The section Commitment, Leadership, and Participation (4.2) in the National Standard on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace asks that “Management shall ensure that the responsibilities and authorities related to the Psychological Health and Safety Management System are defined and communicated throughout the organization”. The following can help with this.
Participation and engagement
People are more likely to commit to participating in psychological health and safety initiatives if:
- They understand what's in it for them.
- Their fears about potential changes or required effort are addressed.
Messaging can help engage both labour and management to support psychological health and safety at work.
Examples of messages to adapt for your organization:
- Our organization commits to protecting the health and safety of all employees. This includes psychological health and safety.
- This is an organization-wide program, involving all employees. Everyone has a role to play and we’ll be asking for your help. This might include:
- Helping to identify approaches, policies, or processes that support psychological health and safety
- Providing your input on areas for improvement
- Commenting on areas where we’re already doing well
- We will not be focusing on individual health information. We'll look at how organizational policies, processes, procedures, and interactions affect employee health and safety. Anyone with specific mental or physical health needs can access resources through our (insert specific resources – e.g. occupational health, wellness, human resources, Employee Assistance Program).
- Senior management and the union (if applicable) commits to building psychological health and safety into all operations.
- This initiative is a priority for the organization. Accountability will be built into the process at all levels. This will be a thoughtful and measured approach. This ensures that the outcomes improve the psychological health and safety of all employees.
If possible, begin by getting commitment from the most senior leadership in the form of a policy statement. A supportive statement from a senior leader can help stakeholders see the commitment to change.
Senior leaders
Make senior leaders aware of the legal, ethical and economic benefits of a psychological health and safety management system.
Review Psychological health and safety cost benefits for more information.
Dr. Martin Shain, an academic lawyer, shows emerging case law is holding employers responsible for providing a psychologically safe workplace. Research shows that a psychologically healthy workplace can be more profitable and have higher rates of employee loyalty. See Additional resources below for some of his work.
20 Questions for leaders about psychological health and safety can help senior leaders become aware of the issues and potential solutions.
Psychological health and safety statistics are also available.
Union representatives
Any union's meaningful participation early on in the process can be critical. Unions can support ongoing success of psychological health and safety at work. Also, see Union and management cooperation.
- Recognize that worker well-being is a shared responsibility between unions and management.
- Strengthen the relationships between union and management. Take a collaborative, positive approach to psychological health and safety.
- Leverage union involvement to help sustain a psychologically healthy and safe workplace.
- If you are complying with the Standard, ensure union buy-in and participation as part of the implementation.
The goal of implementing a psychological health and safety management system is to help protect worker psychological health and safety. We'll do this by addressing organizational and environmental factors. Union participation is critical to success. Union leadership should play an active role in planning, implementing and evaluating this work.
Employees
Get commitment from employees through participation in a collaborative process. This is important because psychological health and safety is affected by the way employees interact each day. Things to consider when creating a key message to share with employees:
- Address employee skepticism. Were there past initiatives that failed? Are there challenges with relationships between managers and employees?
- Be clear the approach is about improving the organization’s psychological health and safety management system. This isn't focused on addressing employee personal health concerns. Make sure employees know this won't focus on private medical information or assessing their mental health.
- If there are issues, turn the focus toward solutions rather than blame. Ask leaders to step up and take responsibility for any existing or recent challenges. This can help even if they were not involved in the cause of the challenge.
- Get employees involved. A series of workshop materials is available to explore each of the psychosocial factors with your team.
- This initiative is not about your personal health status. It is about our organization's impact on the health and well-being of all employees.
- To help ensure our policies reflect our culture, we’ll examine our existing processes. We’ll consider how they might better support positive organizational culture. This will include how employees best work together and support one another. If someone at work has supported you, please email (insert contact information) to share how.
Middle management
- Recognize the daily efforts of middle management to support a healthy and safe workplace.
- The Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment shares strategies to address psychological health and safety at work. It also helps leaders with communication, social intelligence, fairness, and problem-solving.
- Provide support and resources to help motivate leaders to take part and contribute.
- Approaches for people leaders provides effective strategies to develop leadership skills. These include team building and supporting employee success on the job.
- Recognize leaders' concerns about engaging their employees in discussions about psychological health and safety. This includes worries about pushback, negativity, time commitment, unreasonable demands, or concern that the discussion is outside their expertise.
- On the agenda is a series of free workshop materials and facilitator tools to address psychosocial factors. Create an action plan with your team to improve psychological health and safety.
- Managing employees can be challenging. This is true in times of high demand, emotional distress, conflict or trauma. An effective psychological health and safety management system can help you address these issues. This has the intent and potential to reduce your own workplace stress.
- Our managers have done their best to resolve workplace issues. New strategies can help support different ways to address employee issues and improve the comfort level of our managers. This can help reduce manager stress and increase their effectiveness. We look forward to working with and supporting managers in fostering psychological health and safety at work.
Additional resources
Weathering the Perfect Legal Storm – A Bird's Eye View by Martin Shain, S.J.D.| PDF
Weathering the Perfect Legal Storm – Analysis and Commentary by Martin Shain, S.J.D.| PDF
An update to the seminal Tracking the Perfect Legal Storm report, Weathering the Perfect Legal Storm describes the evolving legal duty for employers to provide a psychologically safe system of work in the context of the voluntary National Standard of Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace.