As the owner or executive, you have many responsibilities and likely even competing demands.
The sustainability of the organization is obviously critical, and you also may be tasked with addressing:
- Risk management, including risk to employee safety
- Policy and program oversight, to ensure responsible governance of both resources and employees
- Leadership, including resolving negative impacts on employee morale and commitment
We have free evidence-based resources to help you with all of this.
A psychologically healthy and safe work environment can help you retain employees so they remain engaged, productive, innovative, and well. We share strategies, policies, and resources that can support these outcomes.
Risk management
Protecting employees from psychological injury due to negligent, reckless, or intentional acts is the foundation of psychological health and safety. This includes legislated responsibilities to protect against human rights violations, harassment and violence. It goes beyond legal requirements to promoting psychological health and inclusion by removing hazards such as unresolved conflict, bullying and stigma.
Knowing what psychological health and safety is in your unique setting, and how it benefits your employees and organization, allows you to consider steps you can take to prevent harm. Evidence for psychological health and safety and Psychological health and safety cost benefits demonstrates how this can have a positive impact on business goals and objectives.
Deciding to invest in positive change is easy, but sometimes knowing the steps to take to help achieve this can be overwhelming. Where do we start for psychological health and safety provides insights into how to develop and implement a sustainable plan.
You can leverage a free tool like Guarding Minds at Work to assess psychological health and safety within your organization. Once you review the assessment results and decide which areas you’d like to focus on, Evidence-based actions for psychological health and safety offers many low-cost and no-cost ideas for each psychosocial factor.
Policy and program oversight
In our policies, programs and prevention content, we share practical approaches and strategies to help you eliminate or mitigate risks while supporting psychological health and safety. Topics include:
- Addressing domestic violence
- Accommodation and return to work policies
- Bereavement leave policy
- Discrimination prevention and inclusion
- Emotional intelligence in organizations
- Employee assistance programs and mental health issues
- Employee stress prevention process
- Harassment and bullying prevention
- Impairment policy
- Indigenous engagement planning
- Legal duty to accommodate
- Organizational culture
- Peer support programs
- Protecting the mental health of isolated workers
- Psychological health and safety policy recommendations
- Stigma reduction plan
- Suicide prevention
- Termination and layoff planning
- Trauma in organizations
- Union and management cooperation
- Violence prevention
- Wellness awareness program calendar – offers themes and ideas that leverage free resources to foster a healthier and more supportive work environment.
Leadership
Leadership has a huge impact on the morale and motivation of employees as well the success of any organization.
Psychological health and safety is the impact we have on employees, as well as the impact employees have on each other. When leaders model the behaviours that support and protect psychological health and safety and hold employees accountable for the same, you will experience the benefits as an organization.
Whether for yourself or other leaders, these resources can help:
- Organizational culture
- Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment
- Psychologically Safe Team Assessment
- Approaches for people leaders – Employee concerns
- Approaches for people leaders – Leadership skills
- Approaches for people leaders – Team building
Additional resources
Employee resources are available to help employees at work, in getting help for themselves or family members or to support their personal growth and development.
Approaches for people leaders includes strategies to address employee concerns, develop leadership skills and support team building.
Organizational strategies are for decision-makers who are responsible for policies, programs and prevention strategies or to support workplace mental health and psychological health and safety for all.
There are also many free assessments, tools and workshop materials that include slide presentations, facilitator guides and participant handouts.