April 14, 2025 • 35 mins
In Episode 11: Workplace Mental Health of A Way Forward Podcast | Presented by Beem Credit Union, host Jessica Samuels is joined by Candace Giesbrecht, Director of People, Culture & Engagement at CMHA Kelowna, to explore what it means to have a mentally healthy workplace—and why it's a shared responsibility across the entire organization. They discuss how measuring psychological safety, addressing burnout, and making evidence-informed decisions can drive long-term culture change in the workplace.
Key Topics Discussed:
1. What Is a Mentally Healthy Workplace?
- Why it’s more than just a CEO or HR declaration.
- The role of shared responsibility and leadership buy-in.
- Importance of aligning actual work with job descriptions and expectations.
2. Measuring Psychological Safety
- Introduction to Guarding Minds at Work, a free, evidence-based assessment tool.
- Explanation of the 13 psychosocial factors that influence workplace mental health.
- How asking staff for input—and acting on it—can improve trust and engagement.
3. CMHA Kelowna’s Journey to Address Burnout
- Using data to identify burnout risk as a key area for improvement.
- Shifting onboarding practices and job clarity to reduce staff overwhelm.
- Why meaningful change took two years—and how it led to better hiring, reduced turnover, and deeper organizational insight.
4. From Insight to Action
- The importance of going beyond surveys to follow through with transparent communication and real change.
- The impact of getting senior leaders involved in front-line observations.
- How even small, focused actions can spark broader transformation.
5. Starting the Conversation as a Leader
- Tips for senior leaders to break the stigma and foster openness about mental health.
- The power of vulnerability in leadership: "I’m not feeling like myself—anyone else?"
- Using relevant stats or research to spark meaningful workplace conversations.
Key Takeaways:
- A mentally healthy workplace requires more than intention—it needs measurement, leadership, follow-up, and time.
- Burnout can be addressed by tackling root causes like onboarding, job clarity, and realistic expectations.
- Just asking how staff are doing can start a ripple effect—but only if it's followed by action.
- Leaders set the tone. Courageous conversations from the top can help break stigma and shift culture.
Resources:
What is MH in the Workplace
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/mental-health-workplace.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-at-work
https://cpa.ca/psychology-works-fact-sheet-mental-health-and-the-workplace/
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/psychosocial/mh/mentalhealth_address.html
https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/what-we-do/workplace/
Stats on MH in workplace
https://cmha.ca/what-we-do/national-programs/workplace-mental-health/takeaways/
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jessica Samuels (00:00):
Hello, I'm Jessica Samuels. Welcome to A
Way Forward presented by BeamCredit Union. I'd like to
acknowledge this podcast takesplace on the ancestral
traditional unceded lands of theOkanagan Selix people. Our topic
today is mentally healthyworkplaces. And my guest is CMHA
Kelowna Director of People andCulture, Candace Giesbricht.
(00:23):
Now we're going to get into whatis a mentally healthy workplace,
how you can get it and maintainit. And of course, we're going
to offer you some resources too.You know, Candace, what's really
interesting to me about thistopic is, I don't know, I'm
going guess, like prior to eightyears ago, I thought and maybe
(00:45):
other people thought thatworkplace mental health was
about an employer supporting anindividual who has a mental
health concern or a mentalillness. And of course, it is a
little bit about that, but it'salso about so much more. So
please tell us, what doesworkplace mental health mean?
Candace Giesbrecht (01:05):
So not a small question, really. But I
mean, and when we talk aboutworkplace mental health, it
could be like you weredescribing mental health in the
workplace. So in the case ofemployees, or you know, what's
happening between co workers andso on. But it also could be a
trying to achieve mentallyhealthy workplaces, which has
(01:29):
within it this whole bucket ofstrategies,
Jessica Samuels (01:33):
a bucket of strategies that sounds a little
bit daunting for any employer orpeople who are in a workplace.
So like, what are some of thesestrategies? And how do employers
and I guess responsibility forthe employees themselves to
approach it?
Candace Giesbrecht (01:47):
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, there there again,
so many different forks in thisroad. So I mean, we can talk
about the business case and whymentally healthy workplace
strategies are good forbusiness.
Jessica Samuels (02:01):
Okay, well,
Candace Giesbrecht (02:01):
yeah, they are.
Jessica Samuels (02:02):
Okay. Why? I mean, you can't just tease us
and walk away.
Candace Giesbrecht (02:06):
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, there's
there's been plenty of researchthat looks at the ROI of
investments into mental healthstrategies. And we'll talk, I
assume, about what some of thosestrategies are.
But one study just last yearthat was conducted said that for
(02:27):
every $1 invested, I believe itwas $1.64 that came back in
terms of positive businessimpact. And that was after one
year. And then after three yearsof businesses implementing
mentally healthy workplacestrategies, they saw over $2 in
ROI for every $1 invested. Sowhat does that mean for a
(02:52):
business? Does that mean,
Jessica Samuels (02:54):
how are they getting back that $2 or $1.64
Candace Giesbrecht (02:58):
Yeah, so the ways that they're getting it
back are in improvedproductivity. And the people who
are really good at measuringthese things do a good job of
benchmarking currentproductivity before they
implement some strategies andthen they continue to measure
some of the same things. And so,when we're looking at mentally
(03:20):
healthy workplaces or workplacemental health, then there can be
both positive and negativeaspects of the conversation. And
so, when we look at strategies,we can take a focus on what are
some of the positive impacts ofus looking at this, but also
what are some of the negativeimpacts when we don't? And some
(03:41):
of the negative impacts we mightbe a little more oriented
towards or maybe top of mind isabsenteeism, or something that
we think about calledpresenteeism, which is where a
person is there, but like, notreally there,
Jessica Samuels (03:57):
like on a Friday afternoon in the summer
in the Okanagan.
Candace Giesbrecht (04:01):
Yeah. And there's like happy hours
happening all over the place.Yeah. Yeah. So, so presenteeism
is actually more costly in someways than absenteeism because
the person's there.
