16 May 2016

This year, Mental Health Awareness Week takes place from 16th to 22nd May, with a particular focus on relationships.

At City Disabilities, our focus for the week is on the relationship between employer and employee. Of our mentees, around a quarter either have a diagnosis of a mental health condition, or have identified a mental health concern that runs alongside another disability. As a result, we have discussed many different mental health issues with them, and in particular, how they deal with these issues in the workplace. We hear many stories of helpful employers and supportive colleagues, who enable our mentees to shine. We also hear about less helpful approaches. Interestingly, the areas of difficultly are frequently the same. This article sets out to explain how those problems appear from the point of view of our mentees, and how employers might be able to adopt a different, more supportive approach.

Stigma

Mental health conditions are still highly stigmatised. Mentees are worried about raising their mental health diagnosis at work. Their general feeling is one of shame – that once people know they are “mentally weak”, they simply won’t be seen in the same light again. They find colleagues are uncomfortable and embarrassed discussing the issue.

Approaches

• Promote a wider understanding of mental health issues throughout the workplace and encourage learning on the subject.
• Alert all staff to external charities such as “Mind” who provide excellent information and support.
• If you have very senior members of staff who are prepared to discuss their own experiences of mental health conditions with diversity and inclusion groups, then support them in doing so.
• Steer clear of asking junior members of staff to “go public” about mental health conditions for the sake of diversity brochures and groups. They feel obliged to agree but frequently tell us they feel very uncomfortable doing so. A significant number regret having done it afterwards.

Lack of knowledge

Mentees often find colleagues know little or nothing about the condition in question, and so they spend considerable time educating those around them. Despite their frequent efforts to explain what a diagnosis means, colleagues do not try to remember this information, so that misunderstandings and thoughtless behaviour continue to occur. For example, have discussed a condition over many months with employers, one of our mentees requested a flexible working arrangement. Her employer’s response was: “A day a week at home won’t cure you.” (The mentee moved to an employer who agreed to the request without hesitation. This mentee is now happier, in considerably better health and rarely needs to stay at home to work.) Facing ignorance or thoughtlessness on a daily basis is exhausting – and yet it is easy to avoid.

Approaches

• Education is key. Encourage a corporate culture that believes diversity and inclusion are not the responsibility of HR, but of all members of staff.
• Make it clear to all staff that if they learn that a team member has a mental health diagnosis, they must take the time to learn what that means, in general terms, so that they are aware of what appropriate behaviour might be. Point them towards the right resources.
• For staff who manage or work very closely with the mentee, encourage them to sit down with that person and talk, if the mentee feels comfortable doing so. Find out what the diagnosis means for that person. Ask good questions: “What helps?” or “How can we work together in a way that most suits you?” This gives your colleague the opportunity to tell you what solutions work best for them.
• Having been told, listen and remember. Put into practice the suggestions the mentee has made.

Assumptions about ability

Having told an employer about a condition, our mentees often find that their abilities as a whole are questioned. Colleagues make assumptions about what the mentee can do – without reference to the mentee. It is very common indeed to over-estimate the issues or problems that an employee with a disability will have. They are generally assumed to be less able at everything, no matter how often they explain that they only struggle in certain circumstances.

Approaches

• Be self-critical and honest about your own prejudice. Have you assumed a colleague cannot do something without actually exploring the possibilities with them? Are you treating them with kid gloves for fear of over-stretching them? Foster an atmosphere of aiming high and expecting excellence. Few of our mentees will disappoint.
• Employees with disabilities have lived with their differences for years. They know best what they can do, and what their limitations are (in many ways their disability has forced them to become far more self-aware than their colleagues, who may need a good deal of training and persuasion before they accept that they do not necessarily excel at all aspects of their work). Listening and trust are key. Sit down with your employee and listen to what they tell you about their work and their requirements.
• Having been told by your colleague what their strengths and limitations are, accept that what they say is true. Do not make any further assumptions, or question whether they can perform in areas they have not raised as problematic. If they say they can do the job, believe them.
• In particular in relation to mental health, do not worry that something may be too “stressful” or “demanding”. Instead, promote train and develop the employee like you would any other, based on the information they have given you about themselves. They will tell you if they are not comfortable.

Unreliability

Mentees tell us that their employers worry about reliability. When first faced with a mental health diagnosis, the tendency is for the employer to ask for a “definitive guide” to what that person’s condition means. The trouble is, this is very obviously an impossible thing to provide (because it isn’t possible for anyone to do). A mentee will be asked to make it clear when they will be well, what is likely to make them unwell, and exactly what they can and can’t do at work. They will have reasonable adjustments offered on the basis that they “work” i.e. that the mentee remains well, and in work. If they don’t, the adjustment is frequently removed because it “didn’t work” and the conclusion that they cannot do their job will be drawn. The employee’s inability to articulate exactly when an issue will occur, and what will prevent it from occurring, leaves the employer feeling like the employee simply isn’t reliable enough to do their job. The most worrying thing is when a mentee buys into this view themselves, and comes to believe that because they are not entirely predictable in their behaviour, they are a second rate employee who cannot be depended on. This is not only untrue, but very bad for their self-esteem. This is one of the areas that mentees worry about most often, not least because they so frequently feel that the employer is right, and that they are unreliable. In fact, if an employee is in the right job, surrounded by good support and the correct attitude, with flexible adjustments in place, our experience is that they remain well for the vast majority of their working lives.

Approaches

• This is all about attitude. By comparison with other employees, the health of our mentees is no more “unpredictable” than anyone else’s. One cannot predict a migraine, an ill child, flu, food poisoning or any of the other myriad of common place issues that crop up in everyone’s life and throw us off course. Yet the employee with the mental health condition is assumed to be less reliable simply because their particular “issue” has a label – even when that label rarely causes a day off work. One of our mentees has a diagnosis they felt they should tell their employer about, and yet it caused a very few days’ off each year. Had they said instead that the absence was caused by a vomiting bug, no one would have been any the wiser. Yet this mentee was side-lined and under-utilised over concerns that they could not be relied upon.
• Keep a sense of proportion. One mentee is concerned about having taken one day off in two months for a mental health problem.  Flu, colds and food poisoning cause equal or more time off work but arouse no issues.  Often the concerns are really based in the stigma of the cause rather than the impact of the effect.  Not always, but it is so sometimes.  Be careful not to further this stigma, nor to accidentally cause your employee to buy into that view of themselves.
• Let go of your need to surround each labelled condition with certainty. Instead, work with the employee as we’ve set out above, and you will find they are reliable and hard-working.

City Disabilities frequently meets and works with employers who take the above approaches every day. Their workforces are diverse, interesting and successful. We hope it has been useful to hear some of the difficulties we are told about, and we encourage you all to use some of these bullet points to improve the working lives of all of your employees.

If you would like us to come and talk to you, free of charge, about diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and how you can improve the experiences of your employees, email us on info@citydisabiliites.org.uk You can also find out more about us on www.citydisabilities.org.uk