Guarding Minds – Creating a plan

Develop the assessment plan

• Identify one or more champions from senior leadership who can secure resources. They can also help ensure commitment throughout the process.
• Establish a psychological health and safety (PHS) working group. This group should include those who will help drive the process. The goal of the working group is to plan the assessment, analysis and communications about the process. They also help steer the implementation, assessment and continual improvement stages.
  
  • Working group members should come from all levels – management, employees and employee representatives.
  • Where possible, include a representative:
    
    • From each of human resources, union, occupational health and safety and finance
    • With expertise in communications
    • With authority to access organizational data to help inform working group decisions
  • Involve others in discussion about the working group’s approach. Use this to get feedback from employees, union and management before communicating the plan to the rest of the workforce.
• The assessment project plan may include:
  
  • Objectives and success measures
  • Project scope, including the approach and resources used
  • Timeline with milestones
  • Budget
  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Implementation and communication strategies

Communicate the assessment plan

Communicate with staff openly and early in the process. This may increase participation, engagement and interest. It also gives employees time to ask questions or raise concerns.

Who to communicate to

Ensure you communicate with all  who play a role at work. This includes senior management, union representatives, line managers, occupational health and safety representatives, human resource professionals, volunteers, interns and all employees. 

What to communicate

• Support from senior leadership. Refer to the directive or policy statement from senior leadership, as described in “Get buy-in” in Readiness for Guarding Minds at Work.
• Purpose of the survey. Outline the reason why your organization is embarking on the survey and how the results will be used. If there are known issues at work, be transparent about accepting responsibility for improvement. Share the organization’s awareness that changes need to be made.
• Participation is voluntary. It’s important to emphasize your goal of gathering input from all employees. To have a balanced perspective, you need responses from as many employees as possible. You may want to support completion of  the survey by providing a specific time to complete the survey at work. Gift cards, movie passes, or a pizza lunch are ways other employers have encouraged all employees to participate.
• Confidentiality will be protected. To ensure widespread participation and honest responses, employees must be assured that any information they provide will be kept confidential. The survey results are provided in total only – individual responses are not provided. Here are some points you may want to include in communications:
  • Participation in this project is voluntary.
  • Each employee has anonymity when completing and returning their submission.
  • No personal or identifying information will be gathered. Survey respondents will only be asked their experiences and perceptions about their work in their current position.
  • Any information obtained during this project will be kept confidential. 
  • Only total data with 10 or more survey responses will be analyzed and reported. If there are fewer than 10 people who respond to the survey, no data will be analyzed or reported. Individual-level data will not be accessed.
• Survey start date and survey close date. The start date for the survey should be at least two weeks from when the first communication explaining the survey is sent to employees. This allows time to respond to employee questions. The survey should be closed when all employees have had opportunity to complete it. This is usually about 2 to 4 weeks depending on the time of year and whether employees are away, or if they are managing an increased workload.
• Expectations on when the survey should be completed. The Guarding Minds employee survey1 takes about 20 minutes to complete. Consider whether staff will be able to complete the survey during work hours or during non-work hours. If they are completing the employee survey outside work hours, will they be paid for their time?
• Responses to questions. Decide who employees can contact with questions about Guarding Minds and the employee survey. Share their contact information with employees. Allow at least two weeks to respond to questions before the employee survey is sent out.

Communications to be developed in advance

• Announcement and explanation of your project:
  
  • Get a statement from senior leadership about the organization’s goals around PHS at work. Share what employees can expect from the Guarding Minds employee survey. This should include timing of the survey, anonymity and how the information will be used. Share this information with employees at least two weeks before the employee survey is distributed. This allows enough time for questions about the survey to be asked and answered. 
  • It’s recommended this statement be reviewed with union leadership before it’s distributed.
• Request to complete the survey:
  
  • Send this to employees when you feel you have leadership commitment and have communicated the purpose of the survey to all employees. When your chosen administrator creates your Guarding Minds dashboard and survey, they’ll see the Introducing Guarding Minds template letter. This can be used or edited to develop your own  communication with staff about the survey. This communication advises employees that you will be sending them a link to the employee survey. It also provides information about confidentiality, data security and how the information will be communicated and used.
  • Email employees one week before the employee survey closes to remind them to complete the employee survey. Remember, once the online survey is closed, you will not be able to open it to obtain more responses. You can adjust the employee survey closing date while the survey is still open for responses. 
• Thank you for participating in the survey message:
  
  • Send to all employees immediately after the employee survey closes.
  • Consider adding a first action towards improving psychological health and safety such as subscribing to the free Mental health awareness weekly emails You can forward these emails to all employees each week as is or with your comments added. This helps show your organization is immediately taking action to help improve PHS.

Potential methods of communication

• Meetings – Each department or team leader may wish to hold discussions on the above once they understand their results
• Email, instant message boards, online forums
• Intranet
• Organizational newsletters
• Written communication for employees without access to an electronic device
• Common area notice boards
• Lunch and learn sessions on PHS
• Identify any other communication challenges or limitations. This includes employees with vision or other impairments, working offsite, on vacation or leave. Consider ways to make sure these employees are included in both the communications and the ability to complete the survey.

Guarding Minds at Work was commissioned by Canada Life and additional resources are supported by Workplace Strategies for Mental Health.

Explore more information or begin using the survey tools.