Employers need to have better mental health supports in place

Dr. Ryan Todd says wellness needs to be a core initiative.

Since the Bell Let's Talk campaign began just over a decade ago, discussion of mental well-being has become more widespread and acceptable in almost every circle. However, general acknowledgment of the issue has not led to resources being available at the levels necessary to serve Canadians — and with the effects of the pandemic likely to stick around for a while, it could become an even bigger problem.

Experts have coined the term “echo pandemic,” where we'll be facing a widespread mental health epidemic that follows COVID-19. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, about 1.6 million Canadians had unmet health-care needs before the pandemic began, and current studies have shown that 84 per cent of survey respondents are concerned about family well-being, the future, isolation and loneliness.

Concern about job security and professional growth has been reported by 43 per cent of people, which is also fuelling anxieties. Other surveys have shown that nearly 70 per cent of employees say the pandemic has been the most stressful time of their entire careers, a number that aligns with increases in new prescriptions for antidepressants, anti-anxiety and anti-insomnia medications. Turning to other, non-prescription substances has been widely reported as a coping mechanism, too: some 17 per cent responded as having increased substance use.

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance has been a topic of conversation for years, but the pandemic's record levels of unemployment and remote workers have led to more than one in five people reporting they think about work outside of office hours more than they used to. Additionally, more than half of workers say it's become harder to maintain boundaries between home and career.

One way that companies can mitigate these problems is through preventive mental health programs. Three-quarters of workers have reported struggling at their job because of the pandemic and 80 per cent would consider changing roles if another employer placed more emphasis on employee mental health. Here there may be a disconnect in employee needs and employer perception of those needs, as only around one-third of organizations currently invest in mental health programming for their staff.

Bell Let's Talk has done great work promoting mental health through its four pillars of anti-stigma, care and access, research and workplace health. But there is still plenty of work to be done on the latter. Mental illness is a leading cause of workplace disability claims, with one in three being attributed to it, according to Let's Talk.

This shows that while our perceptions and willingness to seek help may have changed, the push for mental health programs must continue to grow. Companies who take this into consideration and understand the benefits of mental health programming are likely to see increased productivity, not to mention morale.

Since employees spend a third of their lives working, companies must factor in the mental well-being of their staff. Some 97 per cent of workers say that it's important for companies to make mental health resources a priority, but only around 40 per cent feel like they can let their company know when they aren't feeling physically or mentally well.

This discrepancy cannot continue in the wake of COVID-19, when mental health support is needed more than ever.

If we've learned anything this year, it's that failure to plan for or react quickly to health concerns can have disastrous effects. Employers can no longer afford to view mental health as a “nice to have” that is impacting a small fraction of their workforce. Instead, it must emerge as a core business initiative that needs to be addressed organization-wide. Failing to recognize this will risk diminishing employee morale, performance and losing talent altogether, all of which are crippling to the bottom line.

As we look to the future of mental health in Canada, we need to understand the issues we're facing aren't going away anytime soon. After a year that has forever changed the workplace, mental health support must similarly adapt, both tactically and conceptually, to get Canadians the support they deserve.