Background
Canada is the first country to have a national standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace. Learn the history of how this came to be.
Psychological health and safety helps your organization effectively manage human resources. It can also contribute to a healthy bottom line.
“Psychological health and safety is embedded in the way people interact with one another on a daily basis and is part of the way working conditions and management practices are structured and the way decisions are made and communicated. (Canadian Standards Association, 2013)”
Putting the Standard into action is much more than checking boxes. It’s a “plan, do, check, act” process of continual improvement, similar to occupational health and safety. These resources can help you reduce the time and effort needed to get started.
Guiding principles of the Standard
Clause 1.3 of the Standard outlines the guiding principles. The following is a brief synopsis:
- Following legislation and regulation is a minimum requirement
- Responsibility for psychological health and safety is shared by management, employees and union where applicable
- Mutually respectful relationships are foundational
- Everyone has a responsibility for their own behaviour and choices
- Senior management must walk the talk
- Employees at all levels should be involved in planning and implementation
- How might this impact psychological health and safety of employees? – This is a question that should be asked of every plan, policy, decision and process.
- Those in leadership positions should be competent to lead in a psychologically safe way
Employees at all levels should be involved in planning and implementation.
Resources to help
Consider making psychological health and safety an integral part of all your operations. This will help you align with the principles outlined in the Standard. For example, embed psychological health and safety protocols at every stage in the employment life cycle. These stages include hiring, training, promoting, disciplining and redeploying employees. Policy recommendations for psychological health and safety can help you with this.
The Standard includes these clauses:
- 4.2. Commitment, leadership and participation
- 4.3. Planning
- 4.4. Implementation
- 4.5. Evaluation and corrective action
- 5.0. Management review and continual improvement
The free resources and approaches provided in each section below can help you with:
- Commitment, leadership and participation. Communicate your psychological health and safety approach throughout the organization. You’ll find specific messages for:
- Leaders
- Unions
- Middle management
- Employees
- Identifying existing workplace initiatives. Don’t start from scratch. Strengthen and build on existing initiatives to improve psychological health and safety in the workplace. Identify existing policies, programs, procedures and opportunities for improvement.
- Planning. Help set a baseline and develop a plan for action with resources and strategies. Align your plans with organizational goals and objectives to get the broadest buy-in.
- Implementation. Choose among the many ideas and resources offered to meet your goals based on your plan of action.
- Evaluating outcomes. Think about how you’ll measure success in advance and embed evaluation from the beginning. Doing so will allow you to track your progress and adjust along the way.
- Management review and continual improvement. Engage management in this process. They can review psychological health and safety outcomes and support continual improvement. The National Standard recommends a formal review at least every 2 years.
Where should we start?
There are many ways to start improving psychological health and safety in your workplace. Where do we start with psychological health and safety? provides evidence, tips and strategies to help you get on track, even with limited resources.
Every organization is unique. Respect organizational needs and resources when establishing, documenting and maintaining a psychological health and safety management system. Helpful approaches and strategies are available at no cost. You can modify them to the unique nature of your organization.
Use the Psychological health and safety policy development resources to discuss policies and strategies with decision-makers on your team.
Frequently asked questions
The following are general questions and answers that help explain the value for organizations in implementing the Standard.
Is this about employee mental illness?
No. The adoption of the Standard isn’t about assessing an individual employee's mental health. It’s about considering the impact of workplace processes, policies and interactions on the psychological health and safety of all employees.
Some of the working population will have a diagnosis of a mental illness. This can include depression and anxiety. The employer has legal obligations and responsibilities to address issues concerning this group of employees, including the duty to accommodate. Human rights, labour and employment law all speak to this. Certainly, a psychologically healthy and safe workplace can help this population. The primary intent, however, is broader. It is to prevent psychological harm for the entire workforce. This is the same as designing occupational health and safety systems to prevent physical injuries and illnesses.
Who’s responsible for employee psychological health?
Many factors, including those outside of an employer's control, can impact psychological health. These include factors that don’t necessarily relate to the workplace. For example, genetics, personal issues, family concerns or financial challenges can have an impact.
Generally, each person is responsible for their own health and well-being, both in and out of the workplace. However, organizations should do no harm to employee health.
An analogy can be found in considering exposure to a chemical in the workplace. If the identified physical risk from the chemical is significant enough, that chemical should be eliminated. If you can't eliminate the chemical, reduce the potential risk. The employer may offer safety training or guidelines to those whose job requires exposure to the chemical. Or they may put new procedures in place to help mitigate the risk of exposure. Or they may offer protective equipment. Even with high-risk chemicals, it’s likely not every employee will be harmed. This doesn’t mean the organization wouldn’t take steps to reduce the risk.
It’s just as important to identify potential risks to the psychological health and safety of employees, even though all may not be harmed. Taking steps to eliminate or limit those risks for employees is part of the overall psychological health and safety management system.
Will it open up the proverbial "can of worms"?
The reality is that avoiding or denying issues can allow problems to escalate into serious damage to employee health and productivity.
Psychological health and safety protection can help prevent expensive, time-consuming and morale-damaging situations. Dr. Martin Shain co-authored Preventing Workplace Meltdown with Mary Ann Baynton. He cites several legal decisions that hold organizations accountable if they don't ensure managers or leaders are competent to manage people safely. Had psychological health and safety measures been in place, these organizations may not have incurred the costs of legal expenses, court-ordered remedies and potential damage to reputation.
Management approaches are part of psychological health and safety. The way employees interact with each other is another consideration. Communicate effectively that every employee has a responsibility for psychological health and safety. Doing so shifts focus away from blaming anyone. Instead, you focus on how each employee contributes and resolves potential workplace issues. This can reduce or eliminate the escalation of issues or opening a “can of worms”.
Will it create more stress for managers?
Some managers may worry this approach aims to uncover individual manager shortcomings. This isn’t the point.
Managing employees can be challenging, especially in times of change, emotional distress or conflict. Management style is only one of several factors that may impact psychological health and safety in the workplace. Support the professional and organizational effectiveness of all managers as part of the overall implementation of the Standard.
Could it violate employee privacy?
The Standard doesn’t focus on any individual employee. Rather, it’s intended to help address these factors that have the potential to impact the psychological health or safety of any employee:
- Organizational approaches
- Strategies
- Policies
- Procedures
- Interactions
The Standard describes a worker as "a person employed by an organization or a person under the day-to-day control of the organization, whether paid or unpaid, which includes employees, supervisors, managers, leaders, contractors, service providers, volunteers, students, or other stakeholders actively engaged in undertaking activities for benefit to the organization. French: travailleur, travailleuse. [Reference: CAN/CSA-Z1000 (adapted wording) (see Annex G).]" The term "employee" has been used throughout these resources and is intended to include the Standard’s definition of worker.
Share this resource with those who are responsible for or considering implementation of the Standard.