Canadian HR Strategy

4 Executive Series Digest hrreporter.com ADVERTISING INDEX Brock University www.brocku.ca/education/ futurestudents/adulted ................9 DLGL Ltd. www.dlgl.com ............................ 32 Human Resources Professionals Association www.hrpa.ca/HRsubscriber ..... 11 Osgoode Professional Development www.osgoodepd.ca ................... 10 Strategic Capability Network www.scnetwork.ca .................... 30 Sun Life Financial www.sunlife.ca .............................5 Venngo Inc. www.venngo.com/executive ........2 EDITORS NOTES I f your organization isn't tackling mental health in a proactive manner, with a well thought-out strategy, it's playing a danger- ous game with the bottom line. e numbers are staggering. One in fi ve Canadians will experience a mental health problem or illness in any given year, ac- cording to the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC). Nearly one-third of short- and long-term disability claims in the country are attributed to mental health and it costs the economy $51 billion per year. A good chunk of that total — $20 billion — stems directly from work- place losses. at's a pretty big el- ephant in the room. Some employers have expressed frustration about a "sudden mental health epi- demic" that seems to have erupted among em- ployees. But there is no epidemic — it's just that the stigma is, slowly, being chipped away. People are less inclined to suff er in silence, and that's not a bad thing. One of the very fi rst employment law cases I read as a journalist covering workplace issues was the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in Wallace v. United Grain Growers. e case wasn't about mental health, per se, but rather about how a worker was treated in the manner of his dismissal. In the ruling, the court pointed out that "work is one of the most fundamental aspects in a person's life, providing the individual with a means of fi nancial support and… a contributor role in society." at quote stuck with me, because it's true: Work is a defi ning feature of most people's lives. e fi rst question at a cocktail party is invariably "What do you do?" So it's hardly surprising that mental health issues manifest themselves so fre- quently at the workplace. ankfully, employers don't have to look very far for assistance in cra ing eff ective mental health strategies. e MHCC, in col- laboration with the CSA Group and Bureau de normalisation in Quebec, took the wraps off a National Standard for Psycholog- ical Health and Safety in January. As reported earlier this year in Canadian HR Reporter, it "provides a systemic approach to developing a psychologically healthy and safe workplace, in- cluding identifying hazards, as- sessing and controlling risks, growing a culture to promote a healthy, safe workplace and im- plementing measurement and review systems to ensure sus- tainability." To further the discussion on workplace mental health, Canadian HR Reporter hosted a special roundtable, bringing together a group of seven experts to talk about the standard and what employers can do to address mental health. It was a fascinating conversation, kicked off by a poignant story from Brian Knowler, a staff sergeant with a police service in Ontario, that put a human face on all the fi gures and statistics. First responders may be more likely to face trau- matic incidents than the general population, but post-traumatic stress disorder — which Knowl- er was diagnosed with — can occur in any role at any organization. You can get a fl avour of the conversation in the cover story of this issue, but it doesn't end there. We also fi lmed the roundtable and we'll be releasing a series of videos from the dis- cussion. Visit www.hrreporter.com/mental healthroundtable for more information. THERE IS NO 'SUDDEN MENTAL HEALTH EPIDEMIC' — IT'S JUST THE STIGMA IS SLOWLY BEING CHIPPED AWAY AND PEOPLE ARE LESS INCLINED TO SUFFER IN SILENCE. FIRMS CAN'T IGNORE MENTAL HEALTH TODD HUMBER

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