Managing mental health in the workplace

Siobhan Bishop: Hello and welcome to this podcast where we are discussing manging mental health in the work place. I am Siobhan Bishop, a Principal Associate in the Employment and Equalities Team here at Gowling WLG and I am joined by Vivienne Reeve, a Senior Associate in our team. So today we are going to be discussing the impact of mental ill health on a business, some of the practical aspects of identifying mental health issues and building a psychologically safe work place with a view to avoiding, or at least minimising, legal claims relating to mental health. So, Vivienne, of course there is much that employers can do to promote mental health at work and there are big picture issues such as ensuring that there is a fair pay process in place, work/life balance and dealing with bullying and conflict issues that might arise; and of course these are all good things but just taking a step back can you set out the impact that poor mental health can have on a business or, in other words, what is the incentive for the senior management to focus on this issue?

Vivienne Reeve: Thanks Siobhan, yes I think there are three key incentives for management to focus on this. The first is that it is the right thing to do, the second is about productivity and the third is about PR and reputational issues. So, just looking at the financials, the Stevenson/Farmer Review, which was published last autumn, looked at ways in which poor mental health is exhibited at work on the individual, their team and the organisation and it cited Deloitte analysis which estimated that the cost to employers may be up to £42 billion a year. Now, given our current apparent issues with productivity, this may be one of the reasons why. The review and other recent research on mental health at work has looked at the effect of poor mental health on your ability to actually work and how it manifests itself. I was really interested in reading the research to find out that actually absenteeism is not the top issue; it is actually presenteeism and it was really fascinating that around half of those suffering with poor mental health were actually in work. So this underlines why we need to get better at supporting people at work who may have poor mental health. I think it is also important to mention the effect of work place sexual harassment on people's health. I think you would have had to have been living under a rock for the last year not to be aware of the increased reporting and confidence women have had in coming out to report sexual harassment. A recent Danish study concluded that sexual harassment caused by colleagues was linked to higher levels of depressive symptoms than that from customers or clients and I think that makes sense considering how much time you spend with your colleagues. The study recognised that this is because of a power perspective that has to be acknowledged, which basically recognises what we would all appreciate, that it is more difficult to report work place sexual harassment for fear of job loss, retribution or potentially that you have been courageous enough to report it and yet there seems to be no consequence for the perpetrator. So coming back to what you said at the beginning, Siobhan, it is important to focus on it because it is the right thing to do, it really does improve productivity in the work place and it is important to guard against potential reputational issues as well.

Siobhan: Thank you and I want to pick up on the second point you made there about productivity because, of course , it is really easy to focus on days lost due to sickness, for example, but the major issue you mentioned was loss of productivity for those who are actually present in the work place but still suffering from poor mental health and, of course, it is easy to see how issues can be spotted through a sickness absence process but how do employers spot issues with those who do come into work?

Vivienne: Thanks Siobhan. Well working with mental health experts, I have developed a practical acronym which should be helpful which is called RADAR. So RADAR stands for recognise the signs of mental distress, acknowledge, discuss, act and review and follow through. So talking about how to recognise it first. In conducting my research for our seminar and for this podcast and talking to people who train others in mental health fitness and also deal with mental health themselves, I thought it was really interesting that the most common sign is to do with timekeeping, so either being late to get to work, being late to meetings or appointments or taking longer to do tasks. Then other things such as physical changes, so perhaps poor self-care of somebody who is normally very careful with their appearance and takes pride in their appearance, weight change, appearing tense or sweating, how you interact with somebody. So, if they have that frozen look, if they appear distracted or seem ambivalent about work or life in general frankly. I think people are good at recognising that sometimes when people are depressed or anxious they seem to physically and mentally take a step back for many reasons but it is also important to recognise that more outward facing conduct such as being short-tempered or erratic or changeable is also a sign of mental distress.

Siobhan: Thank you and if somebody in the work place suspects that one of their colleagues may have an issue, how does the legal framework affect what the employer should do about that?

