Yahoo Finance Changes in the workplace impacting Canadians' mental health
Last week’s Let’s Talk Day mental health campaign from Bell hit record numbers, with close to 132 million interactions between smartphones and social media, prompting the telecom to donate $6,585,250.50 – 5 cents per interaction – towards Canadian mental health programs.
The 4.6 per cent rise from last year’s Let’s Talk Day signifies a growing chorus of voices discussing mental health both at home and in the workplace.
Dr. E. Kevin Kelloway, editor of the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science and Canada Research Chair in occupational health psychology at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax says that while there’s nothing new to the notion that two in 10 Canadians will experience a mental health disorder in any given year, we’re more likely to talk about it than we have in the past.
“I think that’s huge… we’ve literally changed the whole culture around this,” he says likening it to the major shift in attitudes surrounding smoking. “It’s that magnitude of change for something that was so embedded in all our lives.”
He points out that workplaces have begun to adapt to the discussion and incorporate strategies surrounding managing mental health and wellbeing in the workplace like the voluntary standards for psychological health and safety in the workplace, spurred on by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), and put in place by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) in 2013.
“I wouldn’t argue that we’ve hit that whole-scale change yet or that (all) organizations are now on board and taking it seriously but I think they’re moving in that direction,” says Kelloway.
And according to the MHCC, they need to be; during any given week more than 500,000 Canadians will not go to work because of mental illness. The commission pegs the loss to the Canadian economy as a result of mental illness at around $51 billion each year.
One of the biggest triggers for negative wellbeing is organizational change, says Kelloway.
A recent study by human resources consultants Morneau Shepell found four-in-10 Canadians say changes like team restructuring, downsizing/layoffs, job re-design, office re-design and mergers negatively affected their health and wellbeing.
“Organizational change is increasingly common and the period of time between changes seem to be shrinking,” says Paula Allen, vice president of research and integrative solutions at Morneau Shepell. “We’re probably looking at a future where that change is going to accelerate rather than decelerate.”
According to the survey of 1,000 Canadians, two thirds (66 per cent) of respondents have experienced at least one change at their current job.
But the key to countering the challenge lies in the work culture. The survey found 75 per cent say addressing work culture is the most important issue when it comes to mental illness in the workplace followed by addressing employees’ willingness to get help and supporting coping skills and resilience. Reducing the stigma amongst employees and managers also sits high on the list of concerns.
Allen says that when the firm looked at the different types of changes, “job re-design” seemed to be one of the most impactful incidents for employee wellbeing.
“That does make sense because what somebody does on a daily basis, how they’re evaluated… that’s as personal as you can probably get,” she says.
But it’s a realm where organizations could do better, especially when it comes to smaller changes that may only impact a small portion of the team, albeit in a more extreme way.
“Organizations spend a lot of time on planning and communication (for mergers) but they might not on some of the other things that only effect a handful of employees,” says Allen. That’s why communication between employees and their employers needs to be built right into the work culture, with resources and employee assistance for workers more sensitive to change.
“What was clear in our data was that how the organization related to employees every day even prior to change was the real defining factor to how well they weathered organizational change,” she added.
Kelloway says he agrees, that primary intervention shouldn’t be overlooked by organizations going forward. Changing the communication strategy, keeping employees in the loop and giving them the resources necessary to manage their mental health should be a part of any organizational culture.
“Everybody says we resist change and I guess that’s true but we resist change when it comes from outside – it’s really that you lose a lot of control over your environment,” says Kelloway. “Whereas if you institute the change yourself it probably doesn’t bother you as much – the big difference there is who’s in control.”