Flicking through Facebook today and noticed that the Black Dog Institute, a highly reputable mental health organisation, posted about whether or not to tell your employer if you have a mental health condition.
They shared a link to headsup.org.au which is linked to Beyond Blue, perhaps the largest and best known mental health website and service.
I have absolute trust in these organisations and having been involved with Beyond Blue for a few years, I am aware of just how professional they are.
The pro's and cons for telling your employer were pretty valid and reasonable but one really stuck out and made me shake my head, not at Beyond Blue, Black Dog Institute or Heads Up, about why we as a community still have this advice out there and being a valid reason by these institutions.
A reason not to tell your employer..."You might be worried about potential discrimination, harassment or reduced opportunities for career progression"...
Now I am not naïve enough to suggest that every employer supports their employees or every manager within organisations support their members, I think there are many many great managers out there who I label as leaders who take on the responsibility of looking after their staff that live with mental health conditions.
For such great organisations to put that advice out there though suggests to me that there is still so much negativity and poor behaviours going on in a lot of work places.
Everyone in a position of influence, leadership or managerial role needs to take a real good look in the mirror and work out who they are.
Are they someone who supports their colleagues?
What would they do if an employee came up to them and told them they were suffering?
Would they call out bad behavior towards someone with a mental health condition?
Lets turn this around a bit, if you are a manager, what would you think if someone treated your daughter or son poorly? or your mother or father?, or your sibling?, or your mates?
Put yourself in those shoes where you have watched your child or significant other battle through a mental health condition. Then watch on as they come home, dismayed, broken, upset and watch the mental toll a poisonous workplace has upon them.
How would you feel?
No doubt there are people out there that are just so involved in themselves and have no or very little regard for others, as long as they get promoted or win a contract or whatever, but to counter this we need to have people who will stand up and say no more.
I dream of the day that advice like this is history. That anyone who mistreats those who live with mental health conditions are held to 100% account.
That will be a great day.
https://www.headsup.org.au/your-mental-health/talking-about-a-mental-health-condition-at-work/should-i-tell-my-employer
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