And we've all had thatexperience where we've read the
same thing four times over andwe still can't quite get it. Or
(04:21):
we're sitting in a meeting, butour mind is elsewhere because
maybe we're thinking about someof the things that are impacting
our mental health negatively.And so when we think about the
mentally healthy workplaces,then there are strategies that
could include anything thatfalls into the bucket of HR or
(04:43):
compensation or benefits, thosekinds of things. But there are
also some of the socialactivities that happen or the
training that we invest in ourleaders leaders know how and
when to have a conversation whenmaybe somebody seeming like
they're not themselves.
Jessica Samuels (05:03):
So we got into this kind of I took you on a bit
of a different path than we wereheaded because we're talking
about that bottom line piece. Iwonder if employers or
workplaces in general understandthat there are really some
positive and negative impacts tothe bottom line if this isn't
(05:23):
addressed. So one of my bigpitches is that employers are
going to pay either way.
Candace Giesbrecht (05:28):
So they either pay on the side of
investing in some of theprevention or mental health
promoting kinds of strategieslike training or, social
gatherings and things like that.Or they're going to pay on the
side of illness. They're goingto start losing staff. Staff may
(05:49):
go off on a leave related to adiagnosed mental illness. They
may be struggling with coping.
Or as we also know, mentalhealth has a really big impact
on physical health. There havebeen many, many cases that we've
seen where and we understandthat if a person shows up with
heart disease or with cardiacproblems, one of the things that
(06:11):
doctors and professionals willlook at, care teams will look at
is, why is your blood pressurehigh? What's happening to with
how are you managing stress? Howare you coping with life? What's
going on?
How do we get that bloodpressure down? You know, if we
think about cholesterol levelsand bad eating, those have an
(06:33):
impact on our cardiac health.But a lot of the times the bad
eating happens because we don'thave other coping strategies.
Those become ways of usmedicating almost with food or
just finding those things that Ijust need to feel good for a
minute, even if it's thischocolate bar, right? And so
people end up missing time fromwork related to physical
(06:55):
illnesses that may have a mentalhealth cause or because they
just need to press pause on somepart of their life and works the
thing that they're most incontrol of.
Jessica Samuels (07:06):
When you were talking about that, you were
talking about and that makestotal sense. And you're talking
about why is your heart rate sohigh? Or why are you kind of
doing that? The chocolate, theway you eat or what have you. It
led me to this idea as well.
And the question is that, Imean, you're director of people
(07:28):
and culture here. So, you know,it's when you're in a workplace
and you're addressing workplaceconflict. Yeah. This must, are
you examining this same kind ofidea? I mean, not that, it's
kind of weird because I feellike you don't want to kind of
be like, oh, you know, they'renot mentally well.
(07:49):
Like you don't want
Candace Giesbrecht (07:50):
to turn mentally well into a bad word or
some kind of excuse. But asemployers, is that a
consideration if you areexperiencing some conflict even
outside of presenteeism, etc,etc? Yeah, workplace conflict is
a huge risk area. And it is sotricky from as an employer to
(08:15):
think about like, you know, whenare those times and situations
where we really want toencourage people to just kind of
work it out the way that theywant to or feel like they can
work it out. Most often, thereare so many barriers how people
(08:35):
or that prevent people fromaddressing it in the workplace.
Unfortunately, there are so manytimes when unaddressed workplace
conflict results in all theseother extra super hard
consequences. So I know if I'vebeen having conflict with
(08:55):
someone at work, you know, maybeI need to have a conversation
with someone that's feeling alittle hard, it's feeling
stressful. The cortisol isgoing, the adrenaline's going,
my sleep's messed up. I may wakeup and I know I need to have
this conversation with thisperson. Finally, see them, but
then I'm trying to read theroom.
There are other people around.Maybe I can't get private.
(09:17):
Right? And we come up with thosenow is not a good time. Oh, they
look like they've had a hardday.
Actually, they've got a lotgoing on in their lives. And you
know what, Maybe I've got toomuch of a headache. Today isn't
a good day. And so then we leaveit. And then it turns into often
some escalated situation wherethe strategies need to be
(09:39):
sometimes more formal.
They become escalated. And we'renot saying it's easy to talk to
a person when it's one of thosecrucial conversations, but the
costs are even higher when wedon't. And when we're not
addressing things, also, youknow, I start to think, well,
(10:01):
you know, work's not so funanymore because I've got this
conflict going on with mycoworker or maybe my boss or,
you know, there are these thingsthat are just hard about being
at work. And so, you know what,maybe I just don't want to go in
today. Or I'm so distracted bythis workplace conflict that,
you know, I'm not productive atwork, or I start to go down a
(10:27):
downward spiral, if I'm prone toanxiety or depression already,
or if I'm already strugglingwith it, then on top of it,
it's, there can be some otherstories that start going on in
my head about, great, anotherplace where I don't belong or I
don't fit in or this persondoesn't like her or respect me.
(10:47):
You know, all these storiesstart going,
Jessica Samuels (10:49):
which then becomes this giant spiral. You
have you to use common language,there's a narrative that's going
on in your head that is veryreal to you, but just might be
colored a little bit by someother factors. So it sounds like
a very little angsty, even youdescribing that scenario. And
(11:10):
possibly because maybe I canidentify and maybe many of us
can with being in a workplacethat didn't support obviously
the mental health of theindividual. But let's get back
to the talk about what amentally healthy workplace looks
like.
Because there's also, we hope asindividuals, everyone is doing
(11:35):
well in their mental health, butthere's things that go on around
in the workplace that need tohappen to facilitate that.
Candace Giesbrecht (11:41):
Yeah, there sure are. And so thank goodness,
they're really smart peoplewho've been doing a lot of
research for a really long time.And so it's so helpful for a
person like me, and I assumemany, many others to be able to
go, Okay, just give me the listthat I can refer to something
that at least helps me to guidebecause by myself, I'm thinking,
(12:06):
I'm wondering, I'm Googling, I'mtrying to figure what lever can
I pull that's going to make adifference here? And how do I
know if anything's even making adifference? So there's a group
of researchers that's connectedto the Mental Health Commission
of Canada.
