Elaine Holt is the Bid Director at National Express and here she blogs for Time to Change about her experience of sitting on an employer panel for Channel 4's 'The World's Maddest Job Interview', which is part of the '4 Goes Mad' season.
Being approached to do Channel 4's The Worlds Maddest Job Interview, opened up a few questions for me. Why as the MD and Chairman of several companies over the years had I not really thought about mental health issues and why did I know so little on the subject when so many people were affected? For me a happy, healthy workforce will deliver much more for my business. So when asked to take part the response was an easy yes.
Why as the MD and Chairman of several companies over the years had I not really thought about mental health issues?
My approach was open minded - if I interviewed some one and they had the right skills for the job, they were the best candidate and they revealed a past mental health issue then I would recruit them. However like many employers I still had my doubts - there is such stigma around mental health issues. So for me the programme was about confirming that my approach was right or would the programme confirm many other employers' views that they would not recruit people who had had mental health issues?
The three employers on the programme had different views about mental health and employment which made the task interesting.
The eight volunteers were great, they tackled all of the tasks they were set with varying levels of success, we had five days to watch and make our assessments mainly from a distance with brief opportunities to talk to them face to face. We did not know which of the volunteers had mental health issues and we looked purely at their employability.
We had to chose our top three at regular intervals after debating everyone's skills and abilities. It was five days of mixed emotions and views.
we were shocked that any of the volunteers had experienced such levels of mental illness
We were given information about individual mental health issues but not told who had suffered them and we were shocked that any of the volunteers had experienced such levels of mental illness. Suicide attempts, being sectioned, not leaving your house for seven months, bipolar, 30 years living with an eating disorder and OCD were all mental health issues that made me think twice. At the end of the five days we picked our final top three and each individual had experienced significant mental health issues in the past. Their stories and those of the other volunteers with mental health issues (who I should add we would have employed) were very inspiring and for me personally, humbling - they had been to some very dark places and yet had come through despite everything.
Why would any employer want to exclude people with skills & talent from their workforce?
As an employer I would be happy to have them in my team and I feel very lucky to have been part of this powerful and thought provoking programme. I am glad I was right to be open minded and hope many more employers will learn from this programme and consider their position carefully. Why would any employer want to exclude people with skills and talent from their workforce?
