Two ways you can challenge the stigma of mental health in the workplace

Exciting news! We’re in the process of revamping our newsletter. We’ll have brand new content for you soon. In the meantime, we’re reposting this edition of Simply Diversity that was originally published on April 20, 2022.

Welcome to Simply Diversity. This bimonthly letter breaks down key diversity concepts and explains how you can apply them... simply. There are plenty of terms heard ‘round the Internet as we prioritize diversity, inclusion and belonging in everything we do. This newsletter explains what these concepts are, why they’re important, and how to practice them.?

“I just stood there naked.”

That’s how my colleague Natasha Bowman describes revealing her struggles with mental health. This is how she put it:??

Not enough people feel safe discussing their mental health challenges.?

Not enough people are able to bring their authentic selves to work because of the stigma associated with mental illness. And this hurts diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Break it down:

If COVID-19 gave us anything, it yanked the lid right off the topic of mental health. That’s a good thing, because more than one in five adults in the United States have a mental illness!?

Clearly, experiences like Natasha’s are common and nothing to be ashamed of.?

Unfortunately, there are two big challenges to addressing the unconscious (or conscious!) bias about mental health. The first is the long-standing stigma associated with mental illness. The second is that mental health conditions are often invisible, so it can be difficult to determine if discrimination is taking place.?

Here’s how that second one can play out in the workplace, and make identifying and addressing bias a challenge:

Imagine you’re in an entry-level recruiting role, and you notice many of your fellow recruiters are highly experienced BIPOC, many of whom want to advance. You also notice that most of the senior executives are white. When you bring up this disparity to HR, you’re told, “We don’t have the budget or time to promote anyone right now.”?

But a few months later, another white person is promoted.?

You’d have to have your head in the sand not to notice a biased pattern here. Based on the evidence before you, it seems clear that your BIPOC colleagues are being discriminated against.?

But what if discrimination is NOT that obvious??

Say you have a colleague who’s hoping (and preparing) to get promoted. In their effort to be transparent, they chose to disclose that they have a mental health condition. They’re managing it and it doesn’t affect their job. All good, right?

Yet you notice that they are continually passed over for opportunities, despite their stated interest and qualifications.?

Is it because they disclosed their mental health condition? Or is it something else about their performance or qualifications that you don’t understand? Because mental health is taboo and frequently invisible, it’s hard to tell. There’s no clear pattern.

Mental health is already emotionally distressing to talk about, without wondering if you’re hurting your career when you do. That is the double-edged sword of mental health bias in today’s workplaces.

Do Something Different:

You want your workplace to be different! You want your workplace to be diverse and inclusive, where everyone feels they belong. What can you do?

Natasha puts it beautifully:

"For employees to reach their full potential, they have to feel psychologically safe. They have to be assured that they can speak up, mess up, take time off, and believe that their organizational leaders are not setting them up for failure." - Natasha Bowman, JD, SPHR?

1. Create psychologically safe workspaces. Emotional and mental safety at work is a crucial step in allowing and encouraging people to be open about their dimensions of diversity AND bring their greatest energy and ideas to their desks. If you don’t have a safe culture (and you can gather data to determine if you do), address that deficit immediately.??
2. Recruit intentionally with equity in mind: Move away from the mindset that candidates “should” be a specific way. Don’t assume that, say, working from home would be too isolating for someone who struggles with depression. On the other hand, don’t assume that coming into the office would be overwhelming or unwelcome!?

As you look toward or continue to rely on virtual recruiting, our Virtual Recruiting course on LinkedIn Learning can help you equitably evaluate candidates from a distance: https://www.dhirubhai.net/learning/virtual-recruiting/recruiting-in-a-virtual-world?autoplay=true?

Looking for more ways to put these concepts into action? Start with our new, free D.E.I. Quiz. It’s an awareness builder (not a personality assessment!) that will get you thinking about how you’re showing up and interacting with others in your workplace, where you’re being effective, and where you could benefit from additional learning and practice. Our quiz will give you the concrete next steps to do what you have the desire and motivation to tackle: improve your ability to address DEI in the workplace.?

After you take it (it’s short!), let me know in the comments: what did it reveal? How did it impact your self-awareness or thinking?

About Stacey Gordon and Rework Work:

Stacey Gordon is Executive Advisor and Diversity Strategist of Rework Work where she and her team coach and counsel executive leaders on DEI strategies for business, while offering a no-nonsense approach to unconscious bias education for the broader employee population. Stacey’s unconscious bias course was the most popular course on LinkedIn Learning platform in 2021 and it has also been translated into multiple languages. Stacey is also the founder and host of the Rework Work Community, a free diversity, equity, and inclusion learning and practice space for professionals. You can find Stacey’s book, UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work, at Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and wherever books are sold.