SHARING THE RESPONSIBILITY
Barbara Mildon, vice president, Professional
Practice, HR and Research and chief
nurse executive at Ontario Shores Centre
for Mental Health Sciences, encourages
employees who are tasked with the responsibility
of implementing psychological
health and safety to reach out to peers to
achieve a broader view.
“Working in this way is helping to add
rigour to our implementation, processes
and to our outcome evaluation,” she said,
emphasizing the need to be strategic and
results-focused. “We are absolutely motivated
to achieve results, and not in just in a
token way. We want the results to be robust
and meaningful.”
Drawing on CCOHS’s experience and
total health mandate, Defreitas challenges
the mindset that ensuring psychologically
healthy and safe workplaces is an “HR
thing.” She said, “Workplace health and
safety is everyone’s responsibility, only now
it includes mental health.”
develop and implement policies and procedures to
the workplace. CREVAWC can help with training that
training to prepare everyone in your workplace to
Mildon agrees: “It all comes back to that
notion of responsibility and accountability,
which we need to have in place on a day-today
basis.”
SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES
Mildon says her organization has successfully
mapped each of the psychosocial
factors outlined in the Standard against its
most recent employee engagement survey
results, which has helped them determine
the areas on which they need to focus.
She reaffirms the importance of having
the support of senior leadership.
“The project gets direct oversight from
our senior management team, which includes
directors and vice-presidents,” she
said. “That means that it is discussed at a
high level and decisions are made collectively,
with CEO support.”
Defreitas says the CCOHS team had
worried they might run into “survey fatigue”
when they used Guarding Minds @ Work
early in the implementation phase of the
Domestic Violence is
a workplace issue.
Learn how to:
Recognize, Respond
and Refer.
Education and training
for workplaces.
Community experts provide support to help you deal with
violence in the workplace. The training options are:
Did you know?
Domestic violence costs workplaces in Canada more than $7 billion per year as a result of work time, reduced productivity, increased accidents, and employee turnover.
■
■ 54% of victims of domestic violence miss three or more days of work a month.
■ 25% of employee’s report they have worked with someone they knew was a victim of
domestic violence.
Are you prepared?
■ The creation of safe and supportive workplaces is in everyone’s best interest and everyone
has a role to play.
■ Ontario employers now have an obligation under the Ontario Occupational Health and
violence in their workplaces.
Safety Act to address domestic violence in their workplaces.
We can help!
Many work places struggle as they try to develop and implement policies and procedures to
prevent and address domestic violence in the workplace. CREVAWC can help with training is customized to employer and employee needs.
intensive workshop for a team with the designated
domestic violence in your workplace. This training
Make It Our Business
Make It Our Business
problem solving skills.
is an hour long session designed to give all
as well as directions for further self-directed study.
health & safety
Standard as a means of assessing current
workplace psychological health.
“We managed to carve out a two-week
window for the survey and saw an 83 per
cent response rate,” said Defreitas. “Clearly
this is important to our employees. This
has opened up a healthy dialogue and we’re
seeing increased employee engagement and
decreased social stigma associated with
mental health issues.”
SUPPORTING THE JOURNEY
The HR professionals who were interviewed
agree that sharing these findings is
an invaluable step in helping other organizations
either get started or continue on the
journey toward psychologically healthy and
safe workplaces.
Sinclair and her colleagues all express
their appreciation for being involved in the
case study.
“This takes implementation of the
Standard to a whole new level,” she said. “It’s
setting the path for others to succeed.” n
Did you know?
Domestic violence costs workplaces in Canada
more than $7 billion per year as a result of lost
work time, reduced productivity,
increased accidents, and employee turnover.
Did you know?
Domestic violence costs workplaces in Canada more than $7 billion per year as a result of lost
work time, reduced productivity,■
increased accidents, and employee turnover.
■ 54% of victims of domestic violence miss three or more days of work a month.
Did you know?
Domestic violence costs workplaces in Canada more than $7 billion per year as a result of lost
work time, reduced productivity, increased accidents, and employee turnover.
■ 25% of employee’s report they have worked with someone they knew was a victim of
domestic violence.
Are you prepared?
■
■ The creation of safe and supportive workplaces is in everyone’s best interest and everyone
■ 54% of victims of domestic violence miss three or more days of work a month.
has a role to play.
T. 519.661.2111 x87486 www.makeitourbusiness.com
■ Ontario employers now have an obligation under the Ontario Occupational Health and
■ 25% of employee’s report they have worked with someone they knew was a victim of
Safety Act to address domestic violence in their workplaces.
■
■ 54% of victims of domestic violence miss three or more days of work a month.
■ 25% of employee’s report they have worked with someone they knew was a victim of
domestic violence.
Are you prepared?
■ The creation of safe and supportive workplaces is in everyone’s best interest and everyone
HRPATODAY.CA ❚ FEBRUARY 2015 ❚ 39