Also, there are a number ofplayers, but I'm really proud
(12:29):
actually to be a part of acountry that has taken this so
seriously. We really have, Imean, maybe we weren't the first
to be thinking about some ofthese things, but we really have
been working hard as a countryat looking at what are the
pieces that help to contributeto a mentally healthy workplace.
And certainly there are piecesof legislation that have shifted
(12:51):
and changed, that have made itvery clear to employers that
there are responsibilities toensure psychological safety, not
just physical safety. And aswell, there's been this research
that has come up with a list of13 different psychosocial
factors that contribute tomentally healthy workplaces.
Jessica Samuels (13:13):
So you just introduced the phrase
psychological safety. And thatis the language that's being
used to describe a mentallyhealthy. Yeah. Okay, so 13
factors. Everyone get their pensout.
Yeah. But like you say, it'skind of to help you navigate
along the way. So what are thefactors? Sure, I'm going to look
at my list
Candace Giesbrecht (13:33):
for this one. Don't have them memorized.
I could probably do pretty well.But the first one is
psychological support. And sowhen I'm struggling with
something, maybe I have a deathin the family, maybe I've had
some bad news, or I'm justfeeling low, then then having
psychological support withinsomebody who cares enough to say
(13:54):
you're not yourself.
What kind of resources do youneed? How can I help? I care. I
care about you and this place.
Jessica Samuels (14:03):
Sounds very reasonable to me.
Candace Giesbrecht (14:05):
Sounds very reasonable. And also sometimes
missing in a lot of workplaces,right? And it doesn't take much
to just say I care, I notice, Isee. Another one is
organizational culture. And alot of people confuse culture
and climate, which would be, Ithink, another topic for maybe
(14:25):
another podcast.
But the culture is really thoseshared values and behaviors that
permeate an organization. So theway we do things around here,
that you can sort of feel whensomething doesn't feel like the
culture here. And so climate onthe other side of that same coin
(14:50):
is people's experience of it. Sowhen we look at culture, we're
really talking those values andthose things about what's
reinforced, what's celebrated,what's taught, what's within all
of those intros and the thingsthat we always start with. So
those inform our organizationalculture.
(15:11):
Clear leadership andexpectations. And this one is
one of the ones that I usuallylead with the most as we support
various workplaces around ourcommunity. It's such low hanging
fruit. It's not to say for asecond that it's easy because it
often is not. But if we startwith, how do you know what your
(15:36):
priorities are?
How can we what are thepriorities for this week? You
know, noticing when there's beensome role ambiguity, maybe
there's been a business hasexperienced some growth or
something like that, then takingthe time to spell out, okay, in
this one task, who'sresponsible? Who's going to be
(15:58):
consulted? Who's going to beinformed? So it's a version of
what's called a RACI matrix.
But there are a number ofdifferent tools where you can
go, this is the direction who'sdoing what and by when. And so
setting those clear leadershipand expectations. Many of us
have had that experience whereit's like, I'm showing up and I
don't know what my prioritiesare. I don't have a clear sense.
(16:21):
You've pointed out the windowand said we're going out the
window.
But like, are we going to thestreet? Are we going to the
building behind it? Are we goingto the mountain that's way off
in the distance? I don't know.And that can be frustrating and
hard to landmark and to try andfigure out like, where do I fit
and where am I going to make animpact?
Civility and respect.Psychological competencies and
(16:44):
requirements. So do we have theabilities to be resilient? So do
we have those skills to bounceback? Do we have the ability to
identify and navigate the thingsthat are coming at us?
Growth and development. And manybusinesses, you know, this is
one that's maybe a little bitmore familiar, but sending
someone to a conference cansignal to a person, We care
(17:07):
about you and in your growth, wesee your value. You're worth
investing in. And there's alsothat opportunity to just stretch
our brains, and that can havesuch a positive impact on our
mental health and on the broaderworkplace. Recognition and
reward.
Often people think aboutrecognition and reward as pay.
And that can certainly is partof it, but it's not the only
(17:31):
thing. Then within that, we havejust different personalities and
different people. Like I recalla time when my boss very
publicly thanked me forsomething that I'd done. And I
recall feeling like, frustratedthat that had happened.
(17:52):
So part of it was a little bitof embarrassment. Like I, you
know, I wasn't expecting it.
Jessica Samuels (17:55):
And it was lovely. But I also had this
feeling like, like, justrealized that a private thank
you is far more meaningful to methan a public one. That one is
so interesting to me, thatrecognition. That was one of my
biggest learnings at my timehere at CMHA Kelowna and around
workplace mental health. I havea large personality.
(18:18):
I mean, don't seek out publicrecognition, but I can take it,
right? And I'm like, what? Noteverybody likes that? Wow. And
oh, yeah.
And oh, yeah, because I canimagine in that instance,
everyone stops, all eyes turn toyou, you flush, are you expected
to say something? What do yousay? You got to come across
(18:40):
humble, but not boastful.
Candace Giesbrecht (18:41):
And also, she kind of had to. She kind of
had to thank me in front ofeveryone. So there's this
question of was it sincere?
Jessica Samuels (18:48):
Yes.
Candace Giesbrecht (18:49):
Right? And so a private thank you. Like, I
see all the work that you did,and it really matters. And so I
mean, I believed that it wassincere, but I really realized
that what was most meaningfuland so, rather than getting
upset about, like, this personshould have known, like that I
(19:13):
would prefer a private high fiverather than a public kudos. I
felt I needed to takeresponsibility.
But those are to say thanks anda private high five is all I
need and actually is reallyimportant to me. And so being
(19:33):
aware of the kinds ofrecognition and reward, like not
everybody's built the same way,but also finding those different
ways that we can express thatgratitude. And gratitude, I
would suggest is probably one ofthe most powerful ways of
recognizing people. And yethaving said that, I've also
(19:54):
known people that, and this wasa mistake on me as a leader, I
recall times when I thanked theperson privately believing that
that was what they wanted andwhat was going to be most
meaningful for them. And yet Icompletely missed a public
opportunity that they expected.
