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Recognize, Assess, Control and Evaluate (Transcript)
CCOHS YouTube video transcript
Speaker 1
Welcome, and thank you for joining us as we discuss Addressing Workplace Factors – the final in our four-part series of Going Beyond the Assessment for Workplace Mental Health programs. I am Lin Yu, your moderator today. A few words about CCOHS. We are Canada's national resource for the advancement of workplace health and safety. For more than 40 years, CCOHS has promoted the physical and psychological health, safety and total well-being of workers.
And, to introduce to you today, Mary Ann Baynton, here to speak with us. Mary Ann is an expert in workplace mental health and psychological safety. She consults across the country and also serves as the director of collaboration for Workplace Strategies for Mental Health, which produces free resources compliments of Canada life for all Canadians. Welcome, Mary Ann.
Speaker 2
Thanks, Lin. It's great to be here with you.
Speaker 1
So, before we dive into today's topic, let's take a look at what we've talked about in the last three sessions in our Beyond the Assessment webinar series.
So, in our first event, we talked about the four quadrants of a healthy workplace. And one of these four quadrants is supporting the psychosocial aspects of work. This means paying attention to the organizational culture and how work is organized. In our second event, we talked about how to identify psychosocial factors, hazards and risks, and how to take action to support your workplace.
In our last session, we talked about the cornerstone of psychological health and safety, which is to foster connections and build trust so that everyone feels safe to speak up and how to approach with curiosity, compassion and courageousness can help lead to this connection.
Today, we are going to talk about integration and intersectionality, specifically integrating psychosocial factors and prevention practices into workplace health and safety programs, and the intersectionality of workplace mental health and inclusion, diversity and equity.
So firstly, what this integration means is adding psychosocial hazard prevention to your organization's health and safety documents, tools and structures. And I think this is important because not only does it demonstrate that psychosocial hazards are as important as physical hazards in the workplace, but through this integration, we can use health and safety good practices to approach addressing psychosocial hazards.
What do you think, Mary Ann? Why is this integration important?
Speaker 2
Well, I think that, you know, it was talking to health and safety professionals from the mining industry and what his job was, was to try to reduce accidents and injuries in a very unsafe kind of environment. And what he said is that the most likely reason that there is an accident or injury is that somebody has lost focus, that they are distracted either by personal stressors or by something that's going on in the workplace.
Well, that is a psychosocial hazard. That is exactly what we're talking about. If we want to optimize the focus and attention of employees on the job to prevent health and safety accidents or injuries, then we need to protect their psychological health and safety. So, these things are not separate. It's not the, “Oh, let's all feel happy thoughts and, you know, hold hands and sing Kumbaya.” It's not that. Psychological health and safety is making sure that employees are present, emotionally and cognitively on the job.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mary Ann. Look, for example, in our national standard, one of the psychosocial factors in the workplace is protection of physical safety, right? That directly links to our traditional, or existing, way of thinking about occupational health and safety. If we don't feel that our safety is being prioritized at work, then there's another stressor that's hanging over us and we can't perform our best, right?
Speaker 2
What's interesting about that, Lin, is it's not saying that you don't have all the physical health and safety protocols in place. It's that the employees don't feel safe. And that's the psychosocial aspect of the physical part of health and safety. So, if I feel like I'm at risk, it doesn't matter what you've done in terms of protocols, I'm going to be distracted by that fear.
Speaker 1
Definitely. And that comes back to that perception bit, right? The feeling – what is perceived instead of talking the talk but also walking the walk, right?
Speaker 2
Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Now let's take a look at what this integration can look like.
So, one of the things that is beneficial about this integration is that we can use health and safety good practices to approach identifying and addressing psychosocial hazards. For example, the cyclical process that we have on the screen right now with identifying hazards, assessing their risks, controlling the hazard, and evaluating your control measures on a regular basis.
The cycle is important to occupational health and safety, but addressing psychosocial hazards is no different. In the previous sessions, we talked about strategies for identifying and controlling psychosocial hazards. But evaluation of the effectiveness of your initiative is also very important. In fact, I believe that evaluation is arguably the most important step because we can identify the hazard and put control measures in place.
But without determining the effectiveness of our control strategies, we can't be sure that the hazard had been addressed. And evaluating the effectiveness of our strategies also enables the continuous improvement process. Because the results of our evaluation can help direct what we do next, right? So, in the evaluation, we start with determining what we want to measure.
Then identify the types of information and data that we want to collect. And think about when we want to collect this data and finally share the results with everyone to get everyone on board and committed to this improvement process.
