More than 20% shall be American A diagnosis of mental illness in their lifetime. They will, that’s, experience situations that affect the way in which they think, feel and act – and which might be initially incompatible with the demands of the job.
Our latest research shows that what people living with chronic mental illnesses need most to achieve success at work is for his or her managers to be flexible and trust them.
This includes the liberty to regulate their schedules and workloads to make their jobs more compatible with their efforts to administer and treat their symptoms. For this, managers have to trust that these employees are committed to their jobs and their employers.
we’re Administration Professors who reviewed a whole lot of blog and Reddit posts and conducted in-depth interviews with 59 individuals. And these are crucial findings from our peer-reviewed study, published within the October 2025 issue of Academy of Management Journal.
Scoring Reddit posts and conducting interviews
We gathered our data from three sources: anonymous blog posts by 171 people, Reddit posts by 781 people, and in-depth interviews with 59 employees employed in multiple jobs across multiple industries.
All of those people worked while coping with chronic mental illness, corresponding to major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and bipolar disorder. The blog posts were maintained by a nonprofit concerning the experiences of individuals with mental illness. We focused on posts tagged “work”.
To discover relevant data on Reddit, we searched using combos of the word “work” with several terms related to mental illness. Furthermore, we limited our data collection to unsolicited narratives published before March 2020 to avoid overlap with changes in employment through the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the info were collected from the Internet, we couldn’t obtain details concerning the participants’ gender, age, occupation, or education.
We also recruited people to be interviewed through social media postings, promoting on public university alumni lists, and contacting a corporation that focused on men’s mental health. We also asked people we had already interviewed to see in the event that they had recommendations for other people to potentially interview.
Interviews held in 2020 and 2021.
Talking with people from all walks of working life
About 37% of those we interviewed identified as female, and their average age was 41.5 years. About 80% of them identified as Caucasian, 3.5% as Black, 3.5% as Hispanic, and lower than 2% identified as Indian, Korean American, mixed race, or Middle Eastern and North African. About 3.5% selected not to reply.
He has held quite a few jobs, including lawyer, professor, touring musician, consultant, teacher, real estate manager, chief technology officer, salesperson, restaurant server, travel agency manager, graphic designer, manufacturing plant, chemical engineer and bus driver. Many worked in tech fields.
When the staff we studied were trusted and given flexibility, they became higher capable of take part in their very own well-being in addition to perform their jobs.
Employees who had been living with their condition for years used what we call “Personalized neglect and engagement strategies“In order to administer their symptoms, that refers back to the indisputable fact that individuals with mental illness depend on their very own preferences and symptoms, moderately than using self-help resources or general techniques learned from peers.
Examples of personalized withdrawal strategies range from leaving work spaces, to meditating, to going for a walk, to finding a quiet place to cry.
Engagement strategies include becoming more deeply immersed in work and interacting with co-workers. These coping strategies shall be familiar to most individuals, including those with no chronic mental health condition. But workplaces don’t at all times give employees the pliability and self-determination needed to implement their strategies, no matter their disability status. In fact, a Recent Surveys by Mindshare Partners It found that nearly half of the staff didn’t even realize that they may disconnect from their jobs after working hours or during holidays.
Many employees also told us that they benefited from confidence and adaptability within the period after their diagnosis, once they needed to explore different treatments and treatment techniques.
When managers allow flexibility, trust employees to do what they should do to handle their symptoms, and show empathy, employees with chronic mental illness usually tend to keep their jobs and get their work done.
Impressing most employers
Post-Covid-19, especially, mental illnesses are more prevalent Adolescents and young adults.
So, when you’re an employer, chances are high our research is relevant to your workforce.
Depression, a standard mental illness, was one Estimated cost of US$1 trillion annually In lost productivity in 2019, the World Health Organization has estimated
People with anxiety and mood disorders, incl Bipolar disorder And Major depressive disordercould have periodic symptoms that interfere with their ability to do their jobs.
And while they’re employed, they Threatened by co-workers who may know little about mental illness or be judgmental about individuals with these chronic conditions. It increases Much more pressure than what others will experience at work.
Employee assistance programs can fall short
In response, many employers offer advantages to assist employees deal with mental and emotional problems, corresponding to Employee Assistance Programsfor , for , for , . Mental Wellness App Subscriptions And Stigma reduction efforts.
It could be one size matches all measures Help improve work For those that suffer from occasional or short-term emotional problems, and so they can Help improve leaders’ ability to respond to employee concernswhich is significant.
But overall, they are usually not enough to unravel the issue.
Employee Assistance Program, which Almost all major companies offer itis It has not been systematically helpful for workers in achieving their goals. A study found that they reduced worker absenteeism but didn’t reduce the stress related to them.
Another study It was even found that employees who used these programs were more inclined to quit their jobs.
Not deprived of top performers
Contrary to stereotypes, individuals with chronic anxiety and depression, just like the ones we studied, are frequently like this. Just as capable of succeeding in the workplace as anyone else In the best context.
Very high performers, corresponding to the late actor Carrie Fisher and Olympic swimmers Michael Phelpsare two examples of individuals with mental illness who were top employees of their fields.
If you were a manager, would not you would like people of this caliber working for you? If so, then it’s important to create the best conditions, of which there are various Employers often fail to do so despite their best efforts.
More mental health support is required
Companies will face increasing pressure to support individuals with mental illness and other mental health challenges.
Monster’s 2024 State of Graduate Report found that Gen Z employees, People born between 1996 and 2010 And now that they are of their teens and 20s, support for mental health at work is increasingly becoming a priority, with 92 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed for jobs where they feel comfortable discussing their mental health at work.
This trend suggests that employers wishing to draw top entry-level talent might want to effectively support mental health, highlighting the importance of constant research on this issue.