And were hurt by the fact that Ididn't publicly recognize them.
(20:17):
And I'm like, I missed that.Thank you for sharing with me so
that I know how to recognize youin a way that's meaningful for
you. So recognition and reward,involvement and influence, we
want to have a say, don't we?All of us want to have a say.
I want to know that my voicematters. I want to know that I
have the opportunity to bring myperspectives, bring my
(20:39):
strengths, bring my concernsabout maybe some risks that I
see. And so that involvement andinfluences is critical. And
again, a pretty low cost way toreally make a difference in
shifting the overall mentalhealth and engagement of your
(20:59):
staff. Engagement is the nextone.
So are people feeling likethey're part of it? Are they
feeling loyal? Are they feelingconnected? Or are they feeling
like they matter? And feelinglike when they show up here,
they're given their version of100%, whatever that is today.
They're bringing their besttoday and they aren't dreading
(21:20):
and thinking about exitstrategies every part of the
day. They're really thinkinglike, I'm engaged. I matter
here. Sometimes I think aboutengagement as gears that kind of
go together. So, and when theymiss, then everything doesn't
(21:43):
run properly.
You know, if you think about theinside of a watch or a clock
with those gears, like itdoesn't, it won't work properly
unless everything's sort ofworking together. And to me,
when those gears are engaged,that's kind of how it feels when
we're engaged within ourworkplace. I skipped over
workload management. I don'twant to miss that one. So how
(22:05):
much work?
Like are we trying to put 50pounds into a 20 pound bag,
right? Like it's those days whenwe just feel like we're doing so
much heavy lifting. We'repushing that boulder up the hill
and it just keeps rolling backdown. Workload management, super
important. Balance.
So do I have the opportunity tohave the kinds of breaks or
(22:27):
pauses, some flexibility maybewithin my life and work. And
this was another one. I havestories for all these things,
but I really remember this oneperson that I worked with and
they were I just envied theextent to which they could set
(22:47):
boundaries and that they showedup on time, they left on time,
they got all their work donewithin the allotted time. For
me, I'm a little more fluid. Ifthe thing that I need to do is
clearest to me at 8PM, then I'mjust going to do it then because
then I sleep better.
But I had to really justunderstand trying to make myself
(23:08):
into someone I'm not also isn'tmentally healthy. And we're not
all wired the same, figuring outhow do each of us manage our
workload, find that work lifebalance, All of these things are
intertwined, aren't they? Well,use that
Jessica Samuels (23:27):
example of the cog and you used it for
engagement. But I see thatreally that those are all part
of the cog for that psychosocialfactors of a mentally healthy
workplace. A lot of these, andyou said, are low hanging fruit.
They seem fairly obvious. Thereare barriers, though, and
workplaces and employers andemployees are finding barriers
(23:50):
to this.
Like what would be some of thechallenges? I mean, I can
imagine of not knowing even howto start. Yeah, but and fair
enough. Like, that's a longlist. There's I know I have to
know
Candace Giesbrecht (24:04):
there's protection and physical safety.
Jessica Samuels (24:05):
And then we go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then
there's pieces to each of thatas So I can imagine staff
turnover, growth or constrictionof a company. So an employer may
feel, Okay, we're in this grooveor in this mentally healthy
workplace group. And then whoknows what the socioeconomic,
(24:29):
political, whatever financialclimate changes, things go awry
and they have to start again.Yeah.
That's really, really tough. AndI wonder if there's even after a
while, I wonder how employersare feeling like, gosh, we're
never going to get this right.Do they ever 100% get it right?
Candace Giesbrecht (24:49):
Well, I guess it depends in the eyes of
whom, right? So maybe in theeyes of some of their employees,
nope, haven't got it right yet.But maybe in, you know, when
we're looking at, like, what arewe measuring? Why and how? And,
you know, we haven't even talkedabout measuring and there are
some awesome free tools.
(25:09):
There's a survey called guardingminds at work, which is
completely free.
Jessica Samuels (25:13):
Well, that actually goes into the measuring
because I was wondering earlier,who determines if it's a
mentally healthy workplace? Likedoes the CEO, the president say,
that's it. We are mentallyhealthy. My work here is done.
I'm sure that's not the case.
Candace Giesbrecht (25:29):
It is not the case. What is the
Jessica Samuels (25:31):
case then?
Candace Giesbrecht (25:31):
Yeah. So, I mean, the hope is that there is
some kind of measurement andthere are a ton of different
engagement surveys or differentversions, but guarding minds at
work is evidence based. So thatmeans it's grounded in research.
It's been around for quite along time. And it's solid.
And it measures these 13different factors. What we used
(25:52):
to do here at CMHA Kelowna, weused to do guarding mines
annually. We switched to everytwo years just because it's just
factoring in it. It does take alittle bit of time and work
mostly because the first step ismeasuring. But then we want to
report back to staff.
We asked you to tell us what youthought and here's what we
(26:13):
heard.
Jessica Samuels (26:13):
And want to do something about it.
Candace Giesbrecht (26:15):
We want to do something. If we were to do
three things within the next sixmonths, what are the things that
are going to make the biggestdifference? And so hopefully,
the investment in this isn'tjust on HR's plate. Hopefully,
(26:37):
the entire senior leadershipteam has bought in to measuring
this and identifying the plan.And then hopefully we also take
the opportunity because, well,Mike Golic, our CEO, he often
says there's what it is and whatit does.
And so what it is, is you get ascorecard it's with some traffic
(26:58):
light coloring that shows youwhere you're in the green.
Everything's looking great.Here's some cautionary areas.
But by asking people, how are wedoing in these areas? How are
you feeling?
How's it going? Then just byasking, we're making an impact.
(27:21):
Now that impact is going to beshort lived if we don't do
anything about it. And if wekeep asking people year over
year for their input, but theydon't really see any real
change. But if we say to people,okay, like this happened, I
don't mind sharing.