Speaker 2
Yeah, Lin, when they first released the national standard, the Mental Health Commission in Canada did a process study with 43 different organizations. So, big corporations and smaller organizations. And what they did to evaluate is they did Guarding Minds at Work before they started. And then every organization had their flexibility to implement whatever they wanted.
So, there was no controlled study in that people could do whatever they wanted. In terms of the post evaluation, also using Guarding Minds, every single organization who did anything saw improvements. And that's because with psychosocial factors, it's a very much a systems-based approach, because if I change the civility and respect, for instance, in my organization, it is likely that the psychological and social support is going to improve, that the work-life balance might improve, that how we feel psychologically protected is going to improve.
So, the evaluation on our website, this is something that people say is, “We don't know how to evaluate this. We know how to evaluate physical safety, but we don't know how to evaluate this.” There are other tools like COPSOQ and other tools that are available that are free. And there's a plethora of evaluation options, whether it's looking at turnover, absenteeism, grievances that can be used to evaluate.
It doesn't have to be as difficult as people think. I did some work with Manitoba. I think it's SAFE Work Manitoba, and what we did is we took the questions that are normally asked and transformed them for health and safety committees so that they could do an evaluation by walking around. So, in other words, in smaller organizations, they could go and ask questions of the people there to evaluate whether or not things were working well to be able to identify and then, say, “Yes, this is improving. This is going better.”
So, I have all those questions for the health and safety committees, and I'll share them with you so you can share it with the viewers.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much Mary Ann. That would that would be great. And with the strategy that you talked about with health and safety committees, I feel like the foundation of a such a strategy is establishing that organizational culture of trust and honesty and fairness, right? If that trust is not established, then we can go out and gather information. However, folks might not feel comfortable expressing their concerns or talking to us about their experiences.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a good point, Lin. And that's why there are these surveys that are more anonymous and allow that. But the other piece that you and I had talked about before is that generally joint health and safety committees are not to infringe on management rights. So, they don't often tell the leaders what to do. They will say, these are our results and this is the action that we recommend.
But they don't say, “Yes, well, you have some really difficult leaders who are, you know, bullying, harassing, intimidating, causing…” So, what we did around that is we actually changed wording so that they could make a statement or a recommendation to leaders that is less pointing fingers and more open-ended. So, I'll just give you some. If the issue is civility and respect, they might say our employees from all backgrounds are treated fairly in our workplace, and how do we ensure that. If the issue was that the leaders were all over the place and not clear, you could ask something like, “Do supervisors support every employee to do their job successfully, and what are the challenges to doing this?”
So again, in that document that I'll share with you, we're very aware of the challenges that the joint health and safety committees have, and we're really trying to give you the power, the control, and the influence to make a difference within the limitations of your role.
Speaker 1
That's great. Thank you. Mary Ann. And another part that came to my mind is that our committee members need to have appropriate training on what is psychological health and safety and the various psychosocial factors that can affect our mental health at work, right? To make sure that they understand, firstly, why they're doing this information gathering and, when they have a better understanding, they might be able to provide recommendations that are more suitable for their workplace.
Speaker 2
And so, some of the language that I suggest, that is in line with the role of the joint health and safety committee, is that our job in the joint health and safety committee is to protect the physical health and safety of employees, and part of that is ensuring that we optimize their focus and attention at all times.
And some of the ways that we do that is by protecting psychological health and safety. And there's no question, and the research is there, that if we protect psychological health and safety, that injuries and accidents will go down. If I'm not looking over my shoulder, if I'm not feeling really frustrated with the way I'm being treated, if I'm not feeling discriminated against, if I'm not feeling, bullied, of course my attention and focus is going to be better.
So, it is looking at it from a physical accident and injury prevention perspective. We need to manage that.
Speaker 1
Yes, definitely. I agree. And, what you talked about earlier, how the evaluation can gather data using anonymous surveys, right? And that reminds me of the recommendation that, when you are trying to measure the effectiveness of your control measure, you can often use the same methods that you used when you were identifying the hazards right at the beginning of that cycle, at the top of this image that we have on the screen here.
And the benefit of using the same method is that any changes that we capture during evaluation would more likely reflect actual changes, instead of potential differences between our data collection methods.
Speaker 2
Yes, exactly. I think that premium post is pretty straightforward. And even people that are not health and safety professionals who understand evaluation can see, “Oh, this is going up. This is improving. This is getting worse.” So, often you're trying to talk to leaders who don't understand your methods and your approaches, and that makes it easier for them.
