Kind Regards, Part 4

Letters to our bosses about how to help with mental health

At A Lust for Life we are inundated with requests from companies and managers about how to help talk about mental health in the workplace, and how to support a colleague who may have mental health issues. We asked people who have had mental health problems to write anonymously to their bosses to tell them what good support looks like.

If you’d like to help improve workplace responses to mental health, please write an anonymous letter to your boss by emailing editor@alustforlife.com. You don’t need any identifying information, just tell your boss what they did well (if anything) and what they should try to do in future.

Dear Boss

I never disclosed the fact that I was suffering from anxiety and low mood but that’s because I didn’t feel you would understand. You certainly didn’t understand when I raised issues regarding my workload.

So when did all this start. In 2015, there were changes in the team and I took on additional work.  In 2016 my workload increased again and in 2017 the workload was still excessive.  What did you not do well, here’s the list.

• In 2016, I had a family bereavement and at time when you expect support from colleagues I didn’t receive it. The fact that you questioned the leave I took after my bereavement leave.
• Five weeks after my bereavement, you were going on holidays but you didn’t talk to me before you went away. Instead you emailed me a list of 6 items that you wanted me to work on. I looked at the list and thought how did you expect me to do one item on the list let alone 6 pieces of work.
• Not reducing the workload of the team in 2016. There were three of us in the team and during 2016 one member of the team was working part-time due to sick leave and yet there was no consideration for that and you didn’t reduce the workload
• The only time you reduced the workload was after I left the team this year, it took me being stressed and having to leave the team before the workload of the team was reduced.
• The first time I spoke to you about a work issue, you didn’t follow up on that conversation to see had things improved.
• When I missed out on promotion opportunity you downplayed the additional work I took on over the last few years. When I said to you that I was thinking of looking for opportunities elsewhere within the organisation you said “is that what you want or any you running away”. As a manager you should be supportive with me looking to advance my career.
• At my performance review in early 2017, I made the comment about the team being under resourced the prior year (which you yourself had acknowledged at my half year review in 2016) and that I hoped things would go back to normal this year. You said “if that’s how you feel”.  I felt there was no consideration from you at that point of how difficult a year 2016 was for me.
• Despite receiving a very good performance rating you told me that my development point was that I lacked attention to detail which was shocking, upsetting and insulting. How can you give someone a rating like that but then tell them that they lacked attention to detail, also given I had a bereavement the previous year I felt the comment was insensitive.
• When you asked me to do a piece of work as my colleague was on holidays. I said no to this request because I had another piece of work to do and in the 5 years that I had worked with you it was probably the first time I said no to something and yet you asked me what was taking me so long. I was damned if I do, damned if I don’t, if I slow down I get a comment like that but if I speed up with the way I work I get more work allocated to me.
• When I said I felt that I was doing more than I should be. You asked for examples and got very defensive when I gave the examples and then you threatened me with more work.
• I spoke to you again a few months later as I still wasn’t happy with my workload. Again you didn’t want to listen to me and were defensive but eventually you did listen when I told you I had been told by my counsellor that I had burnout. It was at this point that you said that your health was more important than anything else. I said I couldn’t keep going at the pace at which I was working and you suggested that we meet on a weekly basis to discuss my work.  At no point, at any of these weekly meetings did you ever ask me how I was or how I finding the workload.
• At my year-end review early this year, again the subject of workload came up and you told me that workload is based on abilities. If two people in a team are at the same level, workload should be based on fairness not abilities. That was my issue that the workload was not based on fairness within the team. I started reading out an article about burnout and you were very dismissive. You said that I probably felt that it was a rough year, and I said the last two years had been rough and I couldn’t do another one like that. You said that if I wasn’t happy that I should either leave the team or try and get a promotion.

It was after my review that I went to my doctor who signed me off work.  I was signed off due to work related stress which I advised HR of in the third week on my absence.  I returned to work after 4.5 weeks and I told you that I had been stressed due to my workload, missing out on a promotion and things you had said to me.  Again there are things that weren’t handled well by you, your manager and HR.

• Being ignored by you, your manager and HR for a few weeks until I had to arrange a meeting to discuss my work related stress. It wasn’t up to me to arrange that meeting.
• No reasonable accommodation being made to reduce my workload.
• When I said how you had put me under pressure, you said that’s it was my perception of things which is a manipulative thing to say to someone.
• When I said to HR that I was moving team, the first thing that was said was did I understand pressure points. I can’t believe that is the first thing that HR thought of it. HR should have said that moving teams could be stressful and how they could assist in ensuring that I wasn’t stressed with the move. But they didn’t.

When I met with HR, I was told how you valued me. I certainly didn’t feel valued many times over the past couple of years. While you may had valued the amount of work, you certainly didn’t value me as a person, I was a robot to you. You even made the comment that you thought I liked being busy. Yes I like being busy, but not being overworked and doing the job of more than one person which was the reality of the situation.

The thing is that if there was no issue with my workload, why did you move a piece of work I did to another team once I left the team. Why didn’t you offer to move that piece of work when I, you and your manager met earlier this year. I think it is fairly clear that you, your manager and HR knew the reason for my stress was work related but you didn’t want to admit it. Instead I was being blamed by all three of you. The fact that my bereavement was mentioned as a reason for me being stressed wasn’t particularly nice.  While I may have mentioned my bereavement in conversations with you and your manager I could deal with my bereavement in my own way, what I couldn’t deal with was the work stress due to excessive workload for the last 3 years, the lack of support I received in the team and being excluded from the team by you and my colleague from work conversations and from non-work related things like lunches/coffees etc.

What could you have done differently, well firstly listening to me rather than getting defensive.  The fact you got defensive signalled to me that I was correct with my thinking that my workload was excessive and wasn’t being allocated fairly.  Secondly you could have being more supportive and understanding when I raised the issue of my workload. While you listened to me in October, by January this year I felt that you had changed you mind and I knew that nothing was going to change in the team and I was still going to be allocated more work than I should be doing.  Since I’ve moved teams, I actually feel like I can breathe again as I can take my time doing the work rather than rush through things like I did before. Maybe I was a victim of my own success as sometimes the more work you do, the more work you’re given.  Thirdly the other way you could have helped was by getting another member in the team. Before I left the team you said that you were disappointed that I had been saying to HR that the team was under resourced, yet you were the one who said last year that we could really do with another member in the team. Why you never asked for another resource in the team I’ll never know as it would have eased the pressure on me and also it would have eased on the pressure on you.

While I acknowledge I had personal stress in my life, by far the bigger impact in my life was the work stress which my counsellor agreed with. My mental health has been affected by the lack of support I received at a difficult time in my life. For an organisation that has wellness events throughout the year, no one cared about my wellness at all.  Finally I wish that you, management and HR had treated me as the person who had been a hard worker, dedicated employee for the last 8 years, and always willing to help and support colleagues. Instead I was treated as a problem that you wanted out of the team.