Part 2: Hazards and Agents

Mental Health Matters

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Do you remember the feelings you had as a child when you returned to school after summer vacation? Were there flutters of anxiety, nerves, or maybe even a sleepless night or two? Many of us still experience these feelings as adults when we think about having to return to work from any extended time away. Now think about these feelings being escalated by additional levels of fear, as employees begin to be called back to work with the ease of current COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

As noted in this article in OHS Canada magazine, the mental health of workers must be a priority when welcoming back employees, who have to return to work in some kind of physical capacity during the pandemic. The employer continues to have a heightened duty of care that comes with ensuring the placement of proper health and safety protocols, especially those that centre on the assessment and responses required for reducing psychosocial hazards. The mental health stressors on employees resulting from the COVID-19 crisis must be recognized for the hazards they are, and appropriate remedies must be put in place to reduce the risk of deteriorating mental health for all workers.

Embedded in the article is a podcast worth listening to. It features an interview with Emma Ashurst, manager of inquiries and technical services with the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. The content of the podcast focuses specifically on the employers’ responsibilities when implementing sound mental health strategies for managing the workplace during the pandemic. The starting point is always to check in on employees and to ask how they are coping. Many workers are overwhelmed as a result of pandemic-related increases in workload, forced isolation, and the lack of human or social contact.

During this time, the risk of increases in depression and anxiety is significant. As Ashurst states, it is imperative that managers look for signs of changes in an employee’s behaviour that may be an indicator of increased levels of burnout, stressors, and fears. She goes on to describe the employer’s duty to ensure that employees’ fears about returning to work be met with proactive support instead of a punitive reaction. The employer can do this through clear communication about cleaning protocols, ergonomic set-ups, and regular and routine communications that all assist in the management of fear. Employees cannot work if they are afraid. When an employer can alleviate fears by providing a safe physical work environment, this allows for a safe mental health environment as well.

It is also incumbent upon the employer to ensure that they are following protocols, rules, and regulations driven by jurisprudence. The employer should do this not only to show compliance with legal requirements, but also because the adherence to and communication of the ‘rules’ helps most people find comfort in structure during what continues to be a chaotic time.

Finally, as part of the most important message that Ashurst reiterates, now is the time to treat each other with grace, kindness, compassion, and connection.

Discussion Questions:

  1. As a Health and Safety professional, what steps would you put into place to help workers overcome pandemic-related fears as part of a return-to-work strategy?
  2. In your opinion, what impact does ongoing isolation have on employees who must continue to work from home, even as the pandemic-related restrictions begin to ease?
  3. As you think about your own return to work or to in-class learning, what are areas of potential anxiety for you? How will you manage your own personal concerns? What supports are in place for you from either your employer or your post-secondary institution?

Eldercare and Workplace Violence

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Many of us have, or will have, to live through the process of finding care for our aging elders who are battling age-related dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Most of us are unable to provide the escalating level of care that is required for our parents or grandparents with this disease, so that they can live safely in their own homes. As a result, we have to make the difficult decision to move our elders into a healthcare facility, such as a nursing or long-term care home.

As we know from multiple media sources, the demand for eldercare, especially critical care, far exceeds the availability of facilities and spaces for this aging and growing demographic. Public healthcare services are simply not able to keep up with the demand. Not only are the facilities filled to full capacity, the services needed once the elderly are in care are at maximum demand. Adding to this pressure for demand, the needs of those afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease can vary tremendously depending on the level or progress of the disease.

Included in the litany of miseries that comes with Alzheimer’s disease is the change in the affected person’s behaviour. People who have spent their adult lives as loving and thoughtful parents or grandparents, often turn into violent, aggressive, and abusive individuals. The cause for this dramatic and devastating change is the disease. While we know that the person who is raging abuse, and hurling objects at anyone who enters the room, is ‘not themselves’, the impact of the violent or aggressive behaviour is devastating to the person who is the subject of that abuse. Getting slapped, kicked, or punched feels the same on the receiving end, no matter what the age or mental state of the person doing the slapping, kicking, or punching.

