Preventing Suicide is a Community Responsibility

Suicide, as the result of unbearable stress in the workplace, is not relegated to the corporate world, but is occurring at an alarming rate in the private sector as well. In her recent New York Times article about the suicide epidemic in the French farming industry, Pamela Rougerie, writes about an issue, which I assert encompasses many sectors and professions.

In the chapter, “No way out: Mark’s story,” in my book, From Bully to Bull’s Eye – Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, I expose the devastation that suicide wreaks with close friends and family, who quite innocently stood by not realizing the life of a close friend was hanging in perilous balance. Signs of severe depression too often go unnoticed.

As uncomfortable as it may be, we need to intervene when red flags appear. An intervention can be as simple as a kind question or a gentle offer to lend an ear to someone who is suffering. Often this small spontaneous act makes all the difference, and it can save a life.

This is why articles about suicide can help reduce the stigma, cause bystanders to reflect on what people are going through, and encourage them to intervene before it is too late. As community members, we need to begin to recognize when someone is acting abnormally and needs help extricating him or herself from the desolate lonely space in which they are suffering.

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Workplace Culture Contributed to Lawyer’s Death from Addiction

Attorneys may be the last profession to recognize the need for psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces, but as Eilene Zimmerman points out in her New York Times article, “The Lawyer, the Addict,” they need them as much as everyone else. The article is a heartbreaking examination of what drove her ex-husband, a successful patent attorney, to the drug addiction that eventually killed him and how everyone in his life missed the red flags.

Lawyers are notorious for working 60 hour weeks driven by competition for dwindling jobs, professional rivalry and the need to achieve a certain number of billable hours. The effect can take quite a toll. A report in the Journal of Addiction Medicine found that 21 percent of lawyers qualify as problem drinkers, 28 percent struggle with depression and 19 percent struggle with anxiety. The numbers reporting drug use are much lower, which is unsurprising for officers of the court. Attorneys don’t seem to be more predisposed to addiction than other profession. In fact, studies of incoming law students have shown them as being more physically and psychologically healthy compared to other graduate students.  Clearly the workplace culture and the legal training take a toll.

The sad truth is that there is no segment of society immune from issues with mental health and/or addiction. What is truly tragic in Zimmerman’s story is the fact that there were bright red flags everywhere, but both the workplace culture in law firms and society’s mental picture of successful lawyers rendered them invisible.

Andrew Faas is the author of From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire. 

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Suicide at Uber: Is this Tantamount to Murder or Manslaughter?

Before he went to work for Uber, Joseph Thomas was described as “the smartest guy in the room,” a hard-driving and ambitious engineer with a warm heart who gave up a job at Apple to work for Uber. But according to the San Francisco Chronicle, after he started working at the ride-share company, he began to change.

His family told reporter Carolyn Said that he began to struggle for the first time. He was working long hours under acute stress and frightened he’d lose his job. Then the panic attacks began, along with constant anxiety and lack of mental focus. Visits to a psychiatrist didn’t help, nor did pleas that he quit Uber. His wife reported that his personality changed and he kept insisting that he couldn’t do anything right. Thomas was one of the less than 1 percent of African-American managers at the company and given previous reports of bullying and harassment, it is very likely that racism played a role in his decline.

In August 2016 Joseph Thomas took his own life. He left behind a wife and two young sons who are being denied a worker’s compensation claim because he had only worked for the company for five months. His wife is looking to hold Uber accountable for Joseph’s mental decline. “If you put a hard-driving person on unrealistic tasks, it puts them in failure mode. It makes them burn themselves out; like driving a Lamborghini in first gear,” Thomas’ father told the Chronicle.

I’ve written a lot about suicide brought on by bullying at work, and given the 120,000 annual deaths attributable to workplace stress according to a joint study at Harvard Business School, it’s not a surprise that not enough is being done to address the cause of this terrible epidemic. I devoted an entire section of my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire to preventing this sort of tragedy. The Faas Foundation has been working to address the issue of mental health in the workplace with Mental Health America with the same goal.

