How to manage employees with heightened sensitivities

Managers are increasingly having to exercise skills requiring them to simultaneously balance empathy and understanding to employees alongside managing their fragility and a sense of being over-sensitive.

Younger workers tend to demonstrate a more acute sense of their rights, their own self-worth and the importance of equality when compared to their peers who have been in the workplace for longer periods. Published research completed earlier this year by Mental Health First Aid England (MHFA) showed 1 in 3 workers had been subject to “micro aggression”, “discriminatory” and exclusionary behaviours from their line manager in the previous six months.

For many of the impacted individuals there had been a negative impact on their mental health.

Intriguingly younger workers were significantly more likely to be to have been affected by these management behaviours. Although that does not mean older workers did not receive the same treatment instead it could be an indicator that they pay less attention to it.

The MHFA found “exclusionary” behaviours to include “favouritism of other employees”, “sarcasm” and “not getting credit for work done.” But are such behaviours poor management or does the research really show us that there is an increase in oversensitivity and unreasonable complaints? Which leads to the wider question of whether employees are getting signed off for mental health issues that in reality are the result of the normal, everyday anxieties we all face.

This is where we need balance when determining how to deal the perceptions of poor employee resilience. What organisations must do is provide support to workers with high stress levels and at the same time investigate and tackle inappropriate behaviour and conduct in the workplace at all levels. The scales delicately balance between employers being seen as uncaring and employees being seen as too weak.

To address the cultural issues presented by a “toxic” culture employers need to demonstrate through managers that there is honesty, openness and transparency throughout their organisation.

These organisational characteristics enable employee issues to be raised and resolved informally before they escalate into a formal process.

Building trust and confidence between line managers and team members through honesty and openness prevents a build-up of negativity within individuals, which in turn risks escalating into mental health issues and increased levels of sickness absence.

Adapted from Original Source: