Understanding and improving managers' responses to employee depression

Depression is a common mental health disorder, estimated to affect between 20% and 55% of adults in their lifetime, and has recently overtaken heart disease as the leading cause of disability (WHO, 2011). Although managers often believe that mental illness is not their concern or does not exist in their organization, working with an employee with depression is a job demand that most managers are likely to face eventually. As noted in Santuzzi, Waltz, Finkelstein, and Rupp’s (2014) focal article, depression is an ‘‘invisible disability’’ that sufferers may be reluctant to disclose because of self- and other stigma. In one large-scale survey, only about 30% of American employees said they would feel comfortable discussing depression with their supervisor (Charbonneau et al., 2005). In this commentary, we highlight performance-related social cognitions associated with disclosed or nondisclosed depression and suggest ways in which industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologists can assist organizations to improve the management of employee depression.