Are you feeling stressed, anxious or depressed, and keeping this from your employer? If so, you are not alone.
A survey from Friends Life found that 40% of 2,000 respondents from a cross-section of industries had experienced these kinds of mental health problems and had not told their employer. Over half of those surveyed said they thought that if they were open about a mental health issue it would damage their career prospects.
The research suggested that younger workers are feeling the strain more than their older counterparts. Almost two-thirds of 18-24 year olds said they had experienced stress, anxiety or depression in the last year, with the numbers gradually decreasing among older age groups. As for the causes of stress, you may not be surprised to hear that the most common answer in the survey was an “excessive workload”, followed by “frustration with poor management and working hours”.
While you may have concerns about your career, if you are having serious problems you should speak to your employer as you may have legal protection if you are battling mental health issues at work.
A mental illness can amount to a disability under the Equality Act 2010. Under the Act, there will be a disability if:
1. You have a physical or mental impairment.
2. The impairment has a substantial and long- term effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
Your condition will be considered long term if it lasts, or is likely to last, 12 months. Normal day-to-day activity is defined as something you do regularly in a typical day, for example – using a computer or working set times. Where a disability is present, your employer will need to consider what reasonable adjustments they could make to support you, for example, changing your shift patterns or not requiring you travel long periods. If it unreasonably refuses to do so and/or dismiss you by reason of your disability, you may have a claim for disability discrimination.
Usually there will be sufficient evidence in the form of a medical report to confirm your disability (and employers may ask for this and/or refer you to their own occupational health therapist or medical expert). The absence of any such evidence doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t rely on your disability in terms of making a claim if your employer knew, or ought to have known about your illness before taking disciplinary action.
Even if your illness falls short of a qualifying disability under the Equality Act, most sensible employers faced with someone who is clearly suffering with ill-health should not be rushing into disciplinary action. They should establish the true medical position and properly consult with you and your medical advisers, and if they dismiss you without doing so, you may have a claim for unfair dismissal.
Whether or not you decide to tell your employer of your mental illness is always going to be personal decision, especially as a mental health issue will not always be as immediately apparent as a physical one. There is every possibility that such a disclosure could damage your career prospects. But then so can a noticeable drop in your performance as a result of your hidden mental illness, and this could lead to a termination of employment on capability grounds (one of the other fair reasons for a dismissal).
Many would argue that at least with your employer knowing what is going on, it would at least have an opportunity to support you and make adjustments, especially if you do have a recognised disability under the Equality Act. Your decision is likely to depend on how serious your condition is, how confident you are to soldier on, and also, how sympathetic your employer is likely to be.
Have you suffered with mental issues at work due to an excessive workload or other reasons? How has this affected your work, and did you inform your employer (and if so, how did they address this)?
• Philip Landau is an employment solicitor at Landau Law. You can follow him on Twitter @philiplandau
