workplace mental health quandry

[Sweet108]

I'd like to hear stories or expertise about mentally ill coworkers.

My friend works in the area of government so there are a lot of rules and procedures to follow, much more than a private sector job. His job involves financial tasks. Recently his coworker "Alice" was out on leave, for a mental health reason. No one discusses it openly due to HIPPA laws and the threat of lawsuit, people pretend not to know and he says it is very awkward because management won't communicate exact duties, etc. His coworker was out two years ago for six weeks for the same thing.

 

Alice's moods go up and down, she is super sweet or sullen, angry and suspecting everyone is out to throw her under the bus or get her job. She is demeaning to the admin support staff; Alice is favored by a boss and was promoted to a financial position two years ago. Alice does not have formal education in this area. Her work is mostly good and she tries hard and seems professional when others are watching, he feels she just doesn't have the competency that usually comes from specialized area of education, to support her current role. Her most recent time away from work was very sudden, and her duties were assigned to others because management felt she would be out for a month or a month and a half. Apparently she made huge financial mistakes and embarrassed the company just before her most recent breakdown. She arrived back at work two weeks later, saying publicly that she was" being given a ride to work because she did not feel well enough to drive." He wondered 1 why she would disclose this and 2 if unable to drive, how is she able to perform her job? She is back on the job part time, but her permissions for some computer and financial tasks have been removed and given to someone else. This person, "Pete" is finishing education in the area she doesn't have, soon to graduate. Allice is trying hard to prove to management by copying the boss on emails showing she is working. Her mood seems stable and she is not hostile as she was before.

My questions:

Do you think my friend's colleague will be given back her tasks when she proves herself?

Will Pete, assigned with her duties, eager and competent for promotion be 'demoted' back to his regular role? Pete was told this would be temporary when asked to take it on, and nothing would be going through HR about it.

I understand mental illness is considered a disability and work must provide accommodations but how far does that go when the disabled person made huge $ errors and caused embarrassment of the company?

What if Alice truly does not have the skills for her current job? He says she cannot be demoted or fired because Alice would sue the company for discrimination. Yet how can company continue to take the risk that Alice will stay on her meds , not become suddenly absent again or breakdown and make big mistakes with large sums of money?

I told my friend this must be a delicate line for management to have to walk, it has really left Pete in the dark by giving him a trophy/nicer office (not Alice's) and now only to take it away, and the entire staff in awkward positions not having communication about Alice because of privacy laws or possibly not wanting to embarrass her by explaining her permissions are gone. Alice did not know of her revoked permissions until she returned to work. It was not communicated to her. Likewise, the work has to go on if she is not there. It's not realistic to expect otherwise, and even for a mental health issue it caused many other people in the office a lot of inconvenience and extra work that no one could even plan for since she was out suddenly. Also this is not her first time out for this issue. How many chances does she get?

If you have been in a situation like this or knowledgeable about mentally ill coworkers, I would really appreciate your responses; either here or by private message. I hope that, since this is an anonymous forum, it can finally be spoken about more freely and truthfully.

Thank you for anything you can offer.

[GemmaUK]

Tricky situation for everyone!

 

I suspect that it will depend upon the company policy with regard to sick time at the end of the day though.

 

The company I work for has a policy that sick time and leave of absences are taken into account if we need to make redundancies.

As well as that other things such as willingness to muck in and competence are also factors.

Dynamics come into play too though - as in relationships with team members, managers and the rest of the business.

We had two sets of redundancies happen about 5 years ago.

My team had to take one loss and I was last in so assumed that it was to be me. My sick record and willingness to muck in, learn and request more work were the things that kept me there.

 

We have had four members of staff in the the past 3-4 years who suffered mental health issues.

All led to extended periods of time out of the office - months, not weeks.

 

Two returned but did not stay for long and chose to resign.

Two returned but continued to be unstable both in behaviour and also in attendance.

 

It took around a year of each being this way and suddenly unable to work for weeks at a time for their responsibilities to have shifted to other colleagues so that there was adequate cover.

We didn't hire new members of staff but instead re-distributed the workload.

 

In the end both of these people were made redundant and given severance pay as we were able to cope without them. Others stepped up to cover and were able to do the job so when these people returned each time there just ended up being less work for them to do as it was in hand.

 

It was a very difficult time for all while this was all going on though.

 

It's possible that the same kind of thing may happen but that will also depend on management, HR and also the EBITDA!

It's a business and if financially there is an option to cut costs where there is adequate cover then it will happen.