I’m suffering from and seeking treatment for job-related burnout & anxiety. Meds are involved. Sweet, sweet meds.
So, do I approach HR and tell them I’m seeking treatment for job-burnout, and give them a heads up that I’m “trying to get my meds right”? Or do I just soldier on, assuming if I tell them anything they’ll eventually use it against me somehow?
Never go to HR. HR is not your friend. They exist to prevent the company from being sued. HR is usually staffed by people too incompetent to get a job at the DMV.
Another recommendation not to go to HR. If your doctor decides you need a break from work and puts you on leave, even then I think all you’re required to do is provide documentation that you need to be off work, not the cause.
StG
Do you think that you might eventually need time off because of it? I had a bit of a breakdown late last fall, and ended up being out on disability until February.
In general, my policy towards any sort of medical issue is that it’s none of HR’s business until it effects your job.
If you’re going to be soldiering through, then they don’t need to know.
If you’re soldiering through but your performance is markedly sub-par, then you might want to consider talking to your manager or HR anyway, so that they know there’s a medical reason for it.
If you end up going on leave because of it, HR’s going to know anyway. (In my company’s case, they wouldn’t tell a manager the reason for the leave for privacy reasons, but I don’t know if that’s universally true.)
But the real question is:
I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. Not only was my doctor required to submit full paperwork on what the problem was, he also had to send bimonthly updates including all of my treatment notes. (Including his notes from therepy, which gave me willies, but was a condition of being granted the leave and paid during it.)
If anything HR’s not your friend; they’re more like the drill sergeant and will tell you to suck it up and get back on track. I’ve been through this. I had been transferred a couple of years earlier to an assignment that I not only hated, but was particularly unsuited for. When I went to my HR rep and illustrated this with key decisions made about me in the past (which I had come to agree with) he said pretty much, <generic name of IT task> is a tough job but it’s the one you’ve got.
Feel free to PM me if you want to continue this offline.
HR is not your friend.
As dalej42 said, they exist to protect the company, not you. Never tell them anything under any circumstances. They’re not councelors, psychologists or even sympathetic. Their job is to make sure everyone remains in their proper peg-holes and that all the paperwork is filed properly. Wander out of your hole or display any sign of requiring mediation and they immediately start casting about for the hammer to put you back in your hole.
Soldier on. If your immediate supervisor talks with you about your performance or asks you if there is something wrong (broaching the subject), then you tell him/her that you’re having some difficulties and seeking treatment for them. I’d tell them about the anxiety (since that protects you), but not the burnout (since that alarms and concerns them, raising “job performance” issues that could be used against you).
HR’s job is to advise management. Do keep that in mind.
HR might become involved if your condition requires you to take time off work. I’m not sure what **Risha’s **situation is, but I don’t think that providing that kind of detail is the norm. Here is the DOL form for the FMLA: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fmla/wh380.pdf Risha, did your situation perhaps have to do with health or disability insurance coverage? You mention your leave was paid, and FMLA is not required to be paid.
The standard for the FMLA, which only provides for the ability to take time off without losing your job, is that you have a “serious health condition.” The standard for the ADA is much higher, requiring a disability that interferes with your daily activities, not just your job, and is generally expected to be a permanent condition. From a legal perspective, unless the condition is a disability, there is no requirement to accommodate with respect to how you perform the job. A manager might be more understanding if your performance declines due to a serious health condition (the flu, a broken leg, situational depression), but unless it is a disability, any accommodations (other than unpaid leave) for those temporary conditions are at the employer’s discretion.
If you operate equipment and have some requirement to disclose medications, you would have presumably been informed of that requirement. That disclosure is usually to a medical or safety officer, who may be part of HR.
If your company has an Employee Assistance Program, that may be an additional source of free or low-cost counseling to you. Those programs are typically run by third parties and all the company is usually informed of is the quantity of services used by all employees in the aggregate (e.g., Acme Company’s employees used 70 hours of services last year). Check with your health insurance to see if this type of program is part of your coverage.
If you are that stressed out, I’m guessing your direct manager is part of the problem. Still, I’d recommend doing what you can, as you get your anxiety under control and perhaps with coaching from a counselor, to assertively communicate with your manager things that will help set appropriate boundaries around your job.
Yes, sorry I didn’t specify. I went onto Short Term Disability, though I could have extended it past 90 days into unpaid FMLA leave if I had to. As we couldn’t get by on only one salary, I didn’t feel that I was in a position to refuse to provide any documentation they requested.
I’m not sure if I could have taken a purely unpaid leave without my doctor providing at least a certain level of detail, though. I know of one person who left suddenly to go care for a sick parent in India for several weeks, without going through the leave approval process beforehand, and was dismissed.
Wow. I’m not sure if it’s just different here to the States, but I work in HR and there’s no way we’d treat this situation the way everyone in this thread thinks we would.
If someones comes to me and tells me they’re suffering from work-related stress, I do everything possible to help. Normally this involves offering an private consultation, counselling, temporarily reduced hours/responsibilities, flexible working - whatever might help them get better.
We have a duty of care to our employees, and if their job is making them ill, we are failing in that duty.
