An employee has told you they are suicidal

Someone has just told you, and you are their manager rather than their friend. That changes some things and not others.

The next ten minutes

Do not end the conversation to go and get help. Leaving the room to find HR communicates that you could not hold it. Stay, unless they are in immediate danger.

Ask directly whether they are safe right now. Are you thinking about acting on this today? You need the answer, and asking does not make it more likely.

Do not promise confidentiality you cannot keep. This is the single most common mistake, and it destroys trust precisely when it is needed. Say instead: I can't promise this stays only with me, but I will tell you before I tell anyone, and I'll tell you exactly who. That is a promise you can keep.

Do not start problem-solving their workload. It will feel like the useful thing you can offer. In the first conversation it reads as moving on.

Ask what they want to happen next. People frequently have a clear answer, and it is usually smaller than you expect.

What to say afterwards

Before they leave the room, agree three things:

1. Who you are going to tell, and when. Usually HR or occupational health, sometimes nobody yet.
2. What happens to their work in the next few days. Ambiguity here is its own stressor — "we'll sort it" is not an answer.
3. When you will speak next. A specific time, this week. Not "my door is always open", which puts the burden of the next move on the person least able to make it.

Who you may tell

You are not bound to silence, and you are not free to tell everyone.

The principle is proportionality: share what is necessary, with people who need it to act, and tell the person what you have shared. In practice that usually means HR and possibly occupational health — not their team, not their previous manager, not a colleague who is also a friend.

Never disclose it to their team. If work needs redistributing, "they're on adjusted duties for a while" is sufficient and true.

Record what was said and what you agreed, factually and without diagnosis. That record protects them as much as you.

The two mistakes

Doing nothing, because you are afraid of doing it wrong. By far the more common. The manager who says nothing for three weeks because they are still working out the right words has communicated something, and it is not what they intended.

Taking it all on yourself. The other failure: becoming their counsellor, checking in daily, carrying it alone, and burning out in a fortnight. You are not their treatment. Being a decent manager who has arranged the right things is the whole job.

What a manager is and is not responsible for →

What actually helps, over the following months

• Practical adjustments, agreed in writing and reviewed. Hours, deadlines, meetings, on-call.
• Time off for appointments without it coming out of annual leave.
• Consistency. The same short check-in, at the same time, for far longer than feels necessary.
• Not treating a good week as the end of it. They seem better, so the worst is over →

Look after yourself

You have just absorbed something heavy, probably with no warning, and there is usually no provision for that at all.

Tell someone — your own manager, occupational health, or a helpline, which takes calls from people supporting someone else. That is not weakness on your part; it is the thing that makes you still useful in six months.