When I came here a couple yearsago, it was looking like a lot
(27:42):
of our staff were at risk forburnout. That's what showed on
our Guarding Minds report, lotsof risks areas. And so when we
dug a little bit further intothe results, what we discovered
was that there was probably abig opportunity for us that
would accomplish both clearleadership and expectations, as
(28:02):
well as a little bit of growthand development. And we saw that
we could really improve ouronboarding processes and just
train people better at thestart. But we decided which
metric we wanted to move.
We decided that we wanted tomove the ones that were related
to burnout. And we wanted to dothat by focusing on this one
(28:27):
thing, and really shining alight on it, and not just trying
to accomplish 10 differentthings and do a wide and shallow
kind of an approach. But wewanted to go deep on it. And I
thought we would have gotthrough it within about six
months. But you know, I can sayit ended up taking us close to
(28:48):
two years before we really dugin because what we discovered
was that job descriptionsactually weren't really
reflecting what the actual workwas.
So we did some work on those.And then that had an impact on
our job postings. And when welooked at our job postings, then
we realized, oh, hey, if we do abetter job of articulating in
the postings what the jobactually is, then we might do a
(29:10):
better job of attracting more ofthe right kinds of candidates
that we want. So we've seenreductions in turnover, and
we've seen better improve, likewe've seen improvements within
these scores. I'm not going torest if there's even 1% of
people who are right.
These are the kinds of thingsI've experienced burnout. It's
devastating and hard. So we'regoing to keep going. We will
(29:34):
never be done. Okay.
And we can celebrate that twoyears ago, we identified that
this was a growth area and wedecided we were going to tackle
it. We were going to do what wecould to try and shift this. And
I mean, we also had fun while wewere doing it, which I trust.
(29:56):
There's what it is and what itdoes. I trust that it also made
an impact because it washilarious.
We had groups of leaders inrooms looking at the job
postings, they were going, Oh,I've been Yeah, no, we need to
spend some time. And then whathappens when leaders start
spending time at the front linesa little bit more and really
(30:18):
looking at how things are goingthen, I mean, we also, we went
in to accomplish these one ortwo things, and we came out with
a list of 10 more things that wereally want to be following up
on, checking in on,appreciating, celebrating,
considering, especially as welook at adding different
(30:40):
services or growing as anorganization too.
Jessica Samuels (30:43):
What's interesting to me about that is
you talked about two years toaddress one part of one thing
that you saw, which led to this,this, this and this in two
years. And this is for a mentalhealth organization. So it
happens and can happen toanybody. Okay, just you
mentioned burnout. We were goingto have to have you back to have
(31:06):
another conversation becauseburnout is a really interesting
topic to me and obviously showsup in many aspects of our lives,
primarily in the workplace.
So we'll have to put a littlepin in that and come Yeah, But
there's somebody in a workplacewhose senior leadership and
employer listening now, they'vejust heard about this two year
experience that CMH had. Andthey're like, oh, great, Yeah.
(31:28):
Where do they start?
Candace Giesbrecht (31:30):
How do they get started with even thinking
about implementing or checkingto see if they have a mentally
healthy workplace? Yeah, I wouldrecommend the Guarding Minds at
Work tool, or even just going tothe website. You can just Google
Guarding Minds at Work and it'llcome up, it'll be the top of the
page for you. But there are alsoa lot of big resources that like
(31:53):
toolkits and fact sheets andlinks out on any one of these
topics. And I remember this wasseveral years ago.
And there was a study that wasdone somewhere in Europe, and it
actually was looking at themental health of elite athletes.
Now, all I did with it was Itook it to a person in our
(32:17):
community and I said, if we wereto replicate this study with
your team, do you think we'dfind similar findings? And the
findings were things like youngmale athletes were twice as
likely to develop eatingdisorders as a result of being a
(32:37):
part of the sport. And younggirls, so in this case, I just
looked at boys and girls, werefour times as likely to develop
eating disorders as a result ofbeing at an elite level in this
particular sport. And so all Idid was I just presented the
stats and I said, If we were torun this within your team, what
do you think we'd find?
(32:59):
And initially, it was likeresist, resist, resist. I think
we got this. I've done all thethings. But then when I just put
those stats in front, then theconversation shifted big time.
And this person said, We'dprobably find very similar
results.
And then the follow-up is, Howcan I help? And so I think, to
(33:20):
your question around employers,you could pick anything that you
find of interest. You're asenior leader. Take one of the
stats. I think there's going tobe a lot of resources within the
show notes.
Have a look or take a snippet ofsomething that maybe you've
heard in this conversation andask some folks. What do you
(33:42):
think about this in ourworkplace? Because there's what
it is and there is what it does.And so, sometimes just asking
and beginning the conversationgoing first as a senior leader's
huge stigma is still alive andwell. There are so many people
who are not asking for the helpthat they need because they're
(34:03):
afraid of what people are goingto think.
Maybe they've had badexperiences when they have asked
for help. And it's beenminimized or shoved aside or
maybe they were made fun of. Wedon't know what people say.
There are a lot of reasons whypeople don't say, I'm not okay.
I'm really struggling.
(34:24):
And so, if a senior leader islistening, could even be
something for them to say, At ameeting, I'm noticing I'm not
myself these days. I'm thinking,like, I'm wondering if anybody
(34:44):
else is feeling that way too.That would take a lot of
courage. When we just begin theconversation, then amazing
things can happen.
Jessica Samuels (34:57):
Candice, thank you so much for being here.
Candace Giesbrecht (34:59):
Thanks for having me.
Jessica Samuels (35:01):
Well, we talked about some resources and
definitely the 13 psychosocialfactors, the guarding minds and
a few others we're going to havelinked on the show notes and as
well as on the way forwardpodcast presented by Bean Credit
Union page on the cmhacolona.orgwebsite. United has won. Beam's
(35:30):
founding credit unions now serve190,000 members across BC.
Hello, I'm Jessica Samuels. Welcome to A
Way Forward presented by BeamCredit Union. I'd like to
acknowledge this podcast takesplace on the ancestral
traditional unceded lands of theOkanagan Selix people. Our topic
today is mentally healthyworkplaces. And my guest is CMHA
Kelowna Director of People andCulture, Candace Giesbricht.
