Creating a Psychologically Safe Workplace: Strategies for Employers (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Promoting Mental Health in the Workplace On average, Canadians spend 60% of their waking hours working, which has the potential to impact their mental health. That's why it's important for workplaces to foster psychologically safe and healthy environments. Employers are responsible for identifying hazards in the workplace, including physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic, safety, and psychosocial hazards. Psychosocial hazards can include heavy workloads, low team engagement, a lack of opportunity to advance professionally, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, unexpected changes to responsibilities, workers not being involved in important decisions, and leaders who do not follow or uphold organizational policies and value. These psychosocial hazards can be harmful to a worker's mental health and can negatively affect the organization. Here are some ways your organization can promote positive mental health in the workplace and protect workers from psychological harm. Distribute workloads fairly among workers, set reasonable deadlines, and put plans in place during staff shortages to complete tasks. Create opportunities for work-life balance by offering paid time off and breaks. Always respect the right to disconnect outside of work hours. Set clear expectations for workers to understand what is necessary for them to accomplish their duties and help them prioritize competing tasks. Encourage civility and respect in the workplace. Saying hello, an invitation to lunch, and using respectful language go a long way in creating a positive work environment. Collaborate with others to shape your organization's mission, vision, and values. Invite them to help build a culture of trust, honesty, fairness, and accountability. Improve engagement by encouraging collaboration among team members and providing team-building and volunteering opportunities. This can be for workers to get involved in activities within your organization or the community. Meet with workers regularly to discuss their professional goals. Provide opportunities for education and training to help them achieve milestones. Face-to-face discussions, surveys, and suggestion boxes can help you gain valuable feedback from workers. Include them on important matters that affect the workplace. Put policies in place that protect your workers' physical safety. Provide workers with health and safety training and investigate any incidents immediately. Establish a safe and confidential system for workers to report incidents like bullying, harassment, or discrimination without fear of reprisal. Make mental health resources readily available to workers, such as an employee assistance program or counseling services in the community. Make sure job descriptions reflect the psychological demands on a worker. Support workers through stressful events like a workplace emergency or difficult customers. Lastly, acknowledge workers for a job well done. Find out how workers prefer to be rewarded and recognized. Communicate individual or team accomplishments widely and reward workers where possible. Examples can include bonuses, raises, team parties, or simply a sincere thank you. Good things happen when an organization protects the mental health of its workers, like better engagement, morale, satisfaction, retention, recruitment, and productivity. Take steps today towards better mental health in your workplace. To learn more, visit ccohs.ca forward slash healthy minds. Thank you.