Mental health is everyone’s business and workplaces have a role to play in this conversation, according to Krista Benes, program manager of workplace mental health at the Mental Health Commission of Canada.
“Mental health is a predominant issue, not only in the workplace, but for all of us,” she said, speaking at the 2018 Mental Health Summit Vancouver on Dec. 11. “One in five people in Canada live with a mental illness, and that’s in relation to one in 25 people living in Canada with heart disease or one in 15 with type 2 diabetes. Really good mental health is not just the absence of mental illness, because it can fluctuate and vary over the course of a day even. It can be affected by everyday life stressors, including those experiences in the workplace.”
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Every week, 500,000 Canadians miss work because of a mental-health issue, according to a study by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. By accommodating a person living with mental illness, employer savings over a five-year period ranged from $56,000 and $204,000, the study found. And employee savings ranged from $31,000 and $67,000.
The key themes that emerged from the research, said Benes, included creating an environment that has safety and respect, which includes a culture of inclusivity, where things like creating access to safe spaces, positive relationships between colleagues, supportive work relationships and employee engagement all mattered.
“The second thing is around accommodation for workers living with a mental illness,” said Benes. “Although some organizations in the study had explicit mandates to hire people living with mental illness, they found that people still relied on those universal benefits that were available to all people. So even in an organization where you would think the stigma of mental health would be reduced, you had people saying that when they called in sick they would still sometimes reference using a sick day to say they had a sore throat [as opposed to saying it was for a mental-health issue].”
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According to Benes, even in organizations where workplace mental health could be discussed in an open dialogue, there were still people using sick days for their mental health.
“Sometimes it’s just about creating more time and check-ins,” she said. “Sometimes it’s about writing down those tasks that somebody has to complete in their work and that’s enough to support them in doing a better job. It offers an opportunity to set priorities and create an action plan for workplaces to move forward with.”
Read more coverage from the 2018 Mental Health Summit Vancouver