The COVID-19 pandemic shed light on critical vulnerabilities across society, from supply chains to hospital infrastructure. Workplace mental health also became a broad concern, with many employees facing anxiety, depression or other challenges, yet still wanting to perform well in their jobs. A critical question arose: How can organizations and managers support employees living with mental illness while maintaining trust and productivity, especially during a time of global uncertainty?
Sherry Thatcher, the Regal Distinguished Professor and Vallett Family Faculty Fellow in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business, and two coresearchers decided to study how people manage work while also juggling often unpredictable symptoms of mental disorders, as well as what organizational or managerial practices help or hinder them.1
From Conversations to Research
Sparked during the height of COVID-19, the research was driven by Thatcher and her colleagues’ anecdotal conversations with friends, family and colleagues about the struggles between balancing work and mental illness symptoms.
“People care about their jobs, they love their work and they want to perform well, yet they also may have mental illnesses that they can’t always control,” explains Thatcher. “They can’t predict when the symptoms emerge or how they manifest.”
Based on these conversations, the researchers decided to explore how individuals successfully balance work and mental illness, and what support is needed when they can’t. Thatcher and her coauthors began by analyzing online conversations from blogs and Reddit to better understand real, lived experiences. They then refined their focus, finding considerable discourse on social support, disclosure and coping. After the online analysis, the researchers developed questionnaires and recruited participants through social media, universities and a support group. The team concentrated on both white-collar and blue-collar workers across an even gender balance.
Managing Mental Illness Symptoms: Engagement and Disengagement
The findings highlighted an inherent tension between engagement, or sustained participation in an activity, and disengagement, the decision to withdraw from an activity. While some employees needed periods of full disengagement from work to attend to their symptoms, such as a sick day, Thatcher and her colleagues discovered a surprising trend.
They found that many employees experiencing mental illness symptoms often engage more with certain parts of their work while simultaneously disengaging from others. In particular, some employees engage socially even as they disengage from work tasks. For example, a worker feeling anxiety while completing an expense report might step away to talk with a colleague, reducing stress and regaining control. In other cases, employees engaged more than usual with work tasks to distract themselves from aversive symptoms, such as general feelings of worry or sadness.
This research reveals that temporary spikes in social engagement, in particular, can provide immediate relief of symptoms, helping individuals reset and refocus — indicating that disengaging from tasks is sometimes necessary to prevent escalation of symptoms. The study centered on this immediate, informal support, like quick breaks and small interactions, rather than structured wellness programs, finding that this more casual social support helps some employees reenter work with renewed focus and confidence.
“These small things mean so much to individuals when they’re dealing with mental illness symptoms,” says Thatcher. “Social engagement can offer a safe way to reconnect and reset. Talking with coworkers, even briefly, can ease anxiety and frustration because they already understand the work context. Those small moments of support help individuals step away from stress, regain perspective and manage feelings of anxiety or depression.”
Building Trust Beyond Policy
While disengaging from work tasks and engaging in brief social interactions can help people manage mental illness symptoms, comfort with disclosure of mental illness varies. Some employees are comfortable turning to peers for social support, while others feel secure disclosing their mental health states to supervisors or managers.
When reaching out to supervisors, most employees are not interested in organizations fixing them or managing their symptoms, Thatcher explains.
“What they want from organizations is understanding, flexibility and autonomy,” she says. “Because symptoms are unpredictable, if someone steps away from their desk for 10 minutes, trust that they’re doing it to be a better employee, not because they’re slacking.”
According to Thatcher, managing mental illness at work comes down to trust. Leaders must respect that employees with mental health issues are striving to cope with their symptoms. Even for employees who had support outside of work and did not disclose to managers, having leaders who trusted them made a huge difference in the ability to navigate mental illness symptoms and work.
“Managers should offer grace,” she says. “People who manage symptoms well often spend years perfecting systems that works for them. That includes finding the right professional support, which can mean trial and error with many providers, and that can’t always be done after hours.”
Balancing Performance and Compassion
Thatcher notes that this research can help enterprises across Tennessee and beyond take a more holistic view of employee well-being. When workplaces lead with compassion while acknowledging that performance naturally fluctuates, they lay the groundwork for healthier, more sustainable cultures.
“We hope this research encourages organizations to care for employees as people, not just as workers,” she says. “There’s pressure to be perfect, and that leads to mental health struggles. Employees sometimes can’t perform at their best, but they’re still doing the best they can. Eventually, performance improves again.”
1“Navigating Mental Illness at Work Using Disengagement and Engagement Pathways,” by Emily Rosado-Solomon, Sherry M.B. Thatcher and Sam D. Strizver appeared in the October 2025 issue of the Academy of Management Journal.
Contact:
Leah McAmis, senior editor, leah@utk.edu
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