Speaker 1
Definitely. And one more thing that I can think of, too, that would be important is make sure after you've evaluated your control measures and you've made a decision about what to do next, whether that's continue with your current trajectory, or change your gears a little bit, or maintain and then have additional strategies to address other psychosocial areas, whatever your change is, make sure that you are communicating these changes to everyone in the workplace and considering how these changes might affect everyone, right? It's that idea of making sure that the control measures we put in do not create new hazards.
Speaker 2
Well, and that's part of what we did with Guarding Minds is not only do you get the report saying these are the issues, but then you get, “So what? So, what do I do about this? What are some evidence-based strategies that we can use? And that's the real value add because, as you say, sure you can assess it and you can put controls in place, but are they controls that are evidence-based or are they going to have an impact on the particular issue that you identified? Or are they those kind of I call them, the feel good lunch-and-learn pretty posters on the wall, fun day retreat stuff – there's nothing wrong with those, but they're not likely going to have the impact that you really need to change behaviours in the workplace.
Speaker 1
Yes, definitely. And our conversation here just reminds me that psychological health and safety can and should be integrated into our health and safety structures, right. So that the people impact can be considered in our everyday management interactions and decisions.
Speaker 2
So, I say Lin, just to ask a question. And that question is, “How will this impact the psychological health and safety of our employees?” And this could be a policy, a change, a process, new equipment, a social event, a team-building activity. If you get the people that are leaders, and I'm talking about informal leaders as well as formal leaders, to ask that question, it can revolutionize a workplace without spending a lot of money or investing a lot of time or energy.
It's just because many people don't consider it, you know, “We're going to do this change and it's going to be great.” But if we think about how it might impact psychological health and safety, then we start to look at, “Oh, some people are going to feel insecure that their job is going to be at risk. Some people are going to struggle with learning this new process. Some people are going to really feel badly about what they've lost because of this change.” It just gives us that sober second thought about the impact.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mary Ann. I couldn't have put it better myself. Thank you. So, speaking of how psychological health and safety intersects with other aspects of work, the second part of our conversation today focuses on how this idea intersects with equity, diversity, and inclusion. So, before we get into the intersectionality, let's take a look at what are inclusion diversity and equity.
These ideas address workplace disparities related to gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability and a great amount of other factors. Equity means doing more than treating people identically. It requires special measures to correct underrepresentation, accommodate differences, and eliminate employment barriers. Equity-seeking groups are those that historically have not had equal access to employment, education, and other types of opportunities, and at work equity issues may include pay gaps, underrepresentation in leadership, discriminatory hiring or promotion practices, or little to no ability to influence decisions that affect our work.
Diversity refers to having a workforce that encompasses a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and identities. For example, this can involve deliberate hiring practices to create a varied employee base, such as using specialized outreach to increase job applications from traditionally underrepresented groups. Inclusion is about ensuring that everyone feels a genuine sense of belonging within the organization and in an inclusive workplace, diverse perspectives are heard, valued, and integrated into decision-making processes.
Now, Mary Ann, I wanted to throw this question back to you. What the what do inclusion, equity and diversity mean to you?
Speaker 2
So, last year I had the privilege of hosting roundtables with inclusivity experts from across the country. And at the end of it, the groups of people helped to develop a definition of inclusion. And I wanted to share with you it says, “Inclusion at work is the degree to which individuals feel a sense of belongingness and the safety to share their suggestions and concerns.” So, I can speak up about an idea. I can speak up about a problem.
It also includes the ability to influence critical organizational processes, especially those that have the potential to impact their jobs, access to information, opportunities and resources, and particularly those that can help achieve success in their career. Now, when we look at that, you realize that there's a lot in there that if I feel a sense of inclusion, it's because I have equity, it's because I have psychological health and safety. It's because I feel like I am part of a community.
What I walked away from with that is that although inclusion in and of itself is a great goal, it really is the truth that if you had psychological health and safety for every employee, not just for some, you would automatically have inclusion and equity. Now, diversity was a little more difficult because we realized that the diversity that you can have is often dependent on your population.
So, if you have diversity in terms of representation of your population, it may not be as diverse as, say, the diversity in a place in Toronto than in Thunder Bay. Right. It's just who is available to work there. But the psychological health and safety includes all of this for everyone. And what has happened is that there are actual questions in Guiding Minds now that are based on the ISO 45003 standard, which is guidelines related to psychological health and safety.