Vivienne: So the legal background relevant to dealing with mental health at work is the Equality Act. This sets out who is protected and how disability is defined. So, everybody in the employment cycle is protected from job applicants to workers and employees to people who have left your employment. Disability is defined as a mental or physical impairment with a long term and substantial adverse effect on your ability to carry out day to day activities and I think the key here is to recognise that this is, quite rightly, a low threshold. So rather than being too worried about whether you or somebody else fits neatly into the definition, I think it is best to assume that they may well do and to act from there and you are not likely to go far wrong. It is also worth recognising that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual cites currently 297 different mental health states, if you like, from anxiety, depression to OCD, psychosis and so there is clearly a broad spectrum of conditions and states of health. Some are permanent, but it is important to remember as well that many people recover from a period of mental illness and move on but past disabilities, say a period of depression for example, is also covered. So, if you suffered from something and then get better but feel you are subjected to victimisation, for example, or not promoted because somebody doubts your mental strength then you would fall to be protected under the Equality Act as well. The second piece of legislation is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 which imposes the duty of every employer to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all staff.

Siobhan: OK. So as you say there is often a wish to support individuals but if you do not support them in the right way there is a significant business and legal risk of failing to do so. And you also mentioned many episodes of mental health are triggered by personal reasons but the work place can also contribute towards mental ill health through colleagues or processes that are in place. And what other kinds of initiatives can employers introduce to support employees and make the work place generally safer?

Vivienne: I think there is a number of different things we can do at different stages of the employment relationship so I think the first thing is to identify specific risk areas and try to pre-empt them. So, for example, looking at your employment life cycle we start with the induction process. It is really important to have a good induction programme, to set expectations about the role and where that role sits within an organisation, how it sits within a team and explain contract, policies and what is expected. So that sets the ground level expectations for the organisation and the individual so they know what to expect. The second part of that is looking how you manage people. So I think we would all recognise that there are certain things like major change programmes, redundancies, for example, where we would anticipate that that would cause some mental distress or stress to individuals. But there are also other things where I think we can keep an eye out and try and put in place support processes to help. So, for example, when you are promoting somebody, when a team is working to a critical deadline or there are people leaving or joining an organisation and, again, the sexual harassment angle as well. I think most people would recognise that there is always a ripple effect in the work place, nobody stands on their own. People observe what is going on around them, so even if you do not feel that you are comfortable in speaking to somebody about whether they are in mental distress you might assume somebody else is going to do that. If you can see that nothing happens or that that person seems to go off work with stress or just absent, and you cannot see that there is a positive resolution, that has an effect on you and others around you. In terms of promoting awareness of mental health at work there are some really good example out there. Some organisations provide resilience and stress courses, self-tests and then linked modules to assist with that. I think it really matters that people can see that this is not just a tick box exercise but this is something that is part of the culture of the organisation so that means having buy-in from the top of an organisation. So, for example, running mental health awareness programmes, training sessions, it is important that people see that senior people attend those programmes and that they have that vested interest in ensuring the mental wellness of everybody around them. We have had some great Mindapples training here. There is mental health awareness week which helps raise the profile. There is also the opportunity to do short YouTube videos. We have had some amazing people here at Gowling WLG do a video called "This is Me" where they courageously put themselves forward to explain what their mental health condition was and how they deal with it which I thought was absolutely fantastic. So there are all sorts of things you can do, training people in mental first aid and having mental health champions can be a really good thing because it may be that an individual does not feel comfortable speaking to somebody they work with all the time but speaking to somebody they do not know very well can be a lot easier. I think as well having a zero tolerance approach to bullying, in particular sexual harassment, is really important as well. Training your managers and your workforce in recognising mental health distress and then how to deal with it, how to discuss it, how to seek advice if necessary and put in an action plan of how you will work together to ensure that person can remain in and thrive at work. I think it is important as well to appreciate that this is a subject that people feel sometimes anxious about talking about, partly because it is very personal but also because there is a real desire not to make it worse. So I think it is important alongside any training to have a safe space where people can come either with a mental health champion to have a hypothetical conversation, to practice, if you like, how they would deal with it, so they feel enabled to recognise and deal with the signs of mental health instead of leaving it.

Siobhan: Thank you. There are so many practical tips there, some really, really great advice. Thank you Vivienne. And if you are interested in exploring some of these issues in more detail or have any particular questions, please do feel free to contact Vivienne for more information. Thank you.

Vivienne: Thanks.