Canadian HR Reporter

30 www.hrreporter.com S P O N S O R E D and doctors have long been acknowledged and respected for their roles in keeping Canadians healthy. And since the pandemic began, that reverence has only increased. But during this time, another new (and rather unexpected) group of heroes emerged as well: grocery store workers. Yes, the same people who we once criticized for improperly bagging eggs and bread have never been more valued or discussed. "If you asked me personally and a lot of other individuals 18 months ago, we didn't know that a food supplier or grocery store employee was an essential worker. We didn't realize how important it was until we were all fighting over toilet paper," says Ross Taylor, Sobeys' mental health program manager. But since March 2020, everything has changed. Many of us have been able to work remotely. And that means eating at home more often. Suddenly, the grocery store became more essential than ever — along with the employees. Yet, they've had to deal with long shifts, irate shoppers and, of course, the risk of contracting the virus themselves. It's no wonder that it has been taking a toll on their mental health and perhaps led to increased cases of addiction. 'It was time to get something more formal in place' Sobeys, Canada's second largest grocery chain, has 130,000 employees at 1,500 stores across 10 provinces. Even before the pandemic began, it was already taking steps to improve employees' mental health and offer recovery options. "Morneau Shepell [the human resources firm now known as As the unheralded saviours of the COVID-19 era, grocery store workers are finally getting their dues. Ross Taylor, Sobeys' new mental health program manager, explains how the company is putting employees' mental health first ON THE FRONT LINES OF MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY So, to get the word out to employees across Canada, the company created a mental wellbeing hub that can be accessed by anyone. "We were still relying on store managers and department managers to get the word out to most of our people around benefits programs. So, we actu- ally launched a public website — to avoid barriers like intranet and logins. It's there to provide information around mental health, all the resources that they have available to them whether they have benefits or not, government resources and community resources," he says. While the new site served the prac- tical means of getting the right infor- mation to employees, Sobeys also needed to add a human connection. It knew that to affect real change, it had to lead by example and that meant having leaders at the company come forward with their own very personal struggles. "Stor ytelling is so powerful and such a big part of any mental health initiative," says Taylor. "So, in May of this year, one of our vice presidents of operations in Ontario shared her personal story with mental health and her family's struggle with depression and anxiety. We filmed it and put it on the website where everyone has access to it." And they got results almost immedi- ately, he says. "Within the first hour, we had people coming forward saying, 'I'd be happy to share my story.' It's really about starting conversations." While Sobeys' commitment to creating a family-like work environment is essen- tial, that doesn't necessarily make it LifeWorks] actually helped Sobeys write a mental health strategy in September 2019, about six months before the start of the pandemic," says Taylor. What led to their need to take action? "Sobeys, like most organizations, had seen rising claims around mental health, absence and stigma," he says. "It was time to get something more formal in place." Whether we like to admit it or not, business is business. And it often takes a decrease in productivity to recognize that there is a problem. According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, mental illness costs the Canadian economy over $50 billion per year in lost productivity. "Most organizations know mental health is an issue. Most organizations see rising claim numbers, see rising absenteeism, see incidents in the work- place and know that stigma is an issue. But most organizations don't know where to start. It's an intimidating topic to tackle because you can't just put out the fire, and you can't just wait until help arrives," says Taylor. So, Sobeys decided to do something about it — first by engaging Morneau Shepell, and then by bringing the help in-house. Commitment to the initia- tive required a full-time team member dedicated to implementing the new program, a role that Taylor brought to life. "I've been lucky enough to work with some really progressive employers in the past — large telecommunications companies, oil and gas, and a few others who are really forward-thinking in the area of mental health. And it's been obvious since day one that Sobeys can't wait to do more around mental health," he says. 'It's really about starting conversations' But launching the program for a national grocery chain provided some challenges, says Taylor. "One of our biggest challenges was communicating with our people. Most of our employees don't have Sobeys contact information, don't have corporate email addresses, don't have company-issued phones." "It's not blurring the lines between being a manager and being a counsellor, it's about being a link to resources and knowing how to have that conversation about mental health." Ross Taylor, Sobeys NURSES

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