(00:23):
Now we're going to get into whatis a mentally healthy workplace,
how you can get it and maintainit. And of course, we're going
to offer you some resources too.You know, Candace, what's really
interesting to me about thistopic is, I don't know, I'm
going guess, like prior to eightyears ago, I thought and maybe
(00:45):
other people thought thatworkplace mental health was
about an employer supporting anindividual who has a mental
health concern or a mentalillness. And of course, it is a
little bit about that, but it'salso about so much more. So
please tell us, what doesworkplace mental health mean?
Candace Giesbrecht (01:05):
So not a small question, really. But I
mean, and when we talk aboutworkplace mental health, it
could be like you weredescribing mental health in the
workplace. So in the case ofemployees, or you know, what's
happening between co workers andso on. But it also could be a
trying to achieve mentallyhealthy workplaces, which has
(01:29):
within it this whole bucket ofstrategies,
Jessica Samuels (01:33):
a bucket of strategies that sounds a little
bit daunting for any employer orpeople who are in a workplace.
So like, what are some of thesestrategies? And how do employers
and I guess responsibility forthe employees themselves to
approach it?
Candace Giesbrecht (01:47):
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, there there again,
so many different forks in thisroad. So I mean, we can talk
about the business case and whymentally healthy workplace
strategies are good forbusiness.
Jessica Samuels (02:01):
Okay, well,
Candace Giesbrecht (02:01):
yeah, they are.
Jessica Samuels (02:02):
Okay. Why? I mean, you can't just tease us
and walk away.
Candace Giesbrecht (02:06):
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, there's
there's been plenty of researchthat looks at the ROI of
investments into mental healthstrategies. And we'll talk, I
assume, about what some of thosestrategies are.
But one study just last yearthat was conducted said that for
(02:27):
every $1 invested, I believe itwas $1.64 that came back in
terms of positive businessimpact. And that was after one
year. And then after three yearsof businesses implementing
mentally healthy workplacestrategies, they saw over $2 in
ROI for every $1 invested. Sowhat does that mean for a
(02:52):
business? Does that mean,
Jessica Samuels (02:54):
how are they getting back that $2 or $1.64
Candace Giesbrecht (02:58):
Yeah, so the ways that they're getting it
back are in improvedproductivity. And the people who
are really good at measuringthese things do a good job of
benchmarking currentproductivity before they
implement some strategies andthen they continue to measure
some of the same things. And so,when we're looking at mentally
(03:20):
healthy workplaces or workplacemental health, then there can be
both positive and negativeaspects of the conversation. And
so, when we look at strategies,we can take a focus on what are
some of the positive impacts ofus looking at this, but also
what are some of the negativeimpacts when we don't? And some
(03:41):
of the negative impacts we mightbe a little more oriented
towards or maybe top of mind isabsenteeism, or something that
we think about calledpresenteeism, which is where a
person is there, but like, notreally there,
Jessica Samuels (03:57):
like on a Friday afternoon in the summer
in the Okanagan.
Candace Giesbrecht (04:01):
Yeah. And there's like happy hours
happening all over the place.Yeah. Yeah. So, so presenteeism
is actually more costly in someways than absenteeism because
the person's there.
And we've all had thatexperience where we've read the
same thing four times over andwe still can't quite get it. Or
(04:21):
we're sitting in a meeting, butour mind is elsewhere because
maybe we're thinking about someof the things that are impacting
our mental health negatively.And so when we think about the
mentally healthy workplaces,then there are strategies that
could include anything thatfalls into the bucket of HR or
(04:43):
compensation or benefits, thosekinds of things. But there are
also some of the socialactivities that happen or the
training that we invest in ourleaders leaders know how and
when to have a conversation whenmaybe somebody seeming like
they're not themselves.
Jessica Samuels (05:03):
So we got into this kind of I took you on a bit
of a different path than we wereheaded because we're talking
about that bottom line piece. Iwonder if employers or
workplaces in general understandthat there are really some
positive and negative impacts tothe bottom line if this isn't
(05:23):
addressed. So one of my bigpitches is that employers are
going to pay either way.
Candace Giesbrecht (05:28):
So they either pay on the side of
investing in some of theprevention or mental health
promoting kinds of strategieslike training or, social
gatherings and things like that.Or they're going to pay on the
side of illness. They're goingto start losing staff. Staff may
(05:49):
go off on a leave related to adiagnosed mental illness. They
may be struggling with coping.
Or as we also know, mentalhealth has a really big impact
on physical health. There havebeen many, many cases that we've
seen where and we understandthat if a person shows up with
heart disease or with cardiacproblems, one of the things that
(06:11):
doctors and professionals willlook at, care teams will look at
is, why is your blood pressurehigh? What's happening to with
how are you managing stress? Howare you coping with life? What's
going on?
How do we get that bloodpressure down? You know, if we
think about cholesterol levelsand bad eating, those have an
(06:33):
impact on our cardiac health.But a lot of the times the bad
eating happens because we don'thave other coping strategies.
Those become ways of usmedicating almost with food or
just finding those things that Ijust need to feel good for a
minute, even if it's thischocolate bar, right? And so
people end up missing time fromwork related to physical
(06:55):
illnesses that may have a mentalhealth cause or because they
just need to press pause on somepart of their life and works the
thing that they're most incontrol of.
Jessica Samuels (07:06):
When you were talking about that, you were
talking about and that makestotal sense. And you're talking
about why is your heart rate sohigh? Or why are you kind of
doing that? The chocolate, theway you eat or what have you. It
led me to this idea as well.
And the question is that, Imean, you're director of people
(07:28):
and culture here. So, you know,it's when you're in a workplace
and you're addressing workplaceconflict. Yeah. This must, are
you examining this same kind ofidea? I mean, not that, it's
kind of weird because I feellike you don't want to kind of
be like, oh, you know, they'renot mentally well.
