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2021 Health & Safety Leadership Survey White Paper

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©2023 Workplace Safety & Prevention Services. All rights reserved. 22 1. EMPLOYEE MENTAL HEALTH/STRESS Stress is the top mental health and safety concern among respondents and was the driver of the top three concerns that employers say they will have to address in the next 12 months. The top priority–stress management–increased by 24 points and was rated number one by 60% of respondents. Stress from excessive workloads and tight timelines was number two at 48%, and 42% of leaders identified increased sick time due to stress or other mental health issues as the number three concern. In the report, Resetting Priorities to Manage Risks for Workforce and Business Resilience, Mercer noted that "Over one-third of claims under employer-sponsored disability plans are for mental illness. However, only 63% are addressing this risk effectively." 7 Kiran Kapoor, VP of Service Delivery at WSPS notes that the results of this year's survey show leaders are more committed to figuring this out and with continued awareness we will likely see things improve. "We may now be turning a corner in seeing that protecting psychological safety is as important as preventing physical harm." 2. PANDEMIC RESURGENCE/RECURRENCE Almost 40% of respondents with mature health and safety programs identified a pandemic resurgence or recurrence as their number two emerging issue. A post on the Crisis Ready Institute's website called "The World is Opening Back Up. Now What?" stresses that we can't become complacent now that we are on the other side of the crisis. "As responders, incident managers, crisis managers and members of our communities — we cannot become complacent and relax because the Pandemic appears to be winding down. We survived so far, but we have exposed weaknesses and assumptions in our systems that are quickly becoming points of critical failure." 8 EMERGING HEALTH & SAFETY ISSUES Want more information on promoting mental health and preventing mental harm? Check out the WSPS Mental Harm Prevention Roadmap Microsite. It contains free resources and tools, including processes for assessing current state, developing an action plan, and monitoring progress. https://mentalhealthroadmap.wsps.ca/ "My gut is saying COVID will be back." Survey Respondent WSPS MENTAL HEALTH ROADMAP

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