13◼ REMARKS Bloomberg Businessweek November 18, 2019
● Depression,anxiety,andother
conditionsarein a “don’task,don’t
tell”limbo—ata hugecostforbusiness
● ByCynthiaKoons
AaronHarveyis co-founderofReadySetRocket,a boutique
advertisingfirmthat’sdonecampaignsforfashionbrand
MichaelKors,popstarRihanna’sfragrance,andupscalesalad
eaterySweetgreen.Heknowshowtosella lifestylethatpeo-
plewanttoassociatewith.He’salsospentdecadessecretly
livingwitha rareformofobsessive-compulsivedisorder.Fed
upwitha corporateworldinwhichit’snotOKtotalkabout
that,he’sapplyinghisbrandingskillstoa topicthatpeople
generallytrytoavoid:mentalhealth.
Sincethedawnofthecorporateofficepark,mentalhealth
hasbeenrelegatedtothe“don’task,don’ttell”limboofthe
Americanworkplace.Peoplewho’vebeendiagnosedwith
a conditionsuchasdepressionoranxietyaren’tinclinedto
openuptobossesandcolleagues.Shameandstigmapre-
ventsome80%ofsufferersfromseekinghelp,according
toonereport.Theseareexpensiveproblemstokeephid-
den.DepressionalonecoststheU.S.economy$210billiona
year,halfofwhichis shoulderedbyemployersintheform
ofmissedworkandlostproductivity.
Asa businessowner,Harveythoughthe’destablisheda
culturethatwassuppleenoughtodealwithallemployee
challenges.Hisfirmoffersunlimitedtimeoffandtheflexi-
bilitytoworkremotelyasneeded.It takesa shared,rather
thantop-down,approachtodecision-making.ReadySet
RockethasbeennamedCrain’sandAdAge’sbestplaceto
work.SoHarveywashumbledbywhathappenedwhenthe
companyexperienceda mentalhealthcrisisinitsranks.An
internstartedactingerratically,goingintomeetingsuninvited
andshoutingbeforesomeonewasabletogetanemergency
respondertotakehimtoa psychiatricward.Theoffice’s
confusedhandlingoftheincidentexposeda weaknessinits
approachtomentalhealth,a gapHarveyis convincedexists
throughoutthecorporateworld.“Wearea small,pro-mental-
health-culturecompany,”Harveysays.“Ifwedon’tknowhow
todothis,nooneknows.”
Seeingthatthediscussionaroundmentalhealthwas
beinginformed,andshaped,byindividualssharingtheir
experiences, Harvey started the site Made of Millions. It
curates stories from people with a range of conditions. The
site’s three-person team published a guide in February,
Beautiful Brains, to help employees push for better dia-
logue about mental health in the office. To get the message
out through social media, Harvey and his team started the
#DearManager campaign, encouraging workers to share the
guide with their human resources departments. From the
data he’s seen so far, employees at companies including
Goldman Sachs Group, Deloitte, Accenture, and Verizon
Wireless have downloaded it.
The creation of “best practices” has thus far been left to
the handful of business leaders like Harvey who care about
the issue. Many companies don’t even know how to start the
conversation,andthere’snoplaybooktofollow.Benefits
managerscomparenotesthroughinitiativesledbyorgani-
zationssuchastheKennedyForum,a mental-health-focused
nonprofit, to guide one another through the darkness.
While there are laws to protect people with mental health
issues from discrimination, the pervasive stigma around those
conditions has limited their usefulness. Every avenue that
exists has its shortcomings: The U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission takes up cases on behalf of work-
ers who feel they’ve been discriminated against as a result
of their mental health. The agency tries to resolve cases via
mediation, which doesn’t create binding precedents. Even
when it sues successfully, it rarely wins the kind of pay-
outs that would force a broad change in corporate behavior.
Individual companies rely on their HR departments to field
complaints, but a worker’s comfort level in broaching sen-
sitive topics with HR is wrapped up in how much they trust
their employer. When those avenues fail, a person can turn
to the courts. That, however, can come at great expense and
with public exposure.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), a 1990 law
designed to protect employees with health conditions against
discrimination (assuming they can perform the essential tasks
of the job), requires companies to offer accommodations if
needed. When the legislation was being hashed out in the
late ’80s, Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina
fought to exclude people with certain mental health prob-
lems from its protections. His effort failed but highlighted
the pervasive bias against people with mental health condi-
tions that lingers to this day.
Three years after the law was passed, New York Law
School professor Michael Perlin warned that it wouldn’t be
effective if people’s attitudes toward mental health didn’t
change. “No matter how strongly a civil rights act is written
nor how clearly its mandate is articulated, the aims of such
a law cannot be met unless there is a concomitant change in
public attitudes,” he wrote in the Journal of Law and Health.
As the ADA wound its way through the courts in the ’90s
and early 2000s, it became clear that judges thought of dis-
abilities as permanent conditions rather than ones that
manifest in episodes, according to Tom Spiggle, an employ-
ment lawyer. That view largely excluded people with men-
tal health conditions, which often flare up intermittently. In
2008, Congress voted to expand the ADA to include condi-
tions that manifest periodically, which helped improve pro-
tections for people with conditions such as post-traumatic
stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and depression.
That same year, Congress passed a law requiring insurers
that provide mental health coverage to offer the same level
as their medical benefits. While many insurers comply