Wondering about, ignoring or brushing off a worker showing signs of mental illness? Possibly and probably.

We all want to think this will not happen to me, whether to you as a boss or to one of your workers. I understand that – I did the same. Google me and you'll get all my dirty laundry, and then some.

The statistics are that (unless you have less than four people at work) at least one will suffer mental illness this year. You might not know it. Worse still, your worker might not realise it. If your worker does not realise it, he or she will not be getting treatment for it.

Sobering statistics show that 45 per cent of us will suffer mental illness in our lifetime. That is almost half of us.

Confrontingly, one in five of us will suffer mental illness in the next year.

The exceptionally boring statistics (yes, you will want to think this does not apply to your business) are that a worker with untreated mental illness will (on average) take three or four sickies a month, and cost you almost $10, 000 a year in absenteeism and lost productivity.

[Related: PIAA mental health seminar]

Despite statistics, we will want to think that an afflicted worker leaves his or her illness at the workplace door. Sadly, mental illness is just that – an illness. Mental illness does not discriminate in the people it afflicts. Nor does it draw any boundaries between personal life and work. So, if one of your workers is suffering, and especially if he or she is not getting treatment, do not ignore the benefits to you, your worker and your worker's colleagues, of you doing something.

Leaving aside obvious human costs, your workplace costs of a worker with an untreated mental illness are significant. Absenteeism is obvious. Less so is presentee-ism: he is at work, but his lights are not on. Intangible, but arguably even more costly, are the disturbingly negative effects on workplace morale generally. Coworkers regularly, then resentfully, cover for a sick colleague. Next step: "the boss lets him get away with it, so why shouldn't I try it on?"

Nobody in your business, whether you as the boss, nor any of your managers or supervisors, is a shrink or a counsellor. Nor should you try to be. But there are some basic steps you can take that can help both your suffering worker and your workplace.

You do not have to be a doctor to notice the indicators that a worker is suffering. Short temper, irritability, tearfulness, heightened emotion, inability to focus and complete tasks at hand, absenteeism, late to work, constantly breaching work deadlines, expressing feelings of inadequacy and inability to cope … the list goes on. We all suffer from one or two of these from time to time and it means little. But a worker who exhibits many of these (and others not listed here) for a period of time and without understandable reason, really should give you, as the boss, reason to enquire.

The dead give-away for mental illness is if a worker’s behaviour changes from what it has been in the past to exhibit, without reason, these sorts of characteristics.

Every situation is individual, based on the boss, the worker, his or her job and the cultural mores of the workplace.

Once you are equipped to realise the basic indicators, you can get help to start a conversation with your worker and suggest he or she gets outside help. That is all you can do – but it is what you can do. Never underestimate its power, both for your worker and your workplace.

Bottom line: you can’t help somebody who will not help themselves. You have a business to run and there is a limit to the personal and professional energy you can expend on a worker who is, for whatever reason, behind the eight-ball. But if there is a small something you can do, it will bring big human and business benefits.

The PIAA briefing, ‘Mental illness – dealing with the elephant in your workplace,’ has already taken place in Sydney and Adelaide and has had near-record attendance for a PIAA event.

Compliments about this briefing arise from the fact, that like it or not, this issue resonates, through work or life, with every one of us.

Watch out in coming months for the PIAA briefings in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Mary Jo Fisher is the PIAA’s workplace relations advisor. She is a former Liberal Party Senator, who suffered mental illness, leading to her exit from Parliament three years ago. She is an ambassador for BeyondBlue and is open about her story.

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