(07:49):
Like you don't want
Candace Giesbrecht (07:50):
to turn mentally well into a bad word or
some kind of excuse. But asemployers, is that a
consideration if you areexperiencing some conflict even
outside of presenteeism, etc,etc? Yeah, workplace conflict is
a huge risk area. And it is sotricky from as an employer to
(08:15):
think about like, you know, whenare those times and situations
where we really want toencourage people to just kind of
work it out the way that theywant to or feel like they can
work it out. Most often, thereare so many barriers how people
(08:35):
or that prevent people fromaddressing it in the workplace.
Unfortunately, there are so manytimes when unaddressed workplace
conflict results in all theseother extra super hard
consequences. So I know if I'vebeen having conflict with
(08:55):
someone at work, you know, maybeI need to have a conversation
with someone that's feeling alittle hard, it's feeling
stressful. The cortisol isgoing, the adrenaline's going,
my sleep's messed up. I may wakeup and I know I need to have
this conversation with thisperson. Finally, see them, but
then I'm trying to read theroom.
There are other people around.Maybe I can't get private.
(09:17):
Right? And we come up with thosenow is not a good time. Oh, they
look like they've had a hardday.
Actually, they've got a lotgoing on in their lives. And you
know what, Maybe I've got toomuch of a headache. Today isn't
a good day. And so then we leaveit. And then it turns into often
some escalated situation wherethe strategies need to be
(09:39):
sometimes more formal.
They become escalated. And we'renot saying it's easy to talk to
a person when it's one of thosecrucial conversations, but the
costs are even higher when wedon't. And when we're not
addressing things, also, youknow, I start to think, well,
(10:01):
you know, work's not so funanymore because I've got this
conflict going on with mycoworker or maybe my boss or,
you know, there are these thingsthat are just hard about being
at work. And so, you know what,maybe I just don't want to go in
today. Or I'm so distracted bythis workplace conflict that,
you know, I'm not productive atwork, or I start to go down a
(10:27):
downward spiral, if I'm prone toanxiety or depression already,
or if I'm already strugglingwith it, then on top of it,
it's, there can be some otherstories that start going on in
my head about, great, anotherplace where I don't belong or I
don't fit in or this persondoesn't like her or respect me.
(10:47):
You know, all these storiesstart going,
Jessica Samuels (10:49):
which then becomes this giant spiral. You
have you to use common language,there's a narrative that's going
on in your head that is veryreal to you, but just might be
colored a little bit by someother factors. So it sounds like
a very little angsty, even youdescribing that scenario. And
(11:10):
possibly because maybe I canidentify and maybe many of us
can with being in a workplacethat didn't support obviously
the mental health of theindividual. But let's get back
to the talk about what amentally healthy workplace looks
like.
Because there's also, we hope asindividuals, everyone is doing
(11:35):
well in their mental health, butthere's things that go on around
in the workplace that need tohappen to facilitate that.
Candace Giesbrecht (11:41):
Yeah, there sure are. And so thank goodness,
they're really smart peoplewho've been doing a lot of
research for a really long time.And so it's so helpful for a
person like me, and I assumemany, many others to be able to
go, Okay, just give me the listthat I can refer to something
that at least helps me to guidebecause by myself, I'm thinking,
(12:06):
I'm wondering, I'm Googling, I'mtrying to figure what lever can
I pull that's going to make adifference here? And how do I
know if anything's even making adifference? So there's a group
of researchers that's connectedto the Mental Health Commission
of Canada.
Also, there are a number ofplayers, but I'm really proud
(12:29):
actually to be a part of acountry that has taken this so
seriously. We really have, Imean, maybe we weren't the first
to be thinking about some ofthese things, but we really have
been working hard as a countryat looking at what are the
pieces that help to contributeto a mentally healthy workplace.
And certainly there are piecesof legislation that have shifted
(12:51):
and changed, that have made itvery clear to employers that
there are responsibilities toensure psychological safety, not
just physical safety. And aswell, there's been this research
that has come up with a list of13 different psychosocial
factors that contribute tomentally healthy workplaces.
Jessica Samuels (13:13):
So you just introduced the phrase
psychological safety. And thatis the language that's being
used to describe a mentallyhealthy. Yeah. Okay, so 13
factors. Everyone get their pensout.
Yeah. But like you say, it'skind of to help you navigate
along the way. So what are thefactors? Sure, I'm going to look
at my list
Candace Giesbrecht (13:33):
for this one. Don't have them memorized.
I could probably do pretty well.But the first one is
psychological support. And sowhen I'm struggling with
something, maybe I have a deathin the family, maybe I've had
some bad news, or I'm justfeeling low, then then having
psychological support withinsomebody who cares enough to say
(13:54):
you're not yourself.
What kind of resources do youneed? How can I help? I care. I
care about you and this place.
Jessica Samuels (14:03):
Sounds very reasonable to me.
Candace Giesbrecht (14:05):
Sounds very reasonable. And also sometimes
missing in a lot of workplaces,right? And it doesn't take much
to just say I care, I notice, Isee. Another one is
organizational culture. And alot of people confuse culture
and climate, which would be, Ithink, another topic for maybe
(14:25):
another podcast.
But the culture is really thoseshared values and behaviors that
permeate an organization. So theway we do things around here,
that you can sort of feel whensomething doesn't feel like the
culture here. And so climate onthe other side of that same coin
(14:50):
is people's experience of it. Sowhen we look at culture, we're
really talking those values andthose things about what's
reinforced, what's celebrated,what's taught, what's within all
of those intros and the thingsthat we always start with. So
those inform our organizationalculture.
(15:11):
Clear leadership andexpectations. And this one is
one of the ones that I usuallylead with the most as we support
various workplaces around ourcommunity. It's such low hanging
fruit. It's not to say for asecond that it's easy because it
often is not. But if we startwith, how do you know what your
(15:36):
priorities are?
How can we what are thepriorities for this week? You
know, noticing when there's beensome role ambiguity, maybe
there's been a business hasexperienced some growth or
something like that, then takingthe time to spell out, okay, in
this one task, who'sresponsible? Who's going to be
(15:58):
consulted? Who's going to beinformed? So it's a version of
what's called a RACI matrix.
