Coping with mental health conditions at work and its impact on self-perceived job performance

Abstract

PurposeThis exploratory qualitative study examines both the impact of mental health conditions on self-perceived job performance and how individuals with mental health conditions cope with their conditions at work.Design/methodology/approachA total of 257 responses to a qualitative questionnaire and 17 in-depth interviews with individuals with mental health conditions are analyzed.FindingsThe findings show that mental health conditions can negatively impact self-perceived job performance in the form of lower quality of one's work, slower pace, and more mistakes. In addition, the findings reveal coping strategies that positively and negatively affect one’s performance at work. Strategies that negatively influence one’s performance include substance abuse and self-harm, suppressing and hiding one's symptoms, and forcing oneself to continue to work when feeling unwell. Coping strategies that tend to positively affect their performance include accepting one's condition and taking time off, medication and counseling, mindfulness activities, transparent communication, humor, and a compensation strategy.Originality/valueA growing number of individuals struggle with mental health conditions at work, impacting both organizations and employees. However, little is known about the influence of mental health conditions on one's performance at work, how individuals cope with their mental health conditions at work, and what effect those coping strategies have on organization-relevant outcomes.

Health-Promoting Leadership: Concept, Measurement, and Research Framework

“…Organizations are urged to pay attention to employee health issues and shoulder the responsibility for promoting and assuring employee health for a multitude of reasons (Rigotti et al, 2014;Horstmann and Eckerth, 2016). Notably, employee health is not only related to employees' wellbeing, but also closely related to organizational performance (Hennekam et al, 2020;Salas-Vallina et al, 2020). In addition, research has found that employee health is positively related to the organization's explicit costs (e.g., medical insurance expenses) and hidden costs (e.g., absenteeism due to illness) (Gurt et al, 2011), which affect organizational sustainable development (Pescud et al, 2015).…”

Learning to manage a mental health condition: Caring for the self and ‘normalizing’ identity at work

“…Learning to manage marginalized identities in workplace settings has been studied extensively in relation to age (Crozier and Woolnough, 2020;Warhurst and Black, 2017), ethnicity and race (Macalpine and Marsh, 2005), cultural minorities (Slay and Smith, 2011), sexuality (Rumens, 2017), gender (Mathieu, 2009) but limitedly, in relation to disabilities (Jammaers et al, 2016) and MHCs (Elraz, 2018;Hennekam et al, 2020). So far, research on disabilities has drawn attention to matters of diversity disclosure and care (Lindsay et al, 2013), or to team learning (Zhu et al, 2019).…”

“…Consequently, it is not surprising to find that although 25% of people experience a period of mental ill health in their working lives, few report this to their employer. 2 Yet, there is a paucity of studies that examine the experiences of people's learning about and managing their MHCs in employment that might shed light on different strategies utilized by them and their outcomes (Hennekam et al, 2020).…”

The paradox of mental illness and employment: a person-job fit lens

“…Work is important for individuals as it gives them a sense of purpose, belonging, security, and self-worth. This particularly holds for people with mental illnesses (Halliday et al, 2015), who may struggle to find a sense of purpose and control in addition to facing impairments in terms of social functioning (Hennekam et al, 2020;Hessels et al, 2017).…”