Noticing when a colleague is struggling: what to look for and what to say

The gap is not caring, it is knowing what to say

Ask a room of managers whether they would want to know if someone on their team was struggling and every hand goes up. Ask the same room how many have noticed something in the last year and said nothing, and a lot of the same hands go up again.

The reasons are consistent and they are not indifference. People worry about intruding on something private. They worry about being wrong and causing offence. Most of all they worry that asking the question makes them responsible for whatever the answer turns out to be, and that they will be left holding something they are not qualified to hold.

That last fear is the one worth dismantling, because it is based on a misunderstanding of the job. A manager is not the treatment. Nobody is asking a line manager to diagnose anything, counsel anyone or fix a person’s life. The role is smaller and much more achievable than that: notice a change, say something early, listen properly and know where to point. The help itself comes from a GP, an employee assistance programme, occupational health or one of the services above.

Worth saying plainly, because it stops a lot of people: in the sessions we run, managers almost never report anyone taking offence at being asked kindly whether they were alright. What people describe is the reverse. They describe long stretches where they were visibly not coping and nobody said anything, and reading that silence as evidence that it did not matter.

The signs are changes from their normal, not a personality type

The most common mistake is looking for a type of person rather than a change in a particular person. There is no profile. What there is, reliably, is a difference from someone’s own baseline that lasts.

You are well placed to spot this precisely because you see them most weekdays and you know what normal looks like for them. A friend or a family member might see a bad evening. You see the pattern across a month.

• Timekeeping and attendance. Someone reliably early who is now often late. More frequent short absences, or the opposite, someone who has stopped taking any leave at all.
• How they are in a room. A talkative person who has gone quiet. A calm person who has become uncharacteristically sharp. Camera off in every meeting when it never used to be.
• The work itself. Reliable output that has started slipping, decisions being avoided or emails at three in the morning that were never there before.
• Withdrawal from the social edges. Lunch alone when they always went with the team, skipping the things they used to organise, going quiet in the team chat.

Any one of these on its own is nothing at all. People have bad fortnights, and a manager who reacts to every single signal will be exhausting to work for. What is worth acting on is a cluster of them, sustained for more than a week or two, in someone whose normal you know.

Open with the observation, then ask twice

Pick the moment deliberately. Not in front of the team, not in a glass-walled room where everyone can see and not in the final five minutes of a one to one that was mostly about deadlines. Side by side is easier than across a desk, which is why a walk or a coffee outside the building tends to work.

Then open with what you have actually seen, specific and factual, and stop talking. Something like: “I have noticed you have seemed quite quiet the last few weeks, and you have been in later than usual. How are you doing?”

That works because it is plainly true, it is not an accusation and it does not ask the other person to accept a label before they can reply. What does not work is leading with a diagnosis. “Are you depressed?” or “you seem really stressed” both require someone to sign up to a description of themselves, and the easiest exit from that is to say they are fine.

Which brings us to the part that matters most. The first answer is almost always “I’m fine”. That is a reflex, not information, and it is exactly where most conversations end. Ask once more, gently, without pressing: “I’m glad. I did just want to check, because you have not seemed quite yourself and I would rather ask than assume.”

The second ask is what signals that the first question was not a formality. People often describe telling somebody for the first time only because that person asked twice. Ask twice, though, and not three times. If the answer is still no, leave the door open and come back in a fortnight.

If they do start talking, do less than you want to. Do not fill the silences, do not match their story with one of your own and do not start solving it in the first two minutes, which is the most common way a good conversation gets shut down. Two phrases carry most of the weight: “that sounds really hard” and “thank you for telling me”.

If you are genuinely worried about someone’s safety

This is the part people skip, and it is worth being direct about it, because 10 September is World Suicide Prevention Day and this is the conversation the day exists to make easier.

The usual reason for skipping it is a fear that raising it might put the idea into someone’s head. It does not work that way. Asking someone directly whether they are having thoughts of suicide does not increase the risk, and it is very often a relief to be asked, because it makes an unsayable thing sayable for the first time.

So ask plainly, without euphemism: “Are you having thoughts of suicide?” Then listen to the answer without visible alarm, and do not leave the person alone while you work out what happens next.

If the answer is yes, you are not being asked to resolve it. You are being asked not to look away from it. Stay with them and go through the options together: Samaritans on 116 123, NHS 111 and the mental health option, their own GP. If their life is at immediate risk, that is 999 or A&E. One practical note: do not promise to keep something secret before you know what you are about to be told. Say instead that you will not share it more widely than you have to.

Afterwards, tell someone yourself. These conversations stay with the person who had them, and managers quietly carrying several of them alone are the ones who stop having them. Speak to your own manager, your HR contact or your own EAP, in general terms. This is also the point at which most managers realise they were never taught any of this, which is a fair complaint: most managers are told to have the conversation and never told what to say next. Our guide to a supportive conversation sets out all seven steps, from what to notice through to what happens the week after.