Employee's "mental health day" goes viral

Usually from June - December I usually have a monday and tuesday off each month just to chill a bit and relax. I thought this was relatively normal tondo this kind of thing?
 
Bassmansam said:
Usually from June - December I usually have a monday and tuesday off each month just to chill a bit and relax. I thought this was relatively normal tondo this kind of thing?
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No. Not even a little as far as I know. Are you taking these as holiday, sick days or something else?
 
fez said:
No. Not even a little as far as I know. Are you taking these as holiday, sick days or something else?
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Holiday. Usually I take very little holiday in the first 6 months of the year and then that allows me to have regular days off as per above in the latter part of the year.
 
we have a guy at work that is off with stress 5 months and counting and his missus keeps posting BBQ, holiday, days out photos on facebook...the only days i have taken off since someone else become my boss are because my kids have been sick and when i was self employed i would turn up in such a state i had to be sent home (and still be paid) i suppose it all depends what you go to work for, i go to give my family a better life than i had growing up.
 
Eurgh, that linked article actually has a "trigger warning" on it.

Without knowing what she did on her day off and whether she actually did something to specifically address her mental health issues (like going to the races), it does just come across as just wanting to have a skive off.
 
When I worked at HP we had 5 duvet days a year in addition to annual leave that we could just phone up in the morning and say we weren't coming in - no reason had to be given. Our sickness absence rate was the lowest in the sector and overall mental health of the workforce was good.
 
that is good and sounds like exactly the sort of thing that could be used here - having some flexible leave and encouraging employees to use their regular leave appropriately if stressed would likely help a lot
 
Sayso said:
we have a guy at work that is off with stress 5 months and counting and his missus keeps posting BBQ, holiday, days out photos on facebook...the only days i have taken off since someone else become my boss are because my kids have been sick and when i was self employed i would turn up in such a state i had to be sent home (and still be paid) i suppose it all depends what you go to work for, i go to give my family a better life than i had growing up.
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Stress and other mental health factors aren't a simple binary where one day you'll feel awful and not want to get out of bed and the next you're ready to go back to work. They affect everyone differently, and like any illness a period of rehabilitation is required. Just because this guy is enjoying his time off doesn't necessarily mean that he's abusing the system - he's probably just using the time to relax and get his head into a good place before he returns to the environment that was (presumably) contributing to his mental health problems in the first place.

In the case of the lady in the OP, the chances are that she's come to recognise the symptoms of her condition and knows that taking a couple of days is best in the long term for both herself and her employer. Someone who's running at 60% efficiency will effectively burn through 2 whole days of productivity *every week*. If taking two days off every so often gets her up to (say) 80% efficiency for the next month then that's an overall win. There's an argument for making short breaks a requirement; for example, a 4-day weekend every 3 months on top of the normal holiday allowance. I suspect such a scheme would lead to an overall gain in productivity.
 
dowie said:
that is good and sounds like exactly the sort of thing that could be used here - having some flexible leave and encouraging employees to use their regular leave appropriately if stressed would likely help a lot
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Yeah, the reason it came in is because managers weren't approving short notice leave requests so people just took sick leave instead. Then the union negotiated the 5 days in addition to A/L allowance and forfeited a pay rise for two years (the staff loved it, got voted through by over 90% of the membership!).
 
Well considering the UK has had literally ZERO productivity since 2007, anything is worthwhile as we've lost 10 years of worthwhile production.

I think the problem is British Managers, just hire some bloody Germans, it'd solve the issue instantly... oh wait, nvm. ;)
 
Just to weigh in on this, I have had Anxiety badly at least since I was a teenager, I've had stages of depression at points in my life that is usually kicked off by the former.

However, I've had in a total of 10 years working, less than a few days off for physical health and probably over 4 weeks off for mental health.

People have varying degrees of mental illness, mine was really bad when I moved away from friends and family for a new job and suffered panick attacks, this would leave me feeling debilitated and exhausted for a few days after and would usually phone up work to call in I'll.

Those few days were enough for me to gain enough confidence to go back into work. And since then I've grown and been able to deal with it.

I've seen quite a few comments here saying that she's obviously been off for a long weekend, when in fact she's probably been exhausted and felt that the workplace is the wrong environment to recover.

Mental illness can come and go and people can deal with it in different ways.
 
dowie said:
mental health isn't something infectious that others might catch
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But being around someone with mental health issues can be quite disruptive, too, depending on the nature of the issue.

StriderX said:
I really don't get the purpose of forcing people to suffer an entire day of work in some ****** office, I mean if you get the work done, it shouldn't matter what you do during the day otherwise.
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New work often comes in around 3-4pm, as other people have already done their part around the same time as you've finished your first lot. Calls come in too, which is why we have to be available during certain hours. Stuff like that...

Dis86 said:
If you're getting stressed and anxious should you not question whether you're mentally proficient for the job?
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Depends how persistent both the mental health issues and the aspects of the job that cause it are.
My job was fine until some idiot decided to re-org for the sake of it and now it's an absolute nightmare!

StriderX said:
I think the problem is British Managers, just hire some bloody Germans, it'd solve the issue instantly... oh wait, nvm. ;)
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Yeah, nvm indeed - We got Germans in once... they asset-stripped the company, took the cash and then sold us to the Australians, who had a bash at doing the exact same thing... It was enough to give you mental health issues!!
 
ttaskmaster said:
But being around someone with mental health issues can be quite disruptive, too, depending on the nature of the issue.


New work often comes in around 3-4pm, as other people have already done their part around the same time as you've finished your first lot. Calls come in too, which is why we have to be available during certain hours. Stuff like that...


Depends how persistent both the mental health issues and the aspects of the job that cause it are.
My job was fine until some idiot decided to re-org for the sake of it and now it's an absolute nightmare!


Yeah, nvm indeed - We got Germans in once... they asset-stripped the company, took the cash and then sold us to the Australians, who had a bash at doing the exact same thing... It was enough to give you mental health issues!!
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If they stripped the company then surely they weren't growing fast enough.
 
StriderX said:
Well considering the UK has had literally ZERO productivity since 2007, anything is worthwhile as we've lost 10 years of worthwhile production.

I think the problem is British Managers, just hire some bloody Germans, it'd solve the issue instantly... oh wait, nvm. ;)
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Think you are confusing growth of productivity with productivity....
 
Energize said:
Think you are confusing growth of productivity with productivity....
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Might as well be the same thing to investors, why invest in the UK if you know you won't gain anything? It's clearly the result of the social discourse in this country and no one is attempting to fix it.
 
StriderX said:
If they stripped the company then surely they weren't growing fast enough.
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We're not supposed to grow. We're a utilities company - We maintain, provide, service and serve.
We're also not supposed to make a particularly massive profit, either, as most of it should be reinvested in the infrastructure... which is what makes us (supposedly) a stable investment for long-term returns and why most of your pension funds invest in us...
However, our foreign investors and shareholders back then decided to take the money and run.
 
however she's decided in advance to just take two days off and essentially have a long weekend which would seem to indicate it isn't as serious as someone who needs a serious block of time off.
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That is a very very strong position or don't you realize what you said? Go do the Google suggested.
 
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