Canadian HR Reporter Weekly

2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2018 CANADIAN HR REPORTER WEEKLY Back in 2013, the National Standard of Canada for Psycho- logical Health and Safety in the Workplace was launched by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Since then, many organizations have sought to adopt the set of guidelines, tools and resources meant to promote men- tal health and prevent psychological harm. Michael Garron Hospital (MGH) in Toronto is one such employer, and it has successfully implemented 95 per cent of the recommendations as it vies to improve the health of its employees, physicians and volunteers. e hospital's efforts were recently rewarded — in June, it became the first hospital in the country to earn a Canada Order of Excellence from Excellence Canada for its national leadership in workplace mental health. rough its Mental Health at Work Program, Excellence Canada certifies employers in meeting the requirements of the standard. Years of hard work e standard serves as a road map to better guide and develop the hospital's strategic plan around what needs to be accomplished and what needs to be targeted, according to Phillip Kotanidis, CHRO at Michael Garron Hospital (formerly East York General Hospital). "It was important for us to publicly declare we're committed to mental health, both to our staff and our community. It provides the recognition that should be provided for something this important." Health-care workers face more of a strenuous work environment than the average worker, he said. "ey're constantly bombarded with traumatic events that are occurring, especially in our emergency department, so the level of resilience needs to be much higher… For us to be able to take care of our patients who are becoming more complex, more demanding, our front-line or patient-facing staff have to be well cared for, so their mental health, their physical well-being has to be a priority in order to provide excellent patient care." MGH started to work on the cultural shift several years ago, and paired up with Excellence Canada to pursue its goals, according to Christine Devine, wellness co-ordinator at MGH. "e beauty of working with Excellence Canada is not only do they give you a guide to implement it incrementally but you go through a verification process where people outside of your sector come in and evaluate you and they give you really good ideas for opportunities to developing strengths, and look at different things you might not consider because you have your lens. So, for us, it's been a really valuable experience to pursue it." MGH has introduced several initiatives around mental health in recent years, including Leading a Mentally Healthy Workplace Certification — a Queen's University-accredited program focusing on mental health stigma, signs and symptoms, coaching and support, accommodation and return to work. To date, 80 hospital leaders have completed the program. Since 2014, more than 912 new hires have attended emotional intelligence training through the hospital, while more than 400 have completed LGBTQ inclusivity training. MGH has also facilitated more than 22 workshops on a respectful workplace and harassment and bullying prevention. "We wanted to target those passive-aggressive behaviours that maybe won't make it to an incident report, won't make it to a full-blown official complaint, but they're causing people to go off sick, they're having Toronto hospital's focus on mental health recognized by Excellence Canada Recognition highlights additional stresses faced by health-care workers BY SARAH DOBSON Sign up for the Canadian HR Newswire today for free and enjoy great content from the publishers of Canadian HR Reporter. HR News at Your Fingertips THE LATEST NEWS THE BEST COMMENTARY DELIVERED WEEKLY FOR READING ON ANY DEVICE Visit www.hrreporter.com/ canadian-hr-newswire

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