Through Beyond Blue's engagement with workplaces, we know there's strong interest from the community to better understand how to support people at work with a mental health condition. Our goal today is to unpack this topic and provide you with practical insights and strategies. So, to our panel. To set the scene, I'd like to introduce our panellists to talk about themselves a bit more and share their range of experience with mental health in the workplace. To start with, Jo.

Yeah, I'd agree with that and I think also part of the person-centred approach, is realising that everyone is incredibly different, and they've got a different past background, perhaps of mental health issues, physical issues, a different unique workplace, what their job is, what are all the issues that they need to deal with. So it's a very much a tailored approach for that particular individual.

Yeah. So, sitting in general practice, you see many people come in with mental health issues and their workplaces are very varied. At one end you might have an active bullying or discrimination issue going on, not as rare as you might think, unfortunately, and that's a central part of their upset and their distress. And at the other end, particularly in Beyond Blue, I've gone out and seen some wonderful workplaces that have really put the effort in to being a mentally healthy workplace, and they speak openly about it, and they train their managers, and everything in between, right. So, often there comes a point of conversation with the person to say, "Well listen, is there someone at work you want to talk to this about, or not?", and clearly if they're in an active conflict in a not very friendly workplace, they might say, "Listen, the last thing I do is going to disclose.". I was really pleased to see on the Beyond Blue Heads Up website, that there's a tool, where people can actually work through the decision making whether to disclose or not. Really useful thing, raises all the issues and I think it does need a bit of careful thought. I don't think there is one bit of advice for every patient and sometimes the best answer is, "No, look, we're not going to be explicit in this case." but hopefully where we're heading is where there's a much more open conversation.

It's easier for me to talk about how you handle this as an individual manager. Jo made a really important point that sometimes the person is feeling a bit down on themselves and lacking in self-confidence. So you really do need to, this is not management science or anything, it's just being a human being. Sit down with the person and have a conversation with them, reassure them, try and rebuild their confidence. The bigger issue is with the team because as a manager, one of the frustrations is that you only see part of the puzzle. A mental health condition is rarely 100% to do with what's happening at work. We don't get to see what's happening with the family, we don't often get to talk to the medical practitioner, we don't know what the other factors are. But if that's a challenge for the individual manager, it's even more significant for the rest of the team. All they're seeing is bits and pieces, they're hearing stories, they're often impacted by the person's challenges at work, because they're having to pick up some of their duties, often at short notice. So, at some point, it's sitting down with the team and just being firm sometimes, and saying, "Look, we're going to help this person get through this. I realise it's going to put some pressure on the rest of you. I'm going to ask you, as your manager, to step up and help out in this situation, and help support this person." Again, if the person's taking time off because they're getting treatment, they've had a stroke, or they've got some disease, or they've got a cancer, everyone will pitch in and assume that it's the right thing to do. It's sometimes frustrating that it can be harder to get that support in a situation where the underlying problem is something that people have less understanding of. We all know what brain tumour, or leukaemia, or cancer can do to someone's body, but we don't fully understand how a mental health condition plays out so it makes it difficult for the team to understand.

I think that resource, it also includes the Wellbeing Plan that Jo spoke to, being a practical resource for small business owners and tailored to small business owners, to really remind them why they're in their role and some of their coping strategies to look after them going forward. So, one of the things, Steve, you sort of touched on, helping someone and increasing their hours gradually and I think Jo, you mentioned this also, I'd just like to go back to that return to work process and that recovery at work process. Practically, what are some of the tools and approaches we can do to help that, I think we've mentioned the Wellbeing Plan, but we also see return to work, or recover at work plans as well. Could we maybe go into that briefly?

And that's where the creative stuff that you get to, in terms of solutions, comes from. The conversations that I've had with my managers around what can be done to adjust the way I'm working, come from those really functional, nitty gritty, “This is what I really struggle to do.” and so one of the things that I really struggled, when I was experiencing depression, my concentration was all over the place. I'd struggle to just sit at my computer for 30 to 40 minutes, which given that most of my job is spent hunched over a computer, was a real challenge for me and so we worked out some solutions to put in kind of checkpoints, so that at a certain point, I could go and take a break, and clear my mind, and come back and that was okay. And my employer wasn't seeing me as being constantly distracted, but actually seeing that what I was doing was refocusing. So, again, focusing on the strengths, positive approach and that only came through being able to have those functional conversations and I'm sure what have been even more valuable if my doctor had been involved.

I think that discussion can be really useful around, what are the warning signs to look out for. So, uncharacteristic behaviours, sometimes getting a bit angry uncharacteristically, or withdrawing. The other one we haven't mentioned, which is not uncommon, are drug and alcohol issues, which always is complex when it overloads with mental health issues and how that works. Non-attendance, presenteeism, where they're sort of there but they're not really. So, there are a few little warning signs, and I guess from a clinical perspective, we're often looking at these as, relapse signatures, is what we call it. Saying, "Listen, if you haven't slept for three nights, this is bad." Or, "If you're back at the pub, that's not good." or, "If you're fighting with people at work again, that's not good.", so we try and identify what people's particular relapse signature is and it can be tricky. I think it's easy to have a really clear cut, linear version of what goes on, but as we know, people are messy, people are tricky, and if you're lucky enough to get an employer who's got that, as you said, capacity to be human, as well as a manager, that's really helpful.

I think it would be really useful for me as the employee as well. Because it's often one of the concerns that you have, is that, “I don't have the trust with my employer and I know I can do this job if my brain is doing what it needs to do.” and so having that all documented also would provide me with the support and knowledge to go with more than just my gut that I can do the job and have the evidence to back that up. So, I think it's great for everyone and it helps with that confidence piece that we were talking about before, that often an employee lacks. They can really assert themselves around that plan.

Because that's how you get better. I've been really lucky that I've spent a long time dealing with mental health conditions, so I've got quite good at identifying the triggers, and have a Wellbeing Plan, so I've got them written down. But it means that when I do start to notice myself tipping over the edge of what could be a cliff, I can stop myself going any further, which means that luckily, we've talked about returning to work, but I've actually never needed a return to work plan because I've got to the stage where I can identify when things are going off the rails and can put that early intervention into place, have those conversations that I need to have, so that I can stay at work. And that helps me get better because work gives you so much strength as well. You see people there, you have human connection, you get a sense of meaning, and we know that all of those things are really good for a recovery. So it's early intervention that enables that to happen.

I'll start from [an] employer point of view. I get, as Grant said, for small businesses it's quite challenging, finding the resources, but early disclosure and early intervention is obviously key. So, creating a workplace environment where people feel comfortable coming forward and feel like they can have those honest conversations with you is really critical. The other thing to finish on, what I didn't disclose, is I'm an actuary by profession, so we're into stats and probabilities and I can tell you now, if you've got more than 10 or 15 people in your workplace, at any point and time there's going to be someone there who's going through a divorce, or has a serious physical illness, or has a gambling problem, or has a mental health condition. You may not know who they are, but I can bet you there's someone in the workplace who's confronting those things. So, the important thing as an employer is to create an environment where you can identify who those people are, because they self-disclose, and you can help them get back on track.