Let’s Change the Narrative Around Mental Health at Work

I just stood there naked.

That’s how my colleague Natasha Bowman describes revealing her struggles with mental health. This is how she put it:  

Natasha Bowman, JD, SPHR

I just stood there naked. That’s how it felt the first time I share my bipolar diagnosis, suicide attempt, involuntary hospitalization, and my journey to destigmatizing mental illness in the workplace. Every time I share it, I feel like I’m sharing the most intimate parts of my life.Then I start to get messages like:

“Me too”
”You just saved my life”
”Because of you, I’m getting help”
”I now understand what my family member is going through”
”I just didn’t know. Thank you.”

I know I have to keep it ongoing. Sharing my journery. Being vulnerable. Being raw. Real. Naked. Thank you to all of the companies committed to mental wellness in your workplaces, and I have me to speak to your teams.

Not enough people feel safe discussing their mental health challenges. 

Not enough people are able to bring their authentic selves to work because of the stigma associated with mental illness. And this hurts diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Break it down:

If COVID-19 gave us anything, it yanked the lid right off the topic of mental health. That’s a good thing, because one in five adults in the United States have a mental illness! Clearly, experiences like Natasha’s are common and nothing to be ashamed of. Unfortunately, there are two big challenges to addressing the unconscious (or conscious!) bias about mental health. The first is the long-standing stigma associated with mental illness. The second is that mental health conditions are often invisible, so it can be difficult to determine if discrimination is taking place. Here’s how that second one can play out in the workplace, and make identifying and addressing bias a challenge:

Imagine you’re in an entry-level recruiting role, and you notice many of your fellow recruiters are highly experienced BIPOC, many of whom want to advance. You also notice that most of the senior executives are white. When you bring up this disparity to HR, you’re told, “We don’t have the budget or time to promote anyone right now.” But a few months later, another white person is promoted. You’d have to have your head in the sand not to notice a biased pattern here. Based on the evidence before you, it seems clear that your BIPOC colleagues are being discriminated against. 

But what if discrimination is NOT that obvious? 

Say you have a colleague who’s hoping (and preparing) to get promoted. In their effort to be transparent, they chose to disclose that they have a mental health condition. They’re managing it and it doesn’t affect their job. All good, right? Yet you notice that they are continually passed over for opportunities, despite their stated interest and qualifications. Is it because they disclosed their mental health condition? Or is it something else about their performance or qualifications that you don’t understand? Because mental health is taboo and frequently invisible, it’s hard to tell. There’s no clear pattern.

Mental health is already emotionally distressing to talk about, without wondering if you’re hurting your career when you do. That is the double-edged sword of mental health bias in today’s workplaces.

Do Something Different

You want your workplace to be different! You want your workplace to be diverse and inclusive, where everyone feels they belong. What can you do? Natasha puts it beautifully:

"For employees to reach their full potential, they have to feel psychologically safe. They have to be assured that they can speak up, mess up, take time off, and believe that their organizational leaders are not setting them up for failure." - Natasha Bowman, JD, SPHR 

Create psychologically safe workspaces. Emotional and mental safety at work is a crucial step in allowing and encouraging people to be open about their dimensions of diversity AND bring their greatest energy and ideas to their desks. If you don’t have a safe culture (and you can gather data to determine if you do), address that deficit immediately.  

Recruit intentionally with equity in mind: Move away from the mindset that candidates “should” be a specific way. Don’t assume that, say, working from home would be too isolating for someone who struggles with depression. On the other hand, don’t assume that coming into the office would be overwhelming or unwelcome! 

As you look toward or continue to rely on virtual recruiting, my latest LinkedIn Learning course can help you equitably evaluate candidates from a distance: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/virtual-recruiting/recruiting-in-a-virtual-world?autoplay=true 

Reflect on this: Have you felt the need to hide your mental illness? Do you have a workplace culture that is mindful of employee mental health? How do they make that clear to their employees? What makes you feel comfortable sharing your mental health challenges or conditions? 

About the author: Stacey Gordon is a Bias Disrupter and an unapologetic evangelist for inclusion. As the Founder of Rework Work, she anchors action using change management principles while facilitating mindset shifts. She is a global keynote speaker, Top Voice on LinkedIn and a popular LinkedIn Learning [IN]structor with nearly two million unique learners enjoying her courses.