It is eminently clear that the toxic workplace culture at Uber is having a horrendous impact on its people. In February I wrote about how a former female employee of Uber was driven out by sexual harassment that human resources did nothing to stop. It’s gotten so bad that two of the company’s original investors penned an open letter to the board about the egregious culture of the place.

If it is found that the toxic environment was the main factor in Thomas’ suicide, Uber must be held accountable for what is tantamount to murder—or at least manslaughter.  

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Why Suicides in the Workplace are Increasing

A report last week in Canada about a suicide at an IBM office was a sobering reminder of the recent rise in people who take their own lives at work. While little is known about the tragedy in Markham, Ontario, even one workplace suicide is too many.

We don’t do nearly enough to prevent adult bullying in the workplace—which I believe is even more common than school bullying,  given that as many as 120,000 deaths per year are attributable to workplace stress. I’ve written extensively on this subject in my posts and in my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire. This is an issue that needs to be brought into the light of day so that treatment and prevention can be discussed, but far too often the stigma surrounding such a death makes such conversation impossible.

Whatever has encouraged the suicide numbers to rise in the workplace, it’s an issue that requires all of us to step out of our role as bystander or witness and become activists for our colleagues. When I was a senior executive, I personally intervened several times when a person was in dire need of help. Ignoring the signs because of your personal discomfort won’t make the problem go away. Think of it like a potential heart attack—if a friend was having chest pains, you would get them to an emergency room because to fail to do so could have deadly consequences. It’s the same with someone who may be thinking about taking their own life. Two excellent resources to reach out to for help are:

·       National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800.273.8255

·       The Trevor Project Lifeline: 866.488.7386

It’s important to understand how bullying plays into rates of depression and suicide. When people are going through trauma, especially when it’s in a setting where distress is viewed as weakness, they are cut off from the support they need to cope. This is why the Faas Foundation is working with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to ascertain how people feel at work and how the tools of emotional intelligence can prevent such tragedies. Unfortunately, when I discuss this with members of the business community they are often skeptical. They don’t yet realize how feelings drive organizational behavior—but I believe this will be the key to a psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplace for everyone.

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The Silent Workplace Epidemic that Endangers Millennials

Millennial employees get a bad rap—often chastised as being lazy and self-involved, they are actually the largest current generation and swiftly eclipsing baby boomers in the workforce. While they bring plenty to the table—innovation, creativity, technological know-how, inclusiveness—they are also vulnerable to toxic workplaces. The medical journal Pediatrics reports that not only are they more likely to become clinically depressed than any other generation, more young women are struggling with the disease. Clearly they need psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces to make the most of their potential and maintain their physical and mental health.

Not meeting this standard has dire consequences for individuals as well as the nation. This is why I’m working with Mental Health America (MHA) to improve psychological health in America’s workplaces. MHA has studied this problem and found that mental health issues cost $51 billion per year in absenteeism and lost productivity and $26 billion in direct treatment costs.

My fear is that the current atmosphere of divisiveness, bigotry and bullying promoted by the current administration will compound the problem of mental health in the workplace. Adult bullying in the workplace can cause even more havoc on a person’s well-being than school bullying—many adults need their jobs so they and their families can survive. In a tough economy they may have no other option, so they are forced to endure negative treatment, which gone unchecked can lead to physical and mental illness and even suicide. With one in five Americans afflicted with a mental health issue at any given time, this is a serious consequence. For more information on how to create psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces and maximize the potential of millennials—and all employees—see my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

If you have coworkers—especially millennials—who are suffering, I urge you to reach out to them. As I indicated in recent articles about suicide resulting from workplace bullying and living with a person with mental illness, no one has to go this alone. There are resources for help. Choose to be an ally and advocate instead of a bystander. You can make a difference in someone’s life.

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