October is Healthy Workplace Month. This month promotes a healthy mind, body, and organizational culture.
Employee mental health is one of the most important issues facing workplaces today.
Half a million Canadians miss work each week due to mental illness, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. The economic burden of mental illness in Canada is estimated at $51 billion annually, the organization adds.
Workplace factors can significantly impact mental well-being. Daily stress, unsustainable workloads, lack of work-life balance, unpredictability in schedules, and monotonous work can all contribute to employee burnout. Poor organizational communication practices, a lack of support from colleagues and managers, harassment, bullying, and discrimination also play a role.
A supportive and productive workplace invests in the mental wellness of employees. Every organization is different, and there is no one way to build a mentally healthy workplace. But there are strategies that can support mental health.
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario, and The Health Communication Unit at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, these include:
Valuing work-life balance: A supportive environment recognizes that there is a balance between the demands of work and an employee’s personal life.
Employee involvement in decision making: Employees should have opportunities to participate in how important decisions are made in the organization and in their own work.
Defining the employee’s job role: Clear expectations helps employees understand what they need to do and how their work contributes to their teams and organization.
Seeking respectful behaviours and having conflict resolution practices and plans in place: A supportive workplace does not tolerate harassment, discrimination, verbal, or physical abuse on the job and responds swiftly. It encourages respect and consideration for one another, and with clients, customers, and the public.
Managing workloads: The work environment enables the employee to complete tasks within timeframes that are reasonable.
Providing opportunities for continuous learning: Employees have opportunities that support their growth and development.
Recognizing employees’ contributions effectively: Employees should be recognized and rewarded in a timely manner for their efforts.
Possible outcomes of implementing a workplace mental health program include benefits for both employers and employees – improved morale and employee satisfaction, creativity, productivity, and reduced medical leave, injuries and accidents, and staff turnover among others.
In partnership with community counselling services, companies can consider setting up an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) to offer counselling support to their employees, invite a speaker, arrange a custom workshop, or participate in a company-wide mental wellness awareness campaign.
Where these types of programs were once considered “nice to have” initiatives, in the fallout of the pandemic, it has become a critical business imperative for a resilient organization.
