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Gossip touches on fear, misconceptions

19.04.11

Other than diversity issues, one of the topics that most easily catch my eye is pop culture entertainment. More often than not, they intersect. In my mind, they often collide.</p><p> One of the breaking news topics last week in entertainment was the announcement by actress Catherine Zeta-Jones that she had a bipolar disorder and was checking herself into a rehab center for it.</p><p>In all this coverage, the most attention-getting issue to me was raised in a story asking whether this announcement would interfere with the actress&#x92;s ability to find work in Hollywood. </p><p> Here we go.</p><p> I recognize that entertainment news was going for something spiky and salacious to talk about, but it made me wonder about all the bipolar employees and those searching for a job out there who shudder at this kind of coverage.</p><p> Like most things that people hear about casually but don&#x92;t bother investigating, having bipolar disorder is one of those labels that sound scary and trigger fear and apprehension in the minds of the public. It&#x92;s a disease with a stigma, and what people think they know is more impression than fact.</p><p>Untreated bipolar disorder &#x97; for some people, in some situations &#x97; can manifest in heightened episodes of manic behavior or heightened episodes of depression. </p><p>But the only valid concern of co-workers or supervisors is the ability of their fellow employees to get their work done. Bipolar disorder is recognized as a disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act, but that doesn&#x92;t mean that every employee who has it requires special accommodations in the workplace, or that the accommodations are daunting, disruptive or expensive. </p><p> As with all disabilities, employers can&#x92;t discriminate in the hiring, job assignments, promotions, pay, firing, benefits, layoffs and all other employment-related activities just because a person has bipolar disorder.</p><p> Legalities aside, supervisors should just be careful to make sure that fear and misconceptions don&#x92;t dominate. </p><p> One of the biggest misconceptions that people have about disabilities in the workplace is thinking that an employer is legally required to make any and all allowances for any employee who has a physical or mental disability.</p><p>No, that&#x92;s not the case, and never has been.</p><p> What the law says in a nutshell is that an employee or prospective employees have to be able to do the job, and if they need some help to do it, then the employer has to provide it. But that&#x92;s some help; an employer isn&#x92;t obliged to provide help that would put an undue hardship on the business.</p><p> So the only lesson to be learned from the Zeta-Jones coverage is that while gossip rags can wonder about how this disorder might affect her career, back in the real world, good employers should and do &#x97; and by law must &#x97; make reasonable accommodations so thousands of people with this disorder can be productive workers.

Source: Kansas City Star