©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."
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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."
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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
