing them. I’ve not been in your situation, but from the other side of the coin I have suffered severely with major depressive disorder and have had very, very long periods where it has been extremely bad, and so can imagine how difficult that can be for someone that is close to that ±h whether it be a professional or private relationship. And, as you have mentioned, it is like being an entirely different person. I think your first step, at this point in time, is to find support for yourself within your company, as you are clearly not going to be able to manage this effectively whilst it’s having such a huge effect on you, and from that you may need to perhaps pass this issue up the food chain, as it were.

Sorry, there were still only a couple of replies when I wrote my reply (the app hadn’t refreshed), so you may have already covered some of my questions, so apologies if any overlap there.

Demeanour and personality here you can't really judge on. She's been through significant trauma by the sounds of things and has had all the stuffing knocked out of her. Having been through similar I also preferred to be at work because it gave me structure and a social outlet and that really helped me manage my mental wellbeing, but I think there's a happy medium because in reality it also probably affected my processing which then took longer because I kept myself so busy. I'd look at whether she could do compressed hours or temporary part time or similar to try and help her reach a better balance if you genuinely feel she is not fit to be in work.

The really hard bit is that you can throw a million supports at someone but at the end of the day, it's her choice or not whether to take those supports and once you've exhausted that, then the only option left is a performance management plan which could ultimately jeopardise her job security.

I think you need to have a frank conversation with her in a supportive way as to what you're seeing, options explored, the difference in performance between her and the team and I'd ask her directly what she thinks is going to help and what more could be offered. And then I'd suggest an adjustment in hours or similar and I'd explain that while you understand that she wants to be in work, trying to push through but not being able to perform is going to jeopardise her job long term and ultimately you want to keep her so it might be better that she goes off and focuses on herself and getting stronger and comes back when she's actually worked through it a bit. At which point a phased return could be put in place to give her every support.

To be honest, I’m a manager too and it is difficult and draining to manage people with significant mental health illnesses. I don’t mean that in a flippant/offensive way, but it’s just factually one of the more unpleasant and challenging aspects of the role.

Like you, my staff member has gone through a shockingly difficult time and has all my sympathy. I have gone above & beyond to support her, even pushed back detrimental action that HR or my management wanted. But ultimately I’m left with a member of staff who runs hot and cold, regularly gets angry or teary with me, and is generally quite intense to handle. I feel her anxiety if that makes sense, I am the person she takes it all out on and it raises my own heart rate. I have no problem with her and understand her health concerns lead to her actions - but matters concerning her take a lot out of me, sap away my energy, make me consider new roles etc and I don’t think this is discussed enough. It’s almost like I would benefit from counselling, just to discuss the challenges at managing this situation at work. It’s quite full on and totally takes much of my time at work, I constantly feel I’m walking on eggshells and that nothing I do is good enough.

For me, I found the easiest way out to be just getting a new job myself.

Ok so if that’s not possible you need to seek advice from HR that while she’s technically capable her behaviour while in the office isn’t right & see what they suggest. There are usually behaviour / Duty of Care policies that can allow you to either force an employee to take sick leave or give a disciplinary based on behavioural grounds (that can then be used to force a change in work pattern / force her to take sick leave etc).

In the meantime keep a detailed track of her behaviour and specific examples (with dates and times) of how she affects you.

Also a manager here. You can't carry on like this.

I agree with the frank talk advice - but I would be really firm, clear and upbeat. 'She's a valued colleague. You know she is very capable. You know she has / is having a tough time but it's now time to start moving on. She has to push to get back on track perfornance wise and in return you will support her. You are going to find a positive together everyday and celebrate them. Mistakes will be glided over'. And both reasses in 4 weeks how it is going.

It might be she needs a clean break. It might be conciously trying to change her interactions is enough to help move on. .

And do ask out right if you can, at the right moment, if she is thinking of taking her own life. It just might save her.

Have you approached hr yourself, and/or your higher up, and what support you might be getting for yourself as to how to further manage this member of staff?

Yes @Itsasecretnow , the situation is affecting the OP’s own mental health to the extent that she’s considering leaving her job. That’s serious and she needs to share this with HR/someone higher up.

The OP herself needs support or it’s going to affect her work performance as well.