Safety and Health Week – Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace
What is Psychological Health and Safety?
The National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the Standard) is the first of its kind in the world; it is a set of voluntary guidelines, tools and resources that can help guide organizations in promoting mental health and preventing psychological harm at work.
The Standard and implementing a PH&S management system is not about assessing an individual employee’s mental health. It is about considering the impact of workplace processes, policies, and interactions on the psychological health and safety of all employees. A PH&S Management System is primarily intended to be preventive for mental injuries to the entire workforce in the same way that occupational health and safety systems are preventive for physical injuries and illnesses.
A psychologically healthy and safe workplace is one that promotes employees’ psychological well-being and actively works to prevent harm to employee psychological health due to negligent, reckless or intentional acts…… Psychological health comprises our ability to think, feel and behave in a manner that enables us to perform effectively in our work environments, our personal lives, and in society at large. Psychological safety is different – it deals with the risk of injury to psychological well-being that an employee might experience. Improving the psychological safety of a work setting involves taking precautions to avert injury or danger to employee psychological health. (Guarding Minds @ Work)
The Standard has been summarized into 13 Psychosocial Factors. The 13 Factors are elements that could affect employees’ psychological response to work and work conditions, potentially causing psychological health problems. The Factors relate to the way work is carried out (deadlines, workload, work methods) and the context in which work occurs (including relationships and interactions with managers and supervisors, colleagues and coworkers, and clients or customers). More information on the 13 Factors can be found here.
Resources:
https://www.guardingmindsatwork.ca/
https://www.workplacestrategiesformentalhealth.com/psychological-health-and-safety/introduction
https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/English/what-we-do/workplace/national-standard
Employee Well-being, Health & Safety