Canadian HR Reporter Weekly

3 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2018 July 11, 2018 people not be engaged in their work and not want to be here because of it," said Kotanidis. e program shows how these behaviours are not acceptable, and can erode engagement and well-being at work, he said, "so gossiping, exclusion, more minor things on the spectrum of harassment and bullying, but still harassment and bullying. And we've seen a lot of uptick on that and appreciation around those (workshops)." All patient-facing staff also participate in mandatory, in-person workplace violence prevention workshops in addition to mandatory, annual online training for all employees. "We believe you can't have psychological health and safety if you don't have physical safety, so we provide onsite de-escalation tactics — everybody needs to go through the training yearly — and we work jointly with ONA (Ontario Nurses Association), our union partner, to ensure our nurses and other front-line staff are well-versed in the workplace violence prevention and de-escalation tactics," said Kotanidis. Other initiatives at the hospital include: a daily risk matrix, self-care lunch-and-learn sessions, compassion fatigue education, an annual wellness fair and Indigenous cultural safety training. Tracking success MGH also uses a psychological health and safety score- card to track the effectiveness of planning and program- ming correlated to the 13 psychosocial factors outlined in the standard, and the basic psychological and self-fulfill- ment needs defined in Maslow's Hierarchy. e hospital has seen encouraging ROI numbers in recent years, such as a decrease in overall health- care costs and prescription costs related to mental health, along with reductions in short- and long-term disability claims for mental health absences. However, MGH has also gone through major changes recently, with a new CEO and major construction projects, so the metrics have varied. "e positive is people are talking about it now. ey're coming forward and saying, 'I'm having difficulty with this,'" said Devine. Physicians, for example, have developed a task force for physician burnout. "We took that as a really positive sign that we have created a safe space for people to say, 'We need resources, we need help,' and then you have a starting point," she said. It's also hard to gauge the numbers, internally and externally, according to Devine. "How do you correlate that what you're doing particular to mental health is the cause for a positive or a negative? And, really, is it about that? Or is it about the moral obligation?" she said. "Our senior leadership team from the get-go put this as priority in the corporate strategic plan… because they felt it was the right thing to do, not because they expected to see any changes in numbers whatsoever — which I think is pretty exceptional and speaks to the kind of culture we have." Health-care challenges Health-care workers face unique stresses, according to Sean Healey, a social worker at Michael Garron Hospital (MGH) in Toronto. "Nurses have patients who pass away, and in mental health, you have patients who either are coming in with attempted suicides and have in some cases successfully committed suicide; you may have co-workers who get assaulted by patients or there's a violent incident… and it's traumatic when it happens," he said. "You really never know what's around the corner, what you're going to be faced with." The "trauma-infused" environment can weigh on health-care professionals, said Christine Devine, wellness co-ordinator at MGH. "Many people feel if they come forward, they will be seen as unable to do their job, they will lack credibility, they might be putting themselves in jeopardy of some sort of malpractice suit because how can you possibly do your job if you're unwell? And there's a lot of God complex and perfectionism in health care: 'We should have known what we were getting ourselves into, we should be able to handle it, suck it up' — that kind of mentality." It's important to communicate to people that this is a normal consequence of them doing their job really well, she said, "and that it's our job as employees and employers to create a space where it's OK to say, 'That had an affect on me and I need to talk about it' or 'I need help' or 'I need you to coach me through this.'" Credit: Google Street View There's a lot of "God complex and perfectionism" in the health-care environment, making mental health a challenge, said Christine Devine, wellness co- ordinator at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto.

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