WorkSafe Saskatchewan launches online mental health resource centre for Sask. businesses
WorkSafe Saskatchewan has announced the launch of a new online mental health resource centre to provide employers and employees with the tools to make their workplaces psychologically healthy. The Psychological Health and Safety Resource Centre was developed by a partnership with the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board and Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety. The online resource centre utilizes the expertise of national expert Dr. Joti Samra, CEO and founder of workplace consulting firm MyWorkplaceHealth. Samra was one of the researchers who helped develop a national standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace in Canada, one of the first of its kind in the world. Hosted on WorkSafe Sask’s website, the resource centre offers evidence-based resources — including information sources, webinars, workshops and more — to help businesses support their staff’s mental well-being by developing their own programs surrounding psychological health. “We know that when we can protect and take care of people and give supports all around the range of things that impact psychological health,” said Samra. “And we know that ultimately, psychological health isn’t about policies and procedures, but about relationships, how we relate, how we communicate, how we lead and support, and so it's very win-win for an organization to make sure they’re addressing this.”
Improved psychological health support benefits not only employees’ health, said Samra, but also a number of overall factors for businesses, including employee retention, recruitment, engagement and productivity.
“The high-level aim was to create an engaging and inviting and practical resource portal where employers of all sizes, all the way from small mom-and-pop owner-operated businesses to larger organizations, could [utilize],” said Samra. Vice-president of prevention Kevin Mooney from WCB said the launch of the new online centre is part of a long-term strategy to improve mental health supports for workers in the province.
The WCB is also looking to expand support resources made available to highrisk sectors, like frontline and emergency workers, to address unique needs more effectively.
The service is expected to especially target individuals working in high-risk sectors, now labelled as frontline workers, which the WCB determined using data from the past year.
“We’ve seen in Saskatchewan workplaces dealing with a number of unique challenges [and] that only reinforces the importance of providing Saskatchewan employers with the tools they need to support the psychological health and safety of their workers,” said Mooney.
The WCB has received about 1,128 psychological injury claims since 2016, with a marked increase in claims submitted in 2020.
Samra said that statistics report that each year, 20 per cent of Canadians receive a diagnosis of a psychological concern but that number is estimated to have more than doubled during the pandemic. The online resource centre is the first of its kind in Canada, and Mooney hopes that it will prompt other provinces to look at Saskatchewan’s model as an example. The national workplace standard for psychological health and safety is also a voluntary standard, said Samra, but employers are encouraged to find out more. The Psychological Health and Safety Resource Centre can be found online as worksafesask.ca, under the Resources tab.