And they include things like, “I feel I'm part of a community at work. People from all backgrounds are treated fairly. People treat each other with respect. My suggestions are considered at work. I'm able to do work that aligns with my values. My employer prevents discrimination. It's safe to speak up.” There's even the one that was added, “I feel lonely when working,” and the reason that was added was because of the hybrid work and isolated and remote work.
But all of those questions then become indicators of inclusion. But they're all a part of psychological health and safety. So, to me, these are all wrapped up together. Everyone should feel a sense of inclusion. Everyone should have a sense of equity. “Inclusion at work is the degree to which individuals feel a sense of belongingness and the safety to share their suggestions and concerns.”
The next sentence is, “It also includes the ability to influence critical organizational processes.” So yeah, I could speak up, but if you're not listening to me, if you don't take my feedback into consideration, then it's not enough, right? So, to influence critical organizational processes, especially those that have the potential to impact their jobs. So, not every decision in the organization, but those that are going to impact my job.
So, their jobs and access to information, opportunities and resources. So, do I get to work on that project? Do I get a chance to be promoted? Do I get a chance to take that training? Particularly those that can help them achieve success in their careers. So, this is what I'm saying is that it includes equity. It includes the ability to be successful at work.
And, you know, I shared the one question, “How might this impact psychological health and safety?” There's a second question specifically for leaders that I think also gets to the heart of all of this. And it is, “How can I help this specific employee to be successful while they're at work?” It doesn't say, “How can I help them get the job of their dreams? How can I help them fix all of their life issues? How can I diagnose or treat them?”
It doesn't say any of that, but if people can be supported to have good relationships at work, to feel that what they do value is valued, that what they contribute at work is valued, and who they are is valued, you do more for someone’s health and well-being than you do by, you know, having all the resources or the lunch and learns or whatever. But it's very much that you have to do it for each employee because they're all unique.
Speaker 1
Definitely. Thank you, Mary Ann. And I completely agree that these three concepts of equity and inclusion and diversity, they don't exist in silos. They overlap with each other; they interact with each other. And it just reminds me of our first session in this webinar series when we were talking about the four quadrants of a healthy workplace.
And just like those four quadrants, these three concepts, they can't be addressed as isolated pieces but as parts of a whole, right?
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's really interesting because I think, for many people, the first consideration of inclusion is for visible minorities, but there's also invisible minorities. And there's also people who are not part of a minority except in that group, except in that team, right? You may have a workplace that's very diverse, but I'm the only whatever on the team that I'm on.
And so, we need to look at it not just from particular groups, but from particular individuals.
Speaker 1
Definitely. Well, in addition to everything, Mary Ann, you've already told us, one of the other things that come to mind when I think about psychological health and safety and equity, diversity and inclusion, is that workplaces that do not prioritize inclusion, equity or diversity generally tend to have worse mental health experiences. Because experiencing unfair treatment or barriers at work, lack of representation, and other similar stressors can really negatively impact our mental health.
For example, if we experience discrimination or bias that can lead to stress, anxiety, or other negative mental health experiences, right? And on the other side of things, promoting diversity, equity and inclusion could contribute to a healthier work environment and better psychological well-being for the company and its people.
Speaker 2
And that comes down to very basic human nature, that when we're all similar, we tend to not be as civilized or respectful. So, when I've worked with an al- male workplace, I often have found that the way they treat each other is not very respectful. When I have worked with an all-female workplace, I have found that sometimes they are not very respectful.
And so, I think diversity causes us to stop and pause and think about differences in a way that supports us to be our better selves. And so, I really agree that it does make a difference. Now, in terms of just diversity, just having, you know, well, “We have people from here there,” if we're not taking the time to consider differences, if we are not trying to learn about each other, trying to be open and respectful, then diversity on its own does not lead to inclusion or equity.
It's just a numbers game, right? “Well, I've got this many from this group and this many from this group.” So, the intersection with psychological health and safety or workplace mental health has to be deliberate, and it has to be that we prepare teams to say, “We're going to diversify. And what does that mean to you?”
Adam Grant has written a lot about this. The mindset in the United States where people feel their privilege has been ripped out from under them, and they wouldn't say it that way, but they feel like they've lost something because of diversity. And it has had them reacting in anger and fear. And this, in a smaller microcosm, can happen in any workplace – that if there was, you know, all white males and suddenly there's other people coming in and having opportunity, it is not unexpected that there may be some resentment or feeling that they've lost something.
