Suicide in the workplace is a phenomenon that has been growing in recent years. Suicide is a catastrophic consequence of poor mental health, which is not new. In fact, according to the WHO in 2014, it was estimated that there were 800,000 cases per year. In France, suicide or attempted suicide in or outside the workplace can be recognized as an occupational disease or accident by the Caisse primaire d’assurance maladie. At present, each year the French justice system deals with about ten cases, and the observation is clear: work kills! In the United States, it is the 10th leading cause of death, with an increasing number of cases each year.
Suicide at work is different from other work-related deaths, because they occur intentionally and have a variety of causes that are not always easy to determine. The WHO (1999) has mentioned certain warning signs of suicide, such as social isolation, regular talk of loneliness, feeling useless or unfulfilled in one’s life. According to Dimoff and Kelloway (2019), there are identifiable precursors that fall into five categories: distress, withdrawal, declining attendance, deteriorating performance and extreme behaviours. The problem is that, at present, identifying these signs remains complicated, and managers do not have the capacity, due to a lack of training, to detect them and provide a solution. Furthermore, it is now known how much the loss of a person in an organisation due to suicide has a significant impact on colleagues, supervisors and the organisation as a whole.
In a report published in the United States by the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), several trends were shown. The first was age: generally speaking, the older you get, the greater the likelihood of committing suicide at work. According to the same report, being a man would also increase the phenomenon. It was also reported that white populations are most at risk, but that the propensity to commit suicide is higher among Asian populations. The private sector is predominantly represented in work-related suicides, as are salaried employees and drivers of heavy trucks and semi-trailers. Thus, it can be seen that depending on one’s age, gender, ethnicity, work status, occupation and sector of work, the probability of experiencing a risk of suicide at work is not the same. Moreover, as mentioned above, this list is not exhaustive, as each situation takes place in different contexts.
Today, despite a growing awareness of the need to develop specific strategies for suicide prevention at work, the subject remains sensitive. Indeed, managers often do not feel comfortable addressing it, which leads to a lack of knowledge, awareness and support within the organisation. Moreover, it is difficult to obtain reliable data to estimate the extent of the phenomenon at present, which makes it impossible to understand the real influence of work characteristics on the suicidal act. Indeed, at present, surveys carried out by global institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and even the International Labour Office (ILO) only give suicide rates by global populations. Thus, despite concrete interest in the subject, there are few concrete implications for the world of work. Take the example of the France Télécom affair in France, during which time the Ministry of Health was never able to provide data on suicide at work, and to inform us whether or not the suicide rate in this company exceeded that of the active population.
Thus, we are faced with an extremely serious phenomenon, with institutions struggling to deal with it, due to a lack of knowledge of the subject and a lack of training for managers to deal with it. At the same time, in the absence of concrete and detailed statistical data, we tend to underestimate the complexity of the suicidal act. The only response today from the French State is through the criminal justice system, as court decisions are taken to compensate the victims’ relatives, which confirms the responsibility of companies in this act. However, organisations and managers can act at their own level to provide concrete solutions. In fact, numerous American and French studies have highlighted non-exhaustive elements to anticipate the phenomenon and act before the act occurs.
We will first look at the changes that companies can make within their structure. The international institutions dealing with the subject unanimously recommend changes to the organisation of work, destigmatising psychosocial risks and making staff aware of them so that the detection can be taken as quickly as possible, appropriate interventions in the context, and also ensuring the well-being and integrity of the employee. When we talk about changing the organisation and working conditions, we are talking about reconfiguring workstations, improving worker autonomy, expanding tasks, etc. Regular interviews with each employee therefore seem necessary to find out their expectations, desires, difficulties in performing their work or how they reconcile their personal and professional lives. Care should also be taken to help people control their stress and mitigate its consequences, for example by offering sophrology workshops, or by setting up cognitive-behavioural therapies. The problem is that the organisation cannot rely solely on this kind of practice, but it would be a good start. Another observation is that organisations must try to demystify and destigmatise the suicidal act. Suicide is not a harmless thing, it is a symptom, and we must try to understand how it came about, as there are many sources, both organisational and individual. Suicide is not linked to an abnormal person who cannot keep up with the pace in the company, if we want to avoid this kind of behaviour occurring frequently, it is essential that the company questions itself. Finally, in the world of work, the aim is for everyone to be a winner, i.e., the expectations of individuals must be met with the resources that the organisation can offer. Indeed, employees have expectations of their jobs, and we must ensure that they remain motivated and involved in their work, for example by giving them recognition, rewarding them with remuneration, etc. There are many small things a company can agree on, but today the performance of a company goes hand in hand with the well-being of the employees at work. We often tend to perceive them as tools, but unlike tools, they have desires and aspirations that must be stimulated to ensure good performance on their part. This is why, during job interviews, it is necessary to try to detect these motivations, and to see if the recruiting company can nourish these motivations.
On a smaller scale and closer to the ground, the manager plays a crucial role, as he is in direct contact with the people who may express this suffering, and is the intermediary between his team and the company. Thus, in order to adopt preventive approaches, certain key skills have been identified, such as interpersonal skills, problem solving, awareness and crisis management. These aptitudes enable managers to address employees in individual ways but also to help them reduce the perceived pressure they face on a daily basis through their job. The good news is that most managers have these skills, so it is important to make them aware that they have them and to help them apply them in these situations. The most important thing is obviously to have a good relationship with your team first, so that you can identify people who are suffering. This element refers to interpersonal skills, which must be used to create a working environment that favours exchanges and communication on the problems that may arise. Empathy and openness must be favoured so that the suffering employee can speak freely without feeling like a burden to the organisation. As far as problem solving is concerned, the manager has to be very careful, as solving one problem may create another in parallel. The manager must step back from the situation and consider all the possibilities available to him. This is why it is necessary today to include the notion of suicide at work in the training of managers, so that they can have more room to exercise managing this kind of problem. Secondly, to raise awareness, the manager must demonstrate the importance of the employee’s tasks and role within the organisation. The manager must ask himself how he can help his team, so that his team can make sense of their work. They should also seek to build their confidence through the use of social cues such as recognition or training opportunities to make them feel important. This will help to reduce the feeling of work drudgery that an employee might express. Finally, crisis management, in a context where a potential individual likely to develop ideas of acting out is detected, it is necessary for the manager to have sufficient guidelines and procedures to respond to the situation. Here again, the organisation has a key role to play.
In conclusion, we note that this phenomenon is recurrent in our current system, but still too minimal compared to its real extent. Thus, not recognising it at its true value prevents people from expressing their uneasiness due to the fact that they are confined to their singularity, without trying to understand the cause. Thus, they perceive themselves as burdens for the company, and face managers who lack the resources to provide a solution. Existing and new companies need to take the problem seriously and reinvent themselves in order to prevent work from killing. Especially since there are preventive measures to remedy the situation, they have the keys in hand to change the situation, but whether they want to is another story.
Ferré Quentin
Sources:
Harris, R. (2016). Suicide in the workplace. Monthly Labor Review. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2016.54
Neveu, J.-P. (2012). La difficile prévention des suicides au travail. Gestion, 37(4), 6. https://doi.org/10.3917/riges.374.0006
O’Brien, S., Galavan, E., & O’Shea, D. (2021). Developing a competency framework for managers to address suicide risk in the workplace. Human Resource Development Quarterly, hrdq.21437. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21437