If an employer doesn't understand the cycle of behavioral health conditions, it can make the situation worse for the employee. (Photo: Shutterstock)
People often spend more time with their co-workers than they do with their actual families. And sometimes these co-workers become an employee's "work family." Family often notices when a member is suffering from a behavioral health condition, such as a mental health or substance use problem, and the work family is no different. While behavioral health was once seen as a taboo topic, it is important to discuss it — both at work and outside of it.
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults live with a mental illness. Statistically speaking, encountering behavioral health conditions in the workplace — and in life — is inevitable. However, how employers choose to understand and address these conditions is what matters. While behavioral health conditions used to be judged and misunderstood, more employers want to provide the support their employees need.
Related: Employers' mental health strategies coming into the spotlight
Before an employer attempts to provide support, they must first understand how behavioral health conditions can progress. If an employer doesn't understand the cycle of behavioral health conditions, it can make the situation worse for the employee. Every stage in this cycle can impact an employee's productivity, health and job performance if he or she does not receive the right support.
Stage 1: The emerging behavioral health condition
Behavioral health conditions can arrive without notice. Almost anything can trigger a condition, whether it is losing a loved one or stress from a job. While symptoms can be mild, an employee may feel uncomfortable or scared to confide in a co-worker or supervisor for fear of getting stigmatized.
Ultimately, handling the condition is up to the employee, but their employer can help support them during this trying time. Employers can provide support by creating stigma-free work environments or find help for employees through employee assistance programs (EAPs). Having a supportive and open-minded workplace is important to supporting the mental well-being of employees.
Stage 2: Early warning signs
The second stage of an ongoing behavioral health condition is an increase in symptoms. Employees may continue to hide their condition from their employer, and these increasing symptoms often go unnoticed. Productivity and work performance typically suffer during this stage, worrying employers.
If symptoms are noticeable, absence management and stay-at-work services may be implemented to benefit both the employer and the employee. When implementing disability management programs for employees, select a disability insurance vendor that's able to address issues proactively and help the employee either stay at work or return to work.
Stage 3: Severe conditions
Symptoms become more severe during the third stage of a behavioral health condition. Employees generally experience symptoms that directly impact their ability to work at this point and may require a disability leave. If symptoms have gone unnoticed until this stage, providing support is critical to ensure an employee is safe and healthy enough to stay at work or return to work.
While accommodations ideally would be provided before stage three, support throughout the entire cycle is important. Supervisors may see employees facing severe health conditions as unreliable, difficult to work with, depressed and lazy. To prevent mismanagement, employees also should be provided with outside resources. Assisting them in obtaining services through an EAP, identifying reasonable accommodation strategies under the ADAAA, supporting the employee's FMLA application and helping them identify in-network health care providers are all effective ways to aid employees with significant behavioral health conditions.
Stage 4: Long-term symptoms and effects
The most detrimental of the stages, stage four, is when an employee may experience more severe or chronic symptoms. These symptoms usually translate to an employee applying for long term disability benefits, and could eventually lead to job loss and loss of health insurance benefits. Not only that, employees at this stage often develop a "disability mindset" that focuses on the negative aspects of their condition and can deter them from coming back to work. By suggesting and implementing goal-directed case management and return-to-work strategies, employees can be supported, but these strategies often have less impact at this point than during the earlier stages.
Stage 5: Recovery
The fifth and final stage of any behavioral health condition is recovery. Employees start to see improvement in their condition, usually through treatment or the natural course of the illness. While recovery can occur at any stage in a behavioral health condition, it is crucial for employers to step in and provide support before severe or chronic symptoms arise.
Coming together to support each other
Unfortunately, fewer than half the people who meet the criteria for a behavioral health diagnosis will ever receive treatment. Without effective service and support, whether it is from a person's real family or work family, these conditions can remain hidden, and the balance between work and life can suffer as a result.
By having an informal conversation about behavioral health, employers create an open line of communication between them and their employees. Tackling these conditions head on is paramount to helping achieve a supportive, healthy and productive workforce.
Dr. Dan Jolivet is the Workplace Possibilities℠ practice consultant at The Standard, where he previously led the Behavioral Health Case Manager (BHCM) team and managed the psychiatrist and psychologist peer consultants. He is a clinical psychologist licensed in Georgia and Oregon and has worked in behavioral health since 1981. Dan is also the practice leader for Motivational Interviewing (MI) and goal-directed case management at The Standard. Prior to joining The Standard, Dan worked in managed behavioral health care organizations for 20 years in a variety of management roles and was in clinical practice as a child psychologist until 2003.
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