Working with a mental illness is challenging, and not uncommon. In fact, one in five of us will experience a clinical episode of depression at some point in our life.
For many
of us, work can be an important part of coping and recovery, but for managers and
supervisors, the fear of having to assist employees who are dealing with mental
illness can be overwhelming.
That’s
why managers need the right training to know how to support employees with
mental illnesses. And if they’re successful, it can have a big effect on the
entire workplace.
“We knew from our research that there was a lot of trepidation around this issue,” said Dr Megan Woods from the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics.
People didn’t know how to handle it, they thought it was going to be challenging, and they hoped against hope that it didn’t turn up on their doorstop. But once we completed the exercise, a lot of the managers we spoke to said that while there were really challenging parts to it, there were some really great parts, too.
Dr Woods
is an expert in qualitative research methods, and she works in a team with Dr Sarah Dawkins from the University of
Tasmania and Dr Angela Martin, an Adjunct Professor at the
University, to investigate mental health in the workplace.
As part
of a 2014 study on managing employees with
mental health issues, the researchers interviewed line managers and front-line
supervisors about their experiences interacting with employees who were living with
depression or burn-out.
And they uncovered some unexpected and significant benefits for those who were able to provide support.
Some managers said, ‘what I learned is that I’m prepared to handle things that other people weren’t’.
“Other managers
in the organisation didn’t want a bar of the situation, and I was the one who stepped
up and got involved. That taught me that I’m prepared to tackle things that
other people aren’t, and that I have skills I didn’t even know I had.”
Through in-depth
interviews, Dr Woods discovered that while managers had to watch their employees
“go through hell” while dealing with their mental illnesses, they also had the
opportunity to see them recover and respond to help.
And this
process benefited other members of the workplace, too.
“They
said, ‘we saw the team around them dig in and support them, and we saw that
flow through to other members of the team who saw how caring and warm the
people around them were,’” said Dr Woods.
“They
thought, ‘I’ve just seen them rally around this one person, and now I feel more
confident that if it were me who needed help in the future, they’d rally around
me.’”
As important as these findings are, Dr Woods is just getting started.
“What we
realised is that this is everywhere,” she said.
She’s currently working with a local mental health research group to apply what she’s learned to other high-stress scenarios, including residential aged care facilities and PhD candidacy.
“We’re now focussed on the idea that the more we can do to help people in managerial roles understand how to engage with employee mental health, the more we’ll be helping them provide support for their employee’s recovery. This will enable them to be more productive, and have a more positive experience where they work,” she said.
There’s important research to do here, and it can have a huge impact not just on one person’s life, but on all those around them. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a big deal to achieve that.
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