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How much should you tell your boss?
Posted Thursday 19 May 2011
What are the pros and cons of disclosing a mental health issue to your employer?
On Friday, a panel of experts answered questions about disclosing a mental health condition at work. Read their replies on Guardian Online.
Making the decision to disclose a mental health problem to your employer is a difficult one - one in five workers told Mind they feared losing their job if they were open about a mental health issue at work.
John Binns, who spoke at Mind’s business summit this week, had a positive experience. Forced to take two months off work for severe depression, John thought his career was over.
Instead, he was pleasantly surprised by the support he received from directors and colleagues at his accountancy firm. He was offered a graduated return to work which allowed him to recover in the same way as “someone would who had a physical illness like a broken leg or a bad back.”
Other blogs in our series on mental health at work tell a different story, as people’s experiences of disclosure vary greatly. Yet if mental health remains the elephant in the room at work, because people feel unable to speak up, this benefits neither employees nor employers.
On Friday Mind teamed up with Guardian Online to hold an online discussion about the pros and cons of disclosure as part of our ‘Taking care of business’ campaign to tackle the elephant in the room.