Imagine – as an HR professional, you’ve helped an employee
struggling with a mental health issue to coordinate a leave of
absence. She and her physician are working together on her
care. You’ve assisted her manager and team in adjusting to her
absence. The tough work is behind you, right? Now you can rest
easier knowing she’ll come back when she’s better, slip into the role
she once had and everything will go back to the way it was.
Not so fast. An employee’s success upon returning to work may
depend – a lot – on what you do. If your employee has been gone a
while, you can nearly guarantee she won’t be able to resume her duties
at full speed the moment she returns. But simply stripping her
workload arbitrarily isn’t likely to help her or the team in the long
run, either. Developing an abilities-based plan, in collaboration
with the employee and her manager, devising proactive solutions
to potential challenges and scheduling regular check-ins and adjustments
along the way are steps that HR can take to help better
the chances of a more positive outcome – for everyone.
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AVOIDANCE IS NOT A SOLUTION
Mental illness can be a difficult subject to discuss and harder still
to fully understand. Well-intentioned, compassionate employers
may worsen a problem by attempting to avoid the issue altogether.
“Often, an employer is most concerned about how an employee
returning from a mental illness-related leave will react in a stressful
situation, and these, of course, do happen at work,” said Mary
Ann Baynton, program director for the Great-West Life Centre
for Mental Health in the Workplace and founder of Mary Ann
Baynton Associates Consulting in Waterdown, Ont. The employer
may attempt to keep the employee out of the path of all possible
workplace stressors, a move that can render the employee ineffective
and unproductive.
“It can also contribute to a sense of inadequacy for the employee,”
said Baynton. “And it may create resentment among the
coworkers who have to cover for that person. In most cases, it can
create a real burden on the front line supervisor manager who still
“THE IDEA OF A GRADUATED PLAN
FOR AN EMPLOYEE RETURNING
FROM A MENTAL ILLNESS-RELATED
LEAVE IS THAT WE HELP THE
EMPLOYEE TO BUILD UP STRENGTHS
OVER TIME, RATHER THAN
EXPECTING LESS FROM THEM.”
– MARY ANN BAYNTON, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, GREAT-WEST
LIFE CENTRE FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE AND
FOUNDER, MARY ANN BAYNTON ASSOCIATES CONSULTING
HRPATODAY.CA ❚ MAY/JUNE 2015 ❚ 17