Partner Article

Mental illness, employment and how to handle it

As Labour Leader David Miliband said in a speech to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, mental health conditions can be debilitating and frightening, causing pain and anguish to those it touches.

Though for a small business with staff absent through mental illness, it can spell financial disaster handled incorrectly. Spirit HR is a Human Resource Consultancy who can lead the unwary employer through the myriad of legal difficulties, to resolve the problems of absence or even legal action due to mental illness.

Company Director of Spirit HR Donna Fairbrass has recently expanded her successful Northamptonshire and West Midlands based business to cover the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire areas. She says its vital employers get correct advice.

“What may seem a perfectly reasonable response to an employment issue can end up costing an employer dearly. Absence and litigation due to mental health issues can be especially difficult to deal with, as at present, there are no absolute guidelines and each case must be correctly managed from a legal perspective, based on its own circumstances.”

In July Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said that 70 million working days are lost to conditions such as depression and anxiety every year, while The Mental Health foundation report that “… nearly three in every ten employees will experience a mental health problem in any one year.”

With these numbers, even the smallest micro businesses could have an employee with some mental health issues that require careful management.

Donna identifies getting over the first hurdle of how to go about starting the conversion as significant (something Time to Change focus on). However, owners of small businesses, or managers, are not trained or experienced in these areas – their expertise lies in running their business from an operational perspective. Once that conversation is underway bosses can continue to agonise over how to manage a process in a caring, empathetic, yet legal way. Clearly, what can be done by an employer with hundreds or thousands of employees is not the same as what can feasibly be done or managed by an employer with a handful of employees. This makes reading through websites full of advice sometimes more confusing than helpful. Spirit HR offer advice to discuss a strategy, and making a plan for meetings as an absolute minimum.

Donna continues, “…in one case, where a company thought they were handling things in a friendly, informal and supportive way, the employee reacted badly to one thing the company thought the employee would appreciate. From here on it was a painful, destructive downward spiral and the whole relationship became bitter and fraught with negativity, incriminations and pain – and then an employment tribunal claim that was into six figures. It shows that open two-way discussion – that challenging conversation – and not making assumptions is really important to the process, whatever the company size.

Spirit HR is there to help small business owners avoid the financial, business and emotional pressure an employment tribunal can cause. “It’s not just the literal cost of defence at Employment Tribunal on the day or days in court, but the additional pressure on management time, negative impact on employees, cost of preparing responses and bundles to the Tribunal’s deadlines. Add to this the negative press coverage and your defence (even if you are 100% right) could cost you tens of thousands of pounds. If you lose, even if on a technical point of law and not planned deliberate intent to discriminate, the negative impact of press reporting of the case is probably unmeasurable but could bring a small local company, trading on reputation, to destruction.

With close links to lawyers and mental health experts Spirit HR is well equipped to deal with complex sickness absence cases – including those stemming from mental health issues, as well as every HR issue an employer may encounter including disciplinary procedures, conduct, redundancy and employment law.

“Mr. Miliband offers a sympathetic response to individuals with mental illness. Spirit HR offer, business focused help and guidance through the employment issues it can create.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Spirit-HR .