Canadian Safety Reporter

©2015 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-7798-2810-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher (Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business). Canadian Safety Reporter is part of the Canadian HR Reporter group of publications: • Canadian HR Reporter — www.hrreporter.com • Canadian Occupational Safety magazine — www.cos-mag.com • Canadian Payroll Reporter — www.payroll-reporter.com • Canadian Employment Law Today — www.employmentlawtoday.com • Canadian Labour Reporter — www.labour-reporter.com See carswell.com for information Safety Reporter Canadian www.safetyreporter.com Published 12 times a year by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Subscription rate: $129 per year Customer Service Tel: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5106 E-mail: carswell.customerrelations @thomsonreuters.com Website: www.carswell.com One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Road Toronto, Ontario, Canada M1T 3V4 Director, Carswell Media Karen Lorimer Publisher John Hobel (On leave) Associate Publisher/Managing Editor Todd Humber Lead Editor Sarah Dobson Assistant Editor Mallory Hendry (On Leave) Assistant Editor Anastasiya Jogal Contributing Editors Liz Foster Sabrina Nanji Liz Bernier Jeffrey R. Smith Marketing Manager Mohammad Ali mm.ali@thomsonreuters.com (416) 609-5866 Circulation Co-ordinator Keith Fulford keith.fulford@thomsonreuters.com (416) 649-9585 "The stress and mental injury related to a particular incident can be quite traumatic to indi- viduals; both the physical injury and the resulting trauma after- wards can be quite difficult," said Genesove. The emotional and mental trauma followed by an attack needs to be dealt with accord- ingly, because violence breeds violence. "If they are injured due to vio- lence in the workplace, they are no longer available to provide their high level of services, so that's a huge problem for the sys- tem," he said. Besides addressing the ergo- nomic and musculoskeletal issues that are the most promin- ent physical workplace injuries, preventative measures, victim fallout issues and investigating the attack all need to be com- bined into a strategy to address the ongoing negative trend, said Genesove. The roundtable plans to de- velop recommendations and action items for four work- ing groups to address various elements of the problem at hand. The groups will include leadership and accountability, resources and intervention, communication and knowledge translation, and evaluation and reporting, he said. "All places are required to have a violence prevention policy and a violence prevention program." relations and to engage in sup- portive behaviours. "Sometimes organizations might not always think about… the relations among co-workers, helping to foster the co-worker relationship. And so (it's about) having an understanding that it's really important for your em- ployees to have these strong in- terpersonal relationships," said McCarthy. That can mean training that fosters trust and commitment among workers, or informal strategies that allow workers to interact on a personal level, she said, such as employee lounges. "They're engaging and they truly allow for work recovery, they allow for workers to have fun and not necessarily be thinking about the stresses of the job." Some employers probably could care less and just look at productivity and the bot- tom line, said Trougakos, but it would be ideal for companies and employees to build situa- tions that build relations, such as social functions or mentoring relationships. "When we think about anxi- ety, a lot of companies… look at it as maybe like some sort of larg- er problem that a person's having that they might tie with depres- sion and other factors in their life but a lot of times companies have to realize that work itself can be the most anxiety-inducing thing in people's lives," he said. Part of the irony is managers don't get too concerned when they're watching someone with anxiety, said Mary Ann Baynton, program director at Workplace Strategies for Mental Health, an initiative of the Great-West Life Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace. "That person is often very fo- cused on trying to do the right thing and until they are no lon- ger able to function, people just let it go. Whereas because de- pression is more likely to impact productivity early on, we would be concerned and we're more likely to act," she said. "The thing about anxiety or burnout is that once it has reached that tipping point, it's a long road back and managers should be concerned and should be trying to intervene early on to save themselves, their teams, the workplace and the individual from the worst effects of chronic anxiety." Issues such as precarious work, a lack of clarity, conflict, economic uncertainty or job in- security can cause anxiety levels to rise, said Baynton. "Some research has said that there's actually more people in the workplace managing anxi- ety than there are people in the workplace dealing with depres- sion. The other piece around that is often depression and anxiety will go hand in hand, that one feeds the other." And there is evidence work- place anxiety is on the rise, said McCarthy. "Employees are often feeling like they need to do more with less; many companies are down- sizing and restructuring and em- ployees that are remaining in the organization are feeling pressure to keep their jobs and maintain these high levels of productivity; and some of them are in fact re- quired to do more because now there's less resources — so these are very real and very concern- ing issues," she said. "Organizations are more and more coming to terms and re- ally recognizing the importance of thinking about anxiety among their workers, ensuring they don't have a stressed-out work- force because, really, what we're showing is that it comes at a very high cost." CSR | October 2015 | News Health care < pg. 2 Roundtable to develop recommendations Anxiety < pg. 3 High cost to having stressed-out employees

• Cover