I would definately say that the way things are done in the States is much much the opposite of what you describe. Granted, there are a few companies (probably small, family-like ones) that are truely concerned for their employees. The others will now see you as a risk (higher insurance rates, for example) & raise concerns on just how dependable you will be in the future (will you be prone to more time off? will you be able to handle the workloads?).
I could go on a long winded rant based ome, but I doubt anyone is interested and it no longer matters.
If you request FMLA, your doctor will have to provide evidence that it is necessary (or at least the paperwork I’ve seen requests that info), treatment, duration, etc.
And even though you might be “protected” from discrimination, dont count on it. If they decide they want you out for whatever reason, they’ll most likely find a way.
It’s completely different. For example, in much of the US (“at will employment” states), a company can fire a non-union employee on grounds of “because,” give no warning and not compensate the employee at all. Try that in the EU and the unions (which are completely different on both sides of the ocean) will jump down your throat with a flamethrower.
Think of anti-discrimination laws as another example of something which works very differently on both sides: every reference to discrimination at work that you see in these boards will talk about “protected groups;” in Spain (and it’s my understanding that’s the general case in the EU, although not legally put on paper) the Supremes ruled that gender and sexual orientation, although not spelled in the Constitution as “reasons why you shan’t discriminate,” are reasons why you shan’t discriminate, they also ruled that the Constitutional paragraph actually means “you shan’t discriminate for any reason not directly linked to job performance.” This is a common source of tension in EU locations of US companies, as they get compulsory training materials on non-discrimination which keep talking about “Protected Groups,” a concept nonexistant in the EU; people get real pissed to be taught US law rather than local law (I’ve worked in factories where, between worker’s reps, people taking adult education on social subjects and those with BA related degrees, half the employees had at least one 9-month course on Labor Law).
Many US companies offer the counseling aspect of this through Employee Assistance Programs. They just generally prefer to offer this through a third party company that specializes rather than have internal HR staff do it, for privacy, cost, expertise, and liability reasons. I know of two companies that do this type of counseling internally, but most outsource it. One that does it internally is known for being a top-ranked employee-friendly company. The other is a very high profile company whose employees face unique stresses on the job. And of course some small companies take a more informal approach.
A lot of companies also offer flexible work schedules, but it generally benefits the employee to be circumspect in asking for them. What I mean by that is it’s generally better for the employee to say “I’d like to take advantage of flextime to come in an hour early and leave an hour early” than to share the details of their personal situation. Temporarily reduced hours are also sometimes a possibility (FMLA can be intermittent). Going to a part-time schedule tends to complicate people’s eligibility for employer-provided health insurance, either making them ineligible or at least raising the premiums.
Reduced responsibilities is a slippery slope. Individual managers might offer that, but in general that is seen as favoritism or setting a bad precedent.
As I posted in another thread, I think a lot of people have no idea what HR actually does in a company.
They do not generally hire and fire people.
They don’t conspire to screw you over.
They aren’t grief counselors
They aren’t your advocate or antagonist
They generally have no real power to do anything other than file your W2 forms.
Think of Toby from The Office. What power does he have over manager Michael Scott? None. All he can do is impotently annoy him, but ultimately the branch manager does what he wants. I have to assume that’s pretty much the same in most companies.
All HR does is keep and manage employee records and file their paperwork and advise management on corporate policy.
For the OP, what you may want to consider addressing is the work-related cause for your burnout. Or maybe look for a new job. That seems a better long-term approach than sitting in a job that makes you miserable.
If yours is any good, I would recommend this too. Since they specialize in how personal issues can affect work, they can help put it into perspective. I know the feeling of being in turmoil and thinking everyone can tell, but your company may not have an issue with your performance so far and will continue that way while you get treatment in private. There’s no reason to say any of this unless there truly becomes an issue.
That’s not my experience. It CAN be that way, but I’ve worked in several companies where Managers can’t say boo without approval of HR, and where HR holds all the cards when it comes to hiring and firing people.
This makes me very sad. Genuinely. 
I’m lucky to have a fantastic employer who hired me as a permanent employee *knowing *I suffer from periodic depression and might be out of commission for a couple of months.
Funnily enough, knowing I have the ability to take unpaid leave for as long as I need, and still have a job to come back to, seems to have actually prevented a major crash for the last 2 years. One less layer of stress, I guess! I fear that if the situation were reversed, and I had an employer that I knew would fire me ‘at will’ because of a temporary glitch in my brain chemistry… I actually think that’d be the stress breaking point that’d ironically tip me over into black depression.
If the stress is due largely or entirely to work, and is affecting your home life, sleep, and/or job performance, you probably have a Worker’s Comp claim. That is something you will want to mention to HR.
This is an avenue I thought about pursuing with my old job; but several people pointed out that if you make a Worker’s Comp claim you’ll never get employed by anyone ever again, so it’s got to be a really serious matter before you go down that road.
I would however advise checking out what sort of Employee Assistance that your company can offer, however- they’re usually provided by outside agencies and none of the details ever get back to HR or management. It’s also free, which is a bonus.
Not true (or at least not here, I note after typing this that you’re in another country, so YMMV). All medical information is strictly protected by privacy laws, and nobody (not your doctor, not your employer, nobody) can have access to it without your specific permission.
I work in the Worker’s Comp field.