ON THE JOB
Mental health stigma lingers in workplace
Even after two decades of researching psychological health and safety, Joti Samra is still surprised at how many people are hesitant to speak up about mental illness in their workplaces.
This is in stark contrast to how normalized it is for people to discuss physical health issues with co-workers and employees, and Samra said there should not be any distinction in how comfortable people feel talking about the two.
“Ultimately it comes down to stereotypes and shame and stigma that people have about talking about (mental health) openly,” said the CEO and founder of My workplace health .“The biggest issue is a lot of places still have fear about, ‘My goodness, if I start to talk about this, what’s that going to mean?’”
As the keynote speaker at Worksafe Saskatchewan’s second annual psychological health and safety learning event, Samra said Saskatchewan — like the rest of the country — continues to face the challenge of creating psychologically safe workplaces.
In her presentation, she noted that mental health and physical health issues often go hand-inhand, with 70 to 80 per cent of people with one also reporting the other. Samra said this shows a need to view physical and mental health as intertwined, and that many of the contributing factors are the same for both.
Kevin Mooney, vice-president of prevention and employer services for the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB), said the WCB has seen a 142 per cent increase in mental health claims over the last two years, although these claims still only make up a mere 1.2 per cent of all work-related claims.
While many might look at the drastic rise in mental health claims as a bad sign, Samra said this is actually a positive sign that the stigma around mental health in the workplace is dropping and that people are beginning to use the tools available to them.
To take a physically safe workplace and transform it into a psychologically safe workplace as well, Samra said employers need to raise awareness of mental health and then take steps to see employees have the supports they need.
“This is the biggest health issue that we deal with as a society, is just psychological health problems … Yet there just still continues to be so many barriers that people have to understanding that, which I think I still find confusing at times,” she said.
Mooney said the province’s employers are doing a good job of raising awareness around mental health, but now the jump needs to be made from awareness to action, and employers are looking for more tools to help make that jump.
“Now it’s how do we distil that and turn it into action, so that’s kind of where we’re going with our next steps in our strategy.”
Samra said one place employers can start in bringing about change is the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, a voluntary set of standards developed to help educate employers on ways they can make tangible changes.
Now it’s how do we distil that and turn it into action.