In 2017, the results of a poll showed the impact of the escalating levels of workplace violence experienced by healthcare workers from patients in the Ottawa area. This risk of harm to workers increases for those who care for patients who have to move into extended healthcare programs, hospitals, and facilities.

Typically, people who have to live in long-term care facilities are not there by choice. Healthcare workers in these facilities find themselves working with patients in a closed environment—meaning that patients cannot leave—who may be easily triggered by the routines the workers must abide by in order to do their jobs. When coping with numerous patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, these triggers can multiply and range in level of severity, depending on any number of differing variables.

It is no wonder that the healthcare sector finds itself in need of more resources and training tools to reduce the risk of harm for both healthcare workers and the persons entrusted to their care.

In the fall of 2019, the Ontario government published ‘Workplace violence prevention in health care: A guide to the law for hospitals, long-term care homes and home care.’ While this document reinforces the regulatory requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, it also emphasizes the need for employers in the healthcare sector to train and support their workers, and instructs supervisors on how to work safely in the face of an increasingly unsafe workplace environment. A brief legal analysis of the guide is provided by the Canadian HR Reporter.

As noted in the analysis, the time for a cultural shift in healthcare, with the implementation of proactive workplace safety measures, is at hand. All of us will be the better for it.

Discussion Questions:

  1. As the Health and Safety leader in a healthcare workplace environment, how will you balance the rights of workers with the need to provide appropriate services to patients who may be violent?
  2. What are specific and proactive steps you could implement to reduce the risk of harm to healthcare workers in a long-term care home?

Is Subway Air Subpar?

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According to a recently published report, the level of pollution to which workers are exposed in Toronto’s subway system (known as the TTC), is within acceptable occupational limits.  This finding comes from an extensive air quality study done by the TTC. The need for the study was prompted by a Health Canada report that ‘suggested that the particulate matter in Toronto’s system was 2.5 times higher than systems in Montreal and Vancouver’.

Click here to read about the pollutant findings in the TTC’s underground subway system.

While the results of the findings confirm that additional protective measures are not required for non-maintenance workers employed by the TTC, the fact remains that the air quality in the underground workplace does contain particulate matter. This is the combination of organic and inorganic materials such as dust, pollen, gasses and air-borne toxins that exist in varying levels in air, all the time. It is the level(s) within this combination that can become problematic and potentially dangerous within the workplace environment.

Given the results of the air quality study by the TTC, it seems reasonable that no additional interventions, such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the form of masks, are required to be provided by the employer to all employees. As noted in the report, there are designated workers within the TTC who do work in areas with high levels of pollutants and are part of its ‘respiratory regulation program’. This implies that the employer is already providing PPE, equipment and support for those working within unacceptable air quality levels.

However, individual reactions to levels of pollutants and other air quality contaminants vary. According to an information posting by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), ’not all people are affected with the same symptoms or to the same extent’ in response to poor air quality issues.

Click here to read the general air quality fact sheet posted by CCOHS.

If individual reactions to air quality issues vary, how can the employer provide a safe workplace for all employees, without allowing for or providing protections on an individualized basis? This may be a question that remains unanswered and may be cause for more safety uncertainty.

While the findings of the report may provide comfort for some breathing in the underground air of the TTC, it is unlikely that it provides respite for all.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does poor air quality impact workers and workplaces?
  2. What types of protections can the TTC provide to its employees that go beyond ‘accepted’ occupational exposure limits?
  3. Do you agree or disagree with the union’s position that all subway employees should be allowed to wear respiratory masks? Explain your rationale.

Will You Stop Gossiping?

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The practice of occupational Health and Safety strives to keep employees safe at work.