If we can deal with this and bring in those folks to say what we can all benefit from, and how this will be, but also to be honest and say, “Yeah, some of the things that you've taken for granted may not still be there in that way.” But prepare them for it. I think we can do better.
Speaker 1
Yes. Agreed. And that goes back to our first half of our conversation, right? If you are to make a decision then you got tpo consider how that decision is going to impact the people at the work, right? For example, if the decision is to prioritize diversity, then you have to, like you said, consider how will that impact the folks at work.
And if you are able to bridge that decision, for example, with training on how to be aware of our own implicit biases and how to talk to each other and interact with each other in an open-minded and curious and compassionate way, that can help bridge that transition. And if we prioritize building trusting relationships with each other, then that could create an environment where everyone can speak up candidly, like you said earlier, with ideas, questions, concerns, and even mistakes so that we can leverage the benefits of diversity and not have diversity just as a number, but as a concept that we live and we breathe, right?
Speaker 2
Yes. Years before you probably came into the workplace Lin, they used to do these respect-in-the -workplace types of training that basically said, “You're bad people and you're not doing it right, and you need to not talk.” And it was met with eye-rolling and also with hostility and resistance.
What we understand now is, of course, everybody has bias. Those who say they don't just aren't aware of it, but we all do. It's not that we're bad people and, I always think about that book White Fragility, that we are so busy making people believe we're good people, that we're not listening to what others are going through.
And so, we created implicit bias to bring people very gently through self-realization that, “Oh, I never thought of that.” You know, instead of the finger pointing, “You're a bad person” that we can say, “You may not have ever intended harm, but here's some ways that you might have caused it.”
And then we have something called a team agreement process. And, to be honest, it was created originally because I had to deal with two different groups, academics and physicians, who have no bosses and would sometimes treat the people that they worked with terribly.
And so, the team agreement process is where you bring individuals into a safe place individually and talk about what kind of team experience do you want, what will you contribute to make that team experience happen, and how do you want to be reminded when you're not doing that.
And so, it doesn't matter if there is a boss interfering, it’s that the team will hold each other accountable. Why I'm mentioning this now is because it is the most inclusive process, because the individuals on the team decide how they're going to interact and how they're going to respond. And, you know, people say, “Well, is that culturally sensitive?” If you're asking someone, “Is this what you want? Will this work? Are you agreed to this?” That's culturally sensitive, more so than saying, well, “You know what? All people in this group feel this way.”
Well, how do you know? Like, you know, I'm a Scottish-Italian Newfie. How do you think I feel about these things? So, yeah, I think that if we can get down to that level where all of the people on the team are given a safe place to talk about what kind of interaction feels safe, that they all agree to it, then it doesn't really matter what it is.
Some teams will be more casual. Some teams will be more formal. It doesn't matter because everybody understands, and there's a way to hold people responsible.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mary Ann. And that relates back to the equity concept, right? We are not saying, “OK, so the right way is to do this for everyone.” But we are giving everyone a chance to tell us to talk to each other about what they need in order to thrive in a team, right? So, treating not everyone as the same, but aiming for the same goal at the end of the day.
Thank you. So, I'd like to wrap up our conversation today with a few key messages. Psychological health and safety should not be isolated from other programs or strategies at work. They're all interrelated. And as we saw through today's discussion, psychological health and safety can and should be integrated into everyday interactions and decisions that work.
And as we discussed in our last session of the webinar, consider the people impact in how your business is done. Mary Ann, would you like to share a few key messages as well?
Speaker 2
Just to stay focused on the fact that health and safety includes psychosocial or psychological health and safety, that you, are not outside a scope? In fact, all of the physical safety concerns will be addressed, in part, by this, that they're not separate. If you do all of the things to have all the protective equipment and all of the training in place, but people are afraid and won't speak up and won't report accidents, it will never be physically safe.
So, this is part of your job. And I really hope that you can find ways to integrate it more easily.
Speaker 1
Thank you. So, as this is our last session of our Beyond the Assessment series, I just want to give a few concluding or final thoughts. So, through these four sessions we've talked about the process to protect psychological health and safety and to promote workplace psychological well-being. And we've realized that this process is a journey that does take time, patience, and a continuous improvement approach.
Persisting and persevering through the ups and downs of this process can help us to integrate psychologically healthy processes and habits into the culture of our workplace.
Calling back to several of the previous sessions, it's important to remember the three pieces. Be persistent in your journey, persevere through your process, and have patience. Thank you all again for joining us. Thank you, Mary Ann. Bye for now.
