Take, for example, the assumption that someone who works in banking in a high-pressure role can no longer do the job they have done for twenty years because they are recovering from an episode of depression. Would a person returning to work after a heart attack be removed from a high-pressure job and treated like a pariah? Of course not.
He or she would be congratulated on getting back to work and be viewed as the same person they were before. Not so for people recovering from mental illness. They are perceived as damaged goods, fragile people who cannot withstand any stress.
Earlier this month, JLT Employee Benefits has found that 38 per cent of people have experienced mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, and nearly 50 per cent of those polled said that stress in the workplace is affecting their performance and leaves them demotivated.
The survey was carried out to mark World Mental Health Day (on 10 October) which aimed to raise awareness and encourage people to speak openly about mental health issues.
Disappointingly, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believed their employer was not doing enough to help manage stress in the workplace.
But there is a lot of prejudice despite the fact that many talented and brilliant people live with mental ill health every day and still manage to be incredibly successful - for example, consider Sir Winston Churchill.
It is astonishing to me that mental health discrimination is so rampant. We have for the most part stamped out racism at work and are working to eliminate other prejudices such as against the LGBT community but mental health lags far behind. And yet it is the number one issue for employers.
Too much talk and not enough action?
Don’t get me wrong: I am encouraged to see there is so much talk about mental health in the workplace and what can be done to improve things. Aside from educating against prejudice there is a great deal employers can do to change the perception and the reality of how mental health illness impacts work.
There is a lot of talk about this issue, many initiatives which are ongoing to signal that it is good to open up about mental health. But on the ground I see no change – yet – and certainly no let-up in the extent to which employers fail to address mental health prejudice in the workplace or take steps to prevent, as far as they can, the development of common mental health disorders.
