A true story about a Mental Health Intervention in the Workplace.

This article is about a Mental Health intervention in the workplace. It’s real and something that people managers need to be aware of. 

We received a call from a client called Charlie (not his real name). Charlie is the CEO of a Recruitment Agency in Sydney. He has been in business for 8 years and has 15 consultants. Charlie engaged Recruitment School some time ago and we have been doing sporadic work with Charlie and his team. Charlie is a good Manager and his business is performing very well.

Recruitment is a tough gig – Agency recruitment is an even tougher gig. We all have budgets that we need to hit and if we don’t hit those budgets consistently, what happens is ultimately we get terminated. Recently I had a call from Charlie who was worried about one of his better-performing staff members. When I asked why he was worried he said 

“As you know Lucy (not her real name) is one of our better performers and was always smashing the budget, but this is the fourth month she has not only missed the budget but got nowhere near it and I am really worried about her.”

Charlie was concerned more about Lucy’s mental health than her poor performance as he knew she relied on commission and the lack of money meant she would be doing it tough. Charlie met with Lucy every week (like he did with everyone) and in every meeting, this situation was discussed however Charlie felt that nothing was sinking in. Charlie was at a loss and called me and asked

“Steve is there any way that you can come and talk to Lucy as a third party to see if there is an actual problem here because I don’t know what I am doing here”

I agreed to meet with Lucy and Charlie separately. 

Over the last 20 years of my life, I have been a very active member of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS). Whilst in the NSWRFS, I was part of a “mental health team” called Critical Incident Support Services (CISS). Members of CISS were trained on all sorts of different intervention methods when it came to mental health and the impact of critical stress situations. Our job in the CISS team was to protect the mental health of the Volunteers when they experience any sort of stress be it on the fire ground or in life. 

When I met with Lucy it became evident that Lucy was suffering from a stress-related situation. Lucy was jittery and her mind was all over the place. Lucy struggled to maintain eye contact and was continuously licking her lips (which indicates that she had a dry mouth – a sign of stress), and when I questioned Lucy, she had a very short recollection of what happened during the last month. These are all signs of stress. 

When I started talking with Lucy and asking Lucy probing questions I realised Lucy was in a bit of trouble. Lucy was in a downward spiral that she was doing her best to get out of, however, she couldn’t. Everything in her life was out of control and she didn’t want to tell anyone. I asked Lucy if she had any suicidal thoughts. Lucy paused, looked at me, and held my gaze for the first time as if to say, “Who are you and how are you reading my mind” and said yes. At this stage, I obviously knew we needed to intervene here and urgently. 

Even though I have over seven years of “on the ground” psychological intervention experience in extremely stressful situations, I know my place, I am not a trained clinician. When faced with any situation like this, we need to call in the experts. At this stage, I asked Lucy if she had any sort of medical help. Lucy responded with yes she had but it wasn’t working. I then asked Lucy if she could explain to me what her treating Dr had suggested. Lucy said that she had not seen a doctor and that she had seen a naturopath. Now I am all for Natural Therapies in fact I love natural therapies and take my Vitamins and Minerals every day, however, sometimes we need to pull in the big guns. I convinced Lucy that probably the natural path was not the best path to pursue and that we should see a Dr as they can create a mental health plan and get her some additional help. We agreed it would be smart for Lucy to contact her doctor. We then together jumped on the phone and contacted Lucy’s doctor and organised an appointment for that day – then we organise a taxi and a staff member to take Lucy to her GP who had organised to fit Lucy in urgently.

Lucy had been in a situation where her numbers have been declining for over 4 months. This was triggered by a breakdown in a relationship that had happened 6 months prior. Luckily Charlie, her manager, had the foresight to put his hand up and ask for help given that he didn’t understand mental health. However, if Charlie had contacted us 3 months earlier when Lucy’s results started to decline then we may never have gotten to this situation.

Mental Health is real. What we need to do as an industry is look after the people who are struggling. We need to be better at identifying problems. We need to be better at identifying when people are struggling and not just because they’ve missed a target. We need to understand that work is a part of life, it isn’t life, and I don’t care who you are, if you have “major stuff” going on outside of life, then that stuff will most likely seep into your work life – just like Lucy.

So if somebody has been a good performer and then they stop being a good performer, then we need to explore and find the reason – ask the question why. Is there a reason for this as people managers we need to be looking out for our people. There are many signs that show themselves when somebody is struggling. Our job as managers in the industry is to identify those signs. If you are not aware of what they are, then get trained in mental first aid. You need to know when your people are in pain, if you don’t and they are on a slippery slope, then, they will continue to slide. Luckily for Lucy, we were able to intervene, which could very well have saved her life.

There are thousands of courses out there on mental first aid and I suggest that every manager take a mental first aid course. As people managers, we all need to be more aware of our people and the stresses that are in their life and take this more seriously.