On the button
Mental health awareness every day at BioVectra as company adopts Not Myself Today campaign
Lester Wood doesn’t have to do too much investigative work to initially find out how employees at BioVectra are feeling on any given day.
Since 2017, the Charlottetown-based BioVectra has adopted the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Not Myself Today year-round mental health awareness button wearing campaign.
“The whole intent behind it is to destigmatize mental health issues in the workplace,” said Wood, BioVectra’s executive director of human resources.
The campaign gives the biotech company’s 403 employees at their Charlottetown and Windsor, N.S., facilities the option to wear a colourful button with a variety of short messages about how they’re feeling, such as “deflated”, “grumpy”, “cheeky”, “indifferent”, “foggy”, “refreshed”, “confused”, “blah”, “meh” and “peachy”.
“Peachy is kind of neutral. It could be sarcastic, or it could be a very positive peachy,” said Wood.
“It just invites conversation and it also tells people when you’re having a really great day or you’re not having a great day. (We) might be able to step in and help you solve whatever the issues are or at least talk about it.”
Wood adds that a button saying “frazzled” may let a manager know that it may be a good idea to adjust a deadline and not ask for an assignment early.
It is also an invitation to ask why someone is frazzled, especially if the button is worn more than once.
Katriona MacNeil, an industrial hygienist with BioVectra’s health and safety group, brought the idea to Wood and the HR group about three years ago after seeing the buttons displayed in another business. She said one of the more popular buttons is “hangry” – a combination of hungry and angry.
The button campaign is just one of BioVectra’s mental health initiatives that falls under the core value of caring about employees, Wood said.
“This year, we’re trying to make sure we’ve got something going on every month. So, a guest speaker or a topic of the month to keep mental health at the forefront of everyone’s mind,” he said.
Wood said the company hasn’t been tracking any possible connections between the button campaign and related issues, such as fewer sick days. But one thing he has noticed is that employees are coming to him with more complex issues than they have in the past. In cases when an employee is dealing with depression and it’s affecting work, he’ll invite the employee’s spouse into the office to get the process started to hopefully resolve the issue.
“As much as you like to think you separate work and home, you really don’t,” he said.
MacNeil added that even without statistics tracking the program, management saw that it was a valuable idea to implement.
“That was really positive,” she said.
Even though Wood and MacNeil are leading the program at BioVectra, they are also employees who have bad days like everyone else. MacNeil has worn a “meh” button in the past and Wood has worn a “blah” one.
Wood said this initiative is something all companies should consider as long as they are large enough with a management group that can support the program and understands how to help employees.
Participating in the program costs BioVectra $5 per employee a year.
“Everybody can afford that. There’s very few organizations out there that don’t have that little bit of money. I think it pays back tenfold easily,” he said.
The CMHA’s website says that since 2013, more than 400 companies and organizations have signed up for the program. More information on the program can be found at www.notmyselftoday.ca/.