# Practical accommodations for employers

- **Episode:** [153](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/153.md) (2024-12-12)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** accommodations, employers, mental-health
- **Time:** 39:41–46:45 (start 2381s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/153?t=2381](https://truthliesandwork.com/153?t=2381)

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[39:41] Leanne Elliott: And for business owners who are listening, what are some of the accommodations that, that can be made for somebody with schizophrenia or, or another mental illness that does support them in, in the workplace?
[39:52] Kody Green: I, I mean, so, uh, and I talk about this, uh, I talk about this a lot now Um, with all the projects I'm doing. Uh, but the difficult thing about accommodations is it's really going to depend on your mental illness, um, what symptoms you have, and then also what the workplace is. I, I know now looking back that some of my earlier jobs in production and manufacturing, they wouldn't have been able to offer me as many accommodations as like an office job because, uh, the work I was doing Uh, was— it was more dangerous. It was work I really shouldn't have been doing with the level of, um, you know, recovery or the, the status of my recovery. I wasn't in a really stable place that I should have been doing that type of work. Uh, once I got into jobs that I was, you know, I was better medicated and I was able to be a little more high functioning, I was able to communicate better. I started realizing that most of the accommodations I needed Um, were either just the ability to, uh, for example, when I was in sales, the ability to leave the floor if I recognized that I might be having symptoms or if I need to reality check my symptoms, stuff like that. Uh, and that doesn't even mean leave for the day or go home. There were times where it was severe enough I needed to, but it was more just being able to step away. Uh, and everyone that I worked with understood. And, uh, being in sales was one of my last jobs and Uh, it helped me realize that, you know, people around me were willing to accommodate me. They would say, hey, Kody, uh, a lot of the times my coworkers would recognize that I was having symptoms before I would, because I, I can't always tell until it's, you know, gone on for a long time and I start recognizing some of those things. But it can take me a long time to recognize symptoms, whereas my coworkers would know that, hey, if Kody starts Uh, getting more quiet, if he starts having any sort of, um, basically like, uh, I would start looking around in all different directions. There was, there was certain things that they knew to look out for, um, before my symptoms got really bad, and that would allow me to either take like my emergency medication or go back to the break room just for enough time to, uh, do a couple of my coping mechanisms and try to prevent, like, worsened symptoms. So for me, accommodations was just having the ability to, uh, really separate myself from the situation and give me time to use my coping mechanisms or strategies that I had learned in therapy. And sometimes that's all people need. But obviously, with each illness or disability, there's going to be people who need more accommodations and Uh, a lot of what HR and workplaces can do is help workers figure out what those accommodations may look like, uh, because, uh, sometimes workers aren't in a position or a condition to figure that out themselves. And so a lot of the accommodations I got in different workplaces were from working closely with HR and my direct managers to figure out, like, what can we do when this happens, or how do we react when this happens? Uh, but it is going to depend on the person. I don't think disclosing your illness is always going to have the best result, and I think that's really important. And it's not the answer that people want, but we need to be honest with ourselves in that companies are run by people, and people, individual people, have their own understanding of mental illness. There's a lot of stigma out there, so not everyone is going to be completely understanding of what you're going through. That's just, that's unfortunately the truth. I will say that in my own experience in organizations that have good HR teams, um, so, you know, it's unfortunate when you work for a very small company and they can't have, you know, an established HR team. I think that creates a lot of issues. But in, in, in companies I've worked at that have at least a small team of HR and they know what they need to do, they know what they're allowed to ask, they know what resources they can provide. I've almost always gotten good responses in those scenarios. Um, it hasn't always led to the best outcomes. Sometimes it's just a longer way of them eventually pushing me out. But for the most part, if I'm able to disclose early on, so before I have an episode or before something happens, if I'm able to disclose early on, Um, it generally helped, uh, companies have a better understanding of not just what I was dealing with but how to help me. And a lot of that is because when I would get hired, I would go straight to HR and say, hey, I have schizophrenia, it's a diagnosis I live with, uh, and I don't need accommodations right now, but I might in the future, and here's what that might look like. And almost prepare them for If and when that happens. And so for me, I think the tip I always give to anyone who's— who is struggling with mental illness and wants to get back to work is sometimes it just takes finding the right workplace. It takes finding the right position. And once again, it might be trial and error. You might try a couple jobs that don't work out or that don't fit you or don't suit your needs. Or accommodations, uh, and I think that's okay. And I think, uh, as unfortunate as it is to have to go through some of that, I think people need to be okay with trying things, uh, that might be suitable for them and their diagnosis. Part of what I hope to do with, uh, mental health and mental illness awareness is also bring, uh, leadership, HR, uh, executive directors, CEOs, into this conversation so that we can offer more accommodations, so that we can get to a point where it's not all on the worker to have to jump into 10 different roles to figure out what works for them. But we are still early, I think, in this journey of mental health and mental illness in the workplace. One of an interview I— in an interview I did recently, someone asked, where do you think we are? Do you think we're close to the finish line in this journey? And I basically always say the same thing. I'm like, I think we're just past the starting line. Like, I think we're there. I think we're finally making the right steps. I think people are starting to be able to recognize and bring awareness to mental illness in the workplace and be able to talk about mental health and provide resources. But I think we have a long way to go
[46:31] Leanne Elliott: What would you say to any business owners that are thinking that all just sounds a bit too difficult? a bit too complicated. What would you say to them? And is there any unique value that somebody who lives with a mental illness can bring to an organization?