Most of the time, this focus is on the physical workplace environment. We apply hazard recognition, risk assessment and control strategies for reducing and eliminating the number material or tactile incidents that cause harm to our colleagues and co-workers. As Human Resources professionals, it is our legal and moral obligation to ensure that preventative measures are in place to make people feel and be safe from harm when doing their jobs.

How do we apply this same level of care and control to psycho-social hazards, such as bullying, backbiting and gossiping in the workplace?

Glen Rolfsen explores a practical approach to dealing with toxic culture that comes from the very real practice of workplace bullying in this TedTalk.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYLb7WUtYt8[/embedyt]

As Rolfsen states, backbiting, or the spreading of gossip, is a form of bullying. People have been doing it for centuries. Why? Our basic self-interests come into play as gossiping about others seems to elevate ourselves and makes us appear more interesting to others. This may be true, but the negative impact on those others as a result of this type workplace bullying is as tangible as any type of physical workplace hazard.

Following a sound Health and Safety model, Rolfsen provides us with a three pronged tool for controlling the hazard of negative backbiting in the workplace. Before articulating negative gossip about others, he encourages us to apply the triple filter test and ask the questions: Is it true? Is it good? Is it useful? If the answer to any of these three questions is no, the solution is easy – stop talking. Stop spreading rumours, untruths and negative commentary about others.

What is the impact when workplaces stop bullying, backbiting and gossiping? There are positive, tangible results as evidenced by reduced absenteeism and increased productivity. All of these lead to the creation of a healthy workplace where employees can enjoy the feeling of both physical and psychosocial safety.

Rolfsen reminds us, as adults, to be role models for others. He asks us to make a conscious commitment and apply the triple filter test in our daily lives.

The question is there for us to respond in a positive way.

Let’s say yes, for a change.

Discussion Questions:

  1. When was the last time you gossiped about someone? What was the context?
  2. How does it feel knowing that you are the target of backbiting and gossip?
  3. For the next twenty-four hours, practice applying the three filter approach to your own words when commenting about others.
  4. What would your workplace feel like if there was no backbiting, bullying or gossip?

Treatments for the Toxic Workplace

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As we have learned from our studies, the three steps of sound health and safety practices are hazard awareness, risk assessment, and the application of controls. When dealing with physical agents in the workplace such as toxic chemicals, the steps are applied in order to recognize and identify the chemical hazards; assess the risk of harm to employees in the workplace resulting from exposure to the chemical hazards; and finally, to apply controls to the chemical hazards in order to reduce or eliminate the risk of injury or harm to employees.

These same steps must be applied when dealing with psycho-social hazards in the workplace, which include a poisoned or toxic workplace culture. In the same way that toxic chemicals can cause irreparable physical harm, a toxic workplace can cause severe psychological harm resulting in devastating consequences to employee mental health and physical well-being.

Unlike physical agents, psychological hazards are sometimes more difficult to identify and to assess. A recent publication from HRD On-line provides a summary of toxic workplace hazards from the book ‘Culling Culturitis’.

Click here to read the article.

As noted by the book’s author, many organizations leave the development of organizational culture to chance. From a health and safety perspective, this is a high risk strategy. As with any organic culture once an infection begins, if it is not stopped, the disease spreads throughout entire organism. When dealing with toxic workplace culture, it is imperative that the third step of controls is applied in order to stop the spread of workplace infection and it may require the elimination of the root cause at the source.

While there are some remedies provided in the article, there are numerous resources available which provide additional practical solutions for toxic workplace problems, including those provided by the federal government and a leadership blog provided on-line by Inc.

Click here to access the Government of Canada’s workplace mental health link.

Click here to access the Inc. blog.

Health and Safety applies to all workplaces. Mental health and safety applies to everyone within them.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Have you worked in a toxic environment? What was the impact on you and/or your colleagues?
  2. Why do you think employees stay in a toxic work environment even though it is detrimental to their own mental health?
  3. What advice would you give to the CEO of a toxic workplace culture in order to make a constructive change?