It was a supportive response to an employees mental health and more employers should be doing it.
This past week on Twitter, a women posted her boss’s response to her taking two days off “to focus on my mental health.”
“Hopefully I’ll be back next week refreshed and back to 100%,” says Madalyn Parker.
Parker’s boss responded thanking her for the email.
“I use it as a reminder of the importance of using sick days for mental health -- I can’t believe this is not standard practice at all organizations.”
And it really is not common practice.
People are just recently speaking out against organizations that need mandatory doctors notes to accompany their sick days.
This gives the illusion that only physical illness deserves sick days or having a doctor who supports mental health.
Our mental health can have a major affect on our physical health and employers who are more proactive about mental health will have heathier employees.
Especially in extremely stressful work environments, employees have a three times higher rate of major depressive episodes compared to those in low stress environments, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association.
According to Statistics Canada, in 2011, “2.8 million Canadians aged 15 and older, or 10.1%, reported symptoms consistent with at least one of the following mental or substance use disorders: major depressive episode, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and abuse of or dependence on alcohol, cannabis or other drugs.”
For many people, needing a mental health day can just mean needing to make some time to de-stress.
Employers do lose money since their employee is not putting in their time.
However, just because people go to work while stressed does not mean their employer is getting the full benefits of their work.
When people talk about the economic loss of mental health, this not only includes absenteeism and sick days but also presenteeism and lost productivity.
According to Health Canada, understanding stress is the first step in dealing with stress.
Next is all about finding ways to cope with stress, identifying problems, and coming up with solutions.
Not everyone’s stresses and mental health problems are the same, so no one solution will work with everyone.
This goes for taking those mental health days as well. For some people, taking a mental health day will only increase their stress levels.
For those who need to take a day every once in a while, it would be great to see employers understand that it will be just as beneficial to them as their employee taking a day off for a cold.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The same can be said for our mental health.
