Psychological Safety and Dealing with Workplace Mental Health Issues? The Canadians have the answer!

I’ve been looking into supporting workers with mental health issues in the workplace. It’s a sticky topic, that’s not to be taken lightly. After going down the research rabbit hole, I found the Canadians have the answer! See The National Standard of Canada titled Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace – Prevention, promotion and guidance to staged implementation.

 

What’s in it?

This standard is awesome because apart from being free it has implementation guidelines for large enterprise, medium-sized business and SME’s. It covers:

• The identification of psychological hazards in the workplace;
• How to assess and control the risks in the workplace associated with hazards that cannot be eliminated (e.g. stressors due to organizational change or reasonable job demands);
• How to support and promote psychological health and safety in the workplace;
• The implementation of systems of measurement and review to ensure the sustainability of the overall approach

How Would Your Workplace Rate for Psychological Safety?

Think about how you would prove that your business:

1. Cares about how the physical work environment impacts the mental health of workers?
2. Has workers that feel safe (not concerned or anxious) about their working environment;
3. Has work schedules that allow for reasonable rest periods;
4. Takes all health and safety concerns seriously, including mental health;
5. Ensures workers get sufficient training to perform their work safely;
6. Assesses the psychological demands of the jobs and the job environment to determine if it presents a hazard to workers’ health and safety;
7. Is committed to minimising unnecessary stress at work;
8. Has immediate supervisors that care about workers’ emotional well-being;
9. Has a process in place to intervene if an employee looks distressed while at work;
10. Makes efforts to prevent harm to workers from harassment, bullying, discrimination, violence, or stigma if they suffer from a mental illness.
11. Worker opinions and suggestions are considered with respect and workers are informed of important changes that can impact how their work is done; and

How can an employer end up in trouble in Canada?

Your workplace could be deemed ‘psychologically unsafe’ in Canada (and probably in NZ if a smart employment lawyer picks up the case) if you ignore one of the following:

1. a) Job demands and requirements of effort: Job demands consistently and chronically exceed worker skill levels or exploit them beyond what would be considered reasonable for a particular type of undertaking, or where work is distributed inequitably.
2. b) Job control or influence: Discretion over the means, manner, and methods of their work (including “voice” or the perceived freedom to express views or feelings appropriate to the situation or context) is withheld from workers by choice rather than because of the intrinsic nature of the work.
3. c) Reward: Praise, recognition, acknowledgement, and credit are withheld from workers for no good business reasons.
4. d) Fairness: There is a consistent failure or refusal to recognize and accommodate the reasonable needs, rights, and claims of workers. Perceptions of such failure can arise from feelings that decisions are made without attention to due process.
5. e) Support: Support with regard to advice, direction, planning, and provision of technical and practical resources and information (to the extent that they are available within the organization) is withheld from workers by choice rather than because of some systematic constraint within the organisation.

See p 19 The National Standard of Canada titled Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace – Prevention, promotion and guidance to staged implementation.

As always, if you have anything to add to the discussion on psychological safety and mental health workplace mental health please call Sarah on 0272 007 680 or email sarah@employmenow.co.nz.

Have a safe and productive week,

SB