Depression In The Workplace

This article explores depression in the workplace.  This is an  important topic given that the World Health Organization estimates that, on any given day, 121 million people worldwide suffer from depression.

It is reasonable to state, given these numbers, that depression has a major impact in the workplace.

Instead of presenting a whole lot of information to you, I think it would be more helpful if I cover the MAIN issues regarding depression in the workplace.  

That way, we can avoid information overload!

Sound good to you?


Great! Let us now have a look as the main issues.

Lost Productivity

Here in Australia, research suggests that two-thirds of people who have depression won’t seek help.   I said this before, and I say it again - the earlier a person gets help with their depression, the greater the chances of their recovery.

But because so many don't get help, it  has a significant impact on Australian and other workplaces across the world.

For example, in Australia, depression accounts for three to four days off work per month for each person experiencing depression.

To give you some idea of the dollar affect that these days of work translate into, on average, each employee with depression symptoms will cost their employer $9,665 per year, of which an estimated $7,878 could be recouped if the affected individuals got treatment for their depression.

In addition, when an employee with depression seeks help, the outcomes are shown to have positively impacted on their rate of recovery, absenteeism, productivity and costs to the company.

How Managers Deal With A Staff Member Who Has Depression

Often managers do not know how to deal with a staff member who has depression. From my own experience one of the most common mistakes that managers make, is to recommend an employee have time off work when they first find out that person has depression.

Why is this often the worst advice from a manager?

A  common symptom of depression is social isolation, so if a manager suggests that the employee has time off work, this is highly likely to exacerbate the problem of feeling isolated.

During my career, when my manager has given me time off from work, my depression did get worse because I had too much time on my hands to think about what a failure I was.

Just by being at work and around other people allowed me to distract myself from my depression and not feel bad about myself because I had to take time off work.

The second common mistake many managers make is if they have a staff member on their team who is experiencing depression, and, it's perhaps impacting on their ability to do their job; then the manager often goes into performance management mode.

Instead of having an informal conversation with the individual about the person's health, the manager starts their company's performance management process.

This is exactly what happened to me at one of my jobs.  What makes it an unfair and wrong approach that my manager undertook, was that when she was concerned about another staff member's physical health, she informally spoke to the staff member and did not jump into performance management mode!

I think that a possible solution to these two common mistakes that managers make, is for companies to educate and train their managers about mental illnesses.  

This approach would help create a culture at work where mental health problems are managed and responded to in the same way as physical health problems.

Stigma

Stigma is a main challenge for people who suffer from depression. 

Many people think depression is just a personality problem rather than an illness, or believe it’s not that common and won’t affect them.  These people are wrong!

The truth is that 1 in 5 people are affected by depression at some stage in their life. And even though I do believe that some progress has been made in reducing the stigma of having a mental illness (depression being the most common), there is still a long way to go.

For many, many years I hid my depression from my various employers as I felt that if they knew that I had a mental illness, then they would view me differently...

...and I was right!

In my last workplace, I was open about my depression and my fellow workers did treat me differently when they knew that I had depression.

I truly feel sorry for these people as they are ignorant and are sheep following the crowd, by taking the stereotyped view of a person with a mental illness as being "crazy" or "psycho."

Why these people think that they can go through life not knowing anything about mental illness, just does not make sense to me given the large numbers of people who have a mental illness.

Even if these people don't have a mental illness themselves, it is a sure bet that they at least know someone with a mental illness.

The World Health Organization recently did a study that examined data on more than 245,000 people from 60 countries.

This study found that when compared

health policies in the workplace.

This may result in the employer engaging in discrimination against their employees who have depression.

This discrimination is illegal in Australia as

People with depression or some other mental illness, are not required to reveal their illness when applying for a job.

Again, the only exception to this, is if t

Concluding Thoughts...

Depression is a huge public health issue and needs to be recognized and treated as an urgent public health priority.  

As for the reason for the stigma that is often attached to having depression, or any mental illness, I think it is due to a lack of understanding and fear of the unknown.

I really do think that’s the power of information — we can help breakdown some of that fear.  For people without a mental illness, they’re often fearful of what they don’t understand.