Survey Notes Some Sad Truths About Extent, Effects of Employee Depression
Most companies have struggled with depression in their employee ranks, and the persistent malady has produced a noticeable drop in productivity at those firms, a new survey of human resources professionals found.
Eight out of 10 HR executives surveyed said that depression has been a problem for one or more of their employees in the last three years, according to a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management and the National Foundation for Brain Research.
“Depression can have an impact not only on the individual, but also on the organization for which that individual works,” says Sue Meisinger, executive vice president of SHRM, an Alexandria, Va.-based professional organization. “People often can’t just leave their depression at home.”
A third of the 406 respondents said depression is a moderate problem at their companies, and 6% said it is a serious problem. Fifty-six percent said depression had hurt productivity in the organization.
The survey underscores not only how widespread an illness depression is--SHRM cites federal statistics estimating that nearly 10% of all adult Americans suffer from depression--but also an increased willingness to talk about the ailment.
“More today than ever before, workers are willing to share their feelings,” says Larry N. Colson, vice president of consulting services for the Employers Group, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides personnel consulting to more than 2,000 California members. “There’s more of an openness to admitting there are problems.”
Even small companies can set up employee assistance programs to help workers deal with such problems, usually by contracting with outside providers at fairly competitive rates, Colson says.
Most of the human resources professionals surveyed by SHRM said they took action to deal with employee depression by encouraging the employee to contact his or her employee assistance program (60%) or to seek counseling (47%). Most company health plans provided for mental-health assistance, within certain limits.
The SHRM report advises managers to learn about depression and its symptoms, which include sadness, loss of interest in ordinary activities, decreased energy and sleep disturbances.
But the report also cautions supervisors not to try to diagnose illness. Instead, the report says, a manager should discuss changes in work performance with the employee, listen to employee concerns and refer the employee to outside help. The employer also should recognize the need for a flexible schedule during treatment.
Finding ‘Wise Work’
If your job is the Grind, the Rat Race, the Salt Mine or that place you used to go to every day, then you are what career expert Gloria Dunn calls working-challenged.
And Dunn estimates that the working-challenged make up a whopping 90% of the work force.
“I’m talking about a spectrum from people who like their work but have a lack of time or a lack of money to people who are really dissatisfied with their jobs,” says Dunn, the San Rafael, Calif.-based author of “From Making a Living to Having a Life: A Book for the Working Challenged” (Violin Publishing, $17.95). Then there is the ultimate work challenge: no job at all because of a corporate downsizing or a self-directed leap off the career ladder.
For all of these, Dunn has a simple prescription. Figure out what you really want, devise a plan for getting it, then have the confidence to put it into action.
This may sound vague and unmanageable, but Dunn’s book breaks the process into small, specific steps tailored to various situations and bolstered by real-life examples from her consulting business.
For example, Dunn gives practical advice for handling irritating co-workers or bullying bosses, dealing with office politics and managing job stress. She also suggests ways to make your current job better (such as honestly examining your attitude).
“Most people are vaguely dissatisfied with their job,” says Dunn, an organizational behavior specialist and president of a consulting firm called Wiser Ways to Work. “It’s a lot of people stuff, a lot of conflicts with co-workers and bosses.”
In some cases, quitting your job may be the best answer, and Dunn shows how to evaluate the options.
Dunn has personal experience with this sort of career crisis. She quit a stressful and unfulfilling marketing job, moved to a new community and dropped out of the work force for more than a year. (“I ran away from home,” she says.)
Losing your job “can be a gift,” Dunn asserts, because it forces an examination of where you’re going and what you want from work.
“A lot of people think they have to go out and get a job to make money,” Dunn says. But job hunters should be looking for “wise work,” she said, which means “using your inherent talents and skills.”
“Work is really an expression of who we are,” Dunn says. “A lot of people don’t realize that’s how to discover themselves.”
Dunn’s book is available in bookstores and from her Web site at https://www.workingchallenged.com.
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Nancy Rivera Brooks covers workplace issues for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at nancy.rivera.brooks@latimes.com.
