How can employers support employees suffering from mental illness?
Emily Rosado-Solomon, assistant professor of management at Babson College, explores this topic with care.
Emily Rosado-Solomon is an Assistant Professor of Management at Babson College. She received her PhD at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, and previously served on the faculty at California State University, Long Beach. Her research is broadly in the areas of organizational behavior and human resource management, with an emphasis on mental illness, diversity, and interpersonal connections at work.
Supporting Employees with Mental Illness
Over 20% of people in the United States have a mental illness, referring to chronic conditions such as mood and anxiety disorders. While many of these people are employed, there is little guidance about how workplaces can support the unique needs of employees with mental illness. To investigate this, we conducted 59 interviews with people who were employed while living with chronic mental illness.
We found that employees have a broad array of ways that they navigate fluctuating mental illness symptoms alongside work. Some employees disengage from parts of their work during periods of heightened symptoms, such as physically disengaging by working from home, or socially disengaging by eating lunch away from coworkers. This provides an opportunity to manage aversive symptoms of their condition, such as by practicing cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation, or exercise.
In other instances, employees actually engage more in parts of their work during periods of severe symptoms, either by talking to their coworkers more or by working with extra vigor. In some cases this was to help mitigate symptoms, such as employees who felt better after social support from a colleague. Other employees engaged in work to help distract them from aversive symptoms and provide temporary relief.
Knowing this variety of symptom navigation techniques has implications for how organizations can best support employees with chronic mental illness. Given that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to navigating mental illness and work, it’s important that organizations offer flexibility and a supportive climate so employees with mental illness can do what they know works best to ameliorate their symptoms. When organizations realize this and adjust their policies to remove barriers to coping, employees with mental illness will be able to bring their best selves to work so that both employees with mental illness, and the organizations they work for, can thrive.
Read More:
[Academy of Management] – Navigating Mental Illness at Work Using Disengagement and Engagement Pathways
