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Covering today

It starts with "have you got a minute?"

It's usually the end of a 1:1. Or a message late on a Tuesday. Or someone hanging back after a meeting while everyone else files out.

"Have you got a minute?"

The door closes, and they say something like: "I'm not really coping." Or "I've been having panic attacks." Or just, "I'm not okay."

In that moment, three things happen in your head at once. You want to fix it. You're terrified of saying the wrong thing. And somewhere, quietly, you're already working out what this means for Friday's deadline.

Every one of those instincts is human. Every one of them, acted on, can make it worse.

Nobody trains you for this. Most managers learn it by getting it wrong at least once, with someone who deserved better.

This conversation is coming for you

The HSE's latest figures show 964,000 workers in Great Britain with stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work. HSE Each case costs an average of 22.9 working days. HSE

Mental ill health is the top cause of long-term absence in UK organisations. Yet only 29% of organisations train their managers to support someone with it. CIPD

Deloitte puts the cost to UK employers at around £51 billion a year. The biggest slice isn't absence. It's presenteeism: people at their desks, struggling, saying they're fine. Deloitte

That last point matters most. The person who tells you they're not okay is the lucky case. They've given you a chance to do something. The ones who don't tell you are still on your team.

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Marcus and the kindest mistakes

Marcus managed a team of eight. Priya was his strongest analyst. Sharp, dependable, the one who caught the errors everyone else missed.

At the end of a routine 1:1, she told him she hadn't slept properly in weeks, and that she'd had a panic attack on the train that morning.

Marcus did what most kind managers do.

He said, "I completely get it, I went through something similar a few years ago," and spent the next five minutes talking about himself.

He jumped straight to a fix. "Take Friday off. Recharge."

He told her, "This stays between us, I promise," without knowing whether he could keep that promise.

Then, unsure what to do next, he never raised it again. He just quietly moved her biggest project to someone else, so she'd have less on her plate.

Three weeks later, Priya was signed off sick.

When she came back, she said the thing that stayed with him. "When the project disappeared, I thought you'd decided I couldn't cope."

Marcus wasn't careless. He cared a lot. What he didn't have was a structure. And kindness without structure tends to look like silence from the other side of the desk.

You don't need to be a counsellor. You need to be a safe first stop. That comes down to four moves.

Stop. Close the laptop. Turn your phone face down. On a call, camera on, notifications off. Whatever you were about to discuss can wait, and saying so out loud tells them they matter more than the agenda: "This is more important. Take your time."

Listen. Talk less than you want to. The first words that help are almost always the simplest. "Thank you for telling me. That can't have been easy." Then let the silence do some work. Resist comparing it to your own experience. Resist solving it.

Ask. Two questions do most of the work. "What would help right now?" and "Is anything at work making this harder?" If anything they've said worries you, ask directly: "Are you thinking about harming yourself, or not wanting to be here?" Asking doesn't put the idea in someone's head. Not asking leaves them alone with it.

Agree. Leave with one next step and a time you'll talk again. "Let's take this week lighter. I'll check in on Thursday at ten and we'll work out the next step together. If you need me before then, message me." Then turn up on Thursday at ten. Reliability is the most underrated form of care.

Signal swap

Instead of: "I know exactly how you feel."
Try: "I can't know exactly what this is like for you, but I want to understand."

Instead of: "This stays between us, I promise."
Try: "I'll keep this as private as I can. If I ever need to involve anyone, I'll talk to you first."

Instead of: "Take as long as you need."
Try: "Let's take this week lighter, and talk on Thursday about what next week looks like."

Instead of: "Have you tried yoga, or one of those apps?"
Try: "What's helped you before?"

Instead of quietly taking work away:
Try: "Would it help to move anything off your plate for a while? You choose what."

Quick poll

A five-minute check before Stress Awareness Week

International Stress Awareness Week runs in the first week of November. Before then, answer four questions. Nobody else needs to see the answers.

Do you know where your Employee Assistance Program number is, without searching for it?

Do you know who in HR you'd call the same day if someone told you they weren't safe?

Have you read your organisation's absence or wellbeing policy in the last year?

Who on your team has gone quiet lately, and when did you last ask how they're actually doing, not how the work is going?

If you can't answer the first three, that's ten minutes of admin. Do it now, while nobody needs it. You don't want to be searching the intranet while someone sits across from you in tears.

What's waiting below the line

The first ten minutes are only the start. The harder part is everything after. What you write down. Who you tell. What you change. What you say to the team. And what you do when someone's mental health and their performance start pulling in opposite directions.

Below is the Not Okay Playbook. It covers the first conversation word for word, exactly what you can and can't promise about confidentiality, the adjustments menu and how to agree adjustments properly, what to say to the rest of the team, how to handle time off and the return, the conversation every manager dreads when performance and mental health collide, and how to look after yourself through it. There's also a printable pocket card to keep in your notebook for the day you need it.