Colleagues

A depressed colleague will rarely want to talk openly about his or her mental state, usually for fear of being judged or possibly even losing their job. Depression may cause people to take extended leave from work. Many people suffer from recurrent depression and so they may be away from work for several periods of time. This may require understanding and patience from colleagues and management.

Work is affected

Depression can affect your colleague's work in many ways, e.g.

• a lack of energy – this may be especially noticeable in more physical jobs, he or she may be unable to do their work to their usual ability and they may become careless (which could in turn have health and safety issues)
• tiredness - they may arrive late for work
• a lack of concentration - they may make errors in their work and not be able to focus on tasks
• irritability - they may become irritable and difficult to work with
• lowered productivitye - they may achieve a lot less in a day than they used to
• altered behaviour towards colleagues – e.g. withdraw from social interactions.

If you have a colleague who has been behaving differently for some time or who has changed in a way that you are concerned he or she may be depressed, depending on your working relationship, you may consider approaching them about this. This is not always appropriate and sometimes offering to help out with their workload or in other ways around the workplace may go a long way to ease some of the pressure they may feel.

If appropriate you can consider cautiously asking whether they are unhappy and perhaps suggest they seek medical help. If there are obvious health and safety concerns then this is best dealt with through the appropriate channels.