Eleven years ago Kody Green hit rock bottom. He was sitting in a jail cell. He had fallen asleep while at the wheel of his car, hit another vehicle and was charged with driving while intoxicated. An undiagnosed mental health condition had led him to self-medicate with drugs.

These days Green, a 30-year-old American, is a mental health advocate and motivational speaker. He’s a content creator with more than 1.3 million followers on TikTok, 335,000 on Instagram and almost 150,000 subscribers on YouTube. Having been diagnosed with a type of schizophrenia, he now shares his personal experiences and insights on overcoming adversity, and has dedicated his time to mental health advocacy, schizophrenia awareness and drug recovery.

The size of his audience reveals the size of the problem. As of 2024, one in seven people in the UK is classed as neurodivergent. While this term casts a wide net, employers are required to adjust their practices to ensure that their workforce is optimised to work at its most productive. Green’s book can help them.

In Minds Over Meetings: A Personal Perspective on Wellness in the Workplace, he shares his stories of mental health in the workplace and helps employers foster a supportive and inclusive work environment. He opens the book talking about his fear of talking to his employers about his diagnosis until that changed:

When I finally decided to have the conversation, my HR manager’s reaction to the news was not what I was expecting. She simply looked at me and said, “I am sorry to hear about your diagnosis. That must be incredibly difficult. Do you have any reasonable accommodations you need from us?” Then she started to fill me in about the company’s options for accommodations, resources and assistance to ensure that I could continue to work there.

I couldn’t believe that she responded in a way that seemed so supportive and encouraging. I know this may sound ridiculous, but I was expecting the HR folks to say that I couldn’t work there any more. I had always been told that people with mental health issues or diagnosed mental illnesses were “crazy” and incapable of working or maintaining a normal lifestyle. I was so afraid of anyone knowing that I struggled with mental health issues that I drove myself to exhaustion just trying to hide it. I didn’t want to admit that I ever struggled with depression or symptoms like paranoia and hallucinations, especially with my employer.

Besides losing jobs because of not knowing how to discuss my mental health with employers, I was also discouraged from discussing it because I had seen other people I knew lose jobs due to issues with mental health, including my own mother.

Green’s suggestions for how leaders can make their work environment more inclusive don’t just focus on provisions for those struggling with their mental health. One of the suggestions is that leaders set the tone themselves and openly discuss mental health in meetings and company newsletters. This helps to normalise the conversation and reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues.

If they can, leaders should share their own experiences with mental health, where appropriate, to encourage employees to do the same. This helps to remind anyone that they are not alone and that it is normal for anyone to have mental health struggles. These actions can also build trust and boost retention.

Green celebrates how far work environments have come in the last decade or two but admits that there are still improvements to be made. A chapter of the book focuses on outdated workplace anecdotes that Green argues need to leave our lexicon. These range from “we are like a family” to “quiet quitting” – all with their own justification. Take the phrase “leave your problems at the door” for example. Here is what he says:

I was working in a production factory and was asked why I wasn’t keeping up with my usual production numbers. I thought my manager was genuinely asking as a way to be kind or understanding. So, I explained that I was struggling with a change in my mental health medications that was causing additional symptoms but also major side effects.

Without a pause or any show of concern or empathy, he responded, “Well, we need to get caught up, so when you come to work, you need to find a way to leave your problems at the door.”

To this day, I am just as confused by his response as the day I first heard it. I would go on to have managers tell me this in retail jobs, distribution jobs, office jobs and even as a team lead. It was like they were saying that I was capable of just separating my experiences of my personal life the moment I stepped through the door, but I was simply deciding not to.

This to me was not only unrealistic but seemed like a way to avoid having conversations about mental health and wellbeing. Instead of managers addressing the concerns brought to them by an employee, they just tell them to not think about it while clocked in. This is such an insensitive response and will ultimately result in employees not reaching out for help in the future; managers should be offered training in matters like these.

What is a misconception about schizophrenia that Green wants to eradicate? Its link with violence. “People assume that because I have schizophrenia, I am inherently more violent than someone without the disorder,” says Green. “But studies overwhelmingly show that people with schizophrenia are more likely to be the victim of violent crimes than to commit them.”

His challenge to leaders centres around two things. The first is education. “Educate yourself about what resources are out there,” he recommends. “Check for available resources in your local area or nationwide. Within your company too – what do you offer in terms of mental health services and accommodations? Knowing that upfront can be amazing for the first person who reaches out to you to ask for help because then you have some of those answers.”

The second is around communication. Being able to have these crucial and often difficult conversations is what leaders are good at. So have those conversations with your teams about what’s going on in their lives, whether it’s a mental illness diagnosis or a severe struggle with mental health.

“The best thing you can do is be educated and talk to people about what they need and how you can help,” says Green. “You’re not only going to see increased retention in your workforce, but you’re also going to see people who are excited to be there, especially if they can come to work and not be in a toxic work environment every day.”

Kody Green’s book Minds Over Meetings: A Personal Perspective on Wellness in the Workplace is available now.