Most of us take it for granted in the workplace today that
our organization is responsible for ensuring our safety on the job. Systems
like Worker’s Compensation programs are also taken as a given, and certainly
here in Canada, there is no one in the workforce today who would remember a
time before these programs were in place. In Canada, Ontario was the first
province to enact Worker’s Compensation legislation, in 1915, with other
provinces following suit shortly thereafter. Worker`s Comp remains a provincially
legislated requirement today, and though the details differ province to
province, the fundamental nature of the program is the same; workers who are
injured on the job are eligible to apply for payment of wages for lost time,
and compensation for outside medical costs. The employer pays the cost for the
insurance, in exchange for the worker giving up the right to sue the employer
over the injury. So far, so good.
In the past, worker`s compensation has been limited almost
exclusively to the concept of physical injury or illness in the workplace. But
that may be changing. I believe we are in the middle of a shift in thinking,
one in which the psychological safety of the worker will come to be considered
in the same way as physical safety. Last year, the Canadian government released
a (voluntary) standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace,
and recent developments in the law suggest that employers are increasingly
being expected to ensure workers are not being exposed to excessive mental
stress at work. There have also been a few recent Worker’s Compensation judgements
that suggest the bulwark against mental stress claims being considered eligible
for Worker’s Comp is crumbling, and will continue to do so.
A psychologically safe workplace is “one in which every
practical effort is made to avoid reasonably foreseeable injury to the mental
health of employees” (Schain 2009). Compensation for mental injury is an
emerging area under the law, and mental suffering awards in constructive
dismissal cases are increasingly common (and larger). Mental harm can be held
as a consequence of overwork, especially poor working environments, abusive
behaviour by management, etc… So there’s a pretty solid trend going on here. In
Zorn-Smith vs. Bank of Montreal (2003), Ms. Zorn-Smith was awarded an increased
notice entitlement and $15,000 for mental suffering, and given that damage
awards have increased up to 700% between 2005-2010, I would certainly expect to
see the numbers increase. Now, granted that Ms. Zorn-Smith was working in a
position for which she was not qualified, putting in a crazy amount of hours,
and dealing with an organization that didn’t seem particularly inclined to help
her deal with any of these issues, and I would certainly hope that most
organizations might have a more reasonable approach, but the trend is there- overwork
and stress your people out, and expect to pay the price for that.
What this means for your workplace really depends on the
organization. My personal feeling is that this trend makes sense, and good
employers likely already have systems in place to deal with at least some of
these issues. That said, there is still a tremendous stigma concerning mental
health among many Canadians, and duty to accommodate, etc. is still a bit
fuzzy. Believe me, even in the best and most supportive environments, there’s
still lots of grey area to run into. However, for those of us in
less-supportive environments, there’s a pretty strong argument to be made in
favour of revising those aspects of your organizational culture, policies and
procedures that are less than totally supportive, and it comes with dollar
signs attached.
So where do you think you’re at, and where do you want to
be?