But there are a number ofdifferent tools where you can
go, this is the direction who'sdoing what and by when. And so
setting those clear leadershipand expectations. Many of us
have had that experience whereit's like, I'm showing up and I
don't know what my prioritiesare. I don't have a clear sense.
(16:21):
You've pointed out the windowand said we're going out the
window.
But like, are we going to thestreet? Are we going to the
building behind it? Are we goingto the mountain that's way off
in the distance? I don't know.And that can be frustrating and
hard to landmark and to try andfigure out like, where do I fit
and where am I going to make animpact?
Civility and respect.Psychological competencies and
(16:44):
requirements. So do we have theabilities to be resilient? So do
we have those skills to bounceback? Do we have the ability to
identify and navigate the thingsthat are coming at us?
Growth and development. And manybusinesses, you know, this is
one that's maybe a little bitmore familiar, but sending
someone to a conference cansignal to a person, We care
(17:07):
about you and in your growth, wesee your value. You're worth
investing in. And there's alsothat opportunity to just stretch
our brains, and that can havesuch a positive impact on our
mental health and on the broaderworkplace. Recognition and
reward.
Often people think aboutrecognition and reward as pay.
And that can certainly is partof it, but it's not the only
(17:31):
thing. Then within that, we havejust different personalities and
different people. Like I recalla time when my boss very
publicly thanked me forsomething that I'd done. And I
recall feeling like, frustratedthat that had happened.
(17:52):
So part of it was a little bitof embarrassment. Like I, you
know, I wasn't expecting it.
Jessica Samuels (17:55):
And it was lovely. But I also had this
feeling like, like, justrealized that a private thank
you is far more meaningful to methan a public one. That one is
so interesting to me, thatrecognition. That was one of my
biggest learnings at my timehere at CMHA Kelowna and around
workplace mental health. I havea large personality.
(18:18):
I mean, don't seek out publicrecognition, but I can take it,
right? And I'm like, what? Noteverybody likes that? Wow. And
oh, yeah.
And oh, yeah, because I canimagine in that instance,
everyone stops, all eyes turn toyou, you flush, are you expected
to say something? What do yousay? You got to come across
(18:40):
humble, but not boastful.
Candace Giesbrecht (18:41):
And also, she kind of had to. She kind of
had to thank me in front ofeveryone. So there's this
question of was it sincere?
Jessica Samuels (18:48):
Yes.
Candace Giesbrecht (18:49):
Right? And so a private thank you. Like, I
see all the work that you did,and it really matters. And so I
mean, I believed that it wassincere, but I really realized
that what was most meaningfuland so, rather than getting
upset about, like, this personshould have known, like that I
(19:13):
would prefer a private high fiverather than a public kudos. I
felt I needed to takeresponsibility.
But those are to say thanks anda private high five is all I
need and actually is reallyimportant to me. And so being
(19:33):
aware of the kinds ofrecognition and reward, like not
everybody's built the same way,but also finding those different
ways that we can express thatgratitude. And gratitude, I
would suggest is probably one ofthe most powerful ways of
recognizing people. And yethaving said that, I've also
(19:54):
known people that, and this wasa mistake on me as a leader, I
recall times when I thanked theperson privately believing that
that was what they wanted andwhat was going to be most
meaningful for them. And yet Icompletely missed a public
opportunity that they expected.
And were hurt by the fact that Ididn't publicly recognize them.
(20:17):
And I'm like, I missed that.Thank you for sharing with me so
that I know how to recognize youin a way that's meaningful for
you. So recognition and reward,involvement and influence, we
want to have a say, don't we?All of us want to have a say.
I want to know that my voicematters. I want to know that I
have the opportunity to bring myperspectives, bring my
(20:39):
strengths, bring my concernsabout maybe some risks that I
see. And so that involvement andinfluences is critical. And
again, a pretty low cost way toreally make a difference in
shifting the overall mentalhealth and engagement of your
(20:59):
staff. Engagement is the nextone.
So are people feeling likethey're part of it? Are they
feeling loyal? Are they feelingconnected? Or are they feeling
like they matter? And feelinglike when they show up here,
they're given their version of100%, whatever that is today.
They're bringing their besttoday and they aren't dreading
(21:20):
and thinking about exitstrategies every part of the
day. They're really thinkinglike, I'm engaged. I matter
here. Sometimes I think aboutengagement as gears that kind of
go together. So, and when theymiss, then everything doesn't
(21:43):
run properly.
You know, if you think about theinside of a watch or a clock
with those gears, like itdoesn't, it won't work properly
unless everything's sort ofworking together. And to me,
when those gears are engaged,that's kind of how it feels when
we're engaged within ourworkplace. I skipped over
workload management. I don'twant to miss that one. So how
(22:05):
much work?
Like are we trying to put 50pounds into a 20 pound bag,
right? Like it's those days whenwe just feel like we're doing so
much heavy lifting. We'repushing that boulder up the hill
and it just keeps rolling backdown. Workload management, super
important. Balance.
So do I have the opportunity tohave the kinds of breaks or
(22:27):
pauses, some flexibility maybewithin my life and work. And
this was another one. I havestories for all these things,
but I really remember this oneperson that I worked with and
they were I just envied theextent to which they could set
(22:47):
boundaries and that they showedup on time, they left on time,
they got all their work donewithin the allotted time. For
me, I'm a little more fluid. Ifthe thing that I need to do is
clearest to me at 8PM, then I'mjust going to do it then because
then I sleep better.
But I had to really justunderstand trying to make myself
(23:08):
into someone I'm not also isn'tmentally healthy. And we're not
all wired the same, figuring outhow do each of us manage our
workload, find that work lifebalance, All of these things are
intertwined, aren't they? Well,use that
Jessica Samuels (23:27):
example of the cog and you used it for
engagement. But I see thatreally that those are all part
of the cog for that psychosocialfactors of a mentally healthy
workplace. A lot of these, andyou said, are low hanging fruit.
They seem fairly obvious. Thereare barriers, though, and
workplaces and employers andemployees are finding barriers
(23:50):
to this.
Like what would be some of thechallenges? I mean, I can
imagine of not knowing even howto start. Yeah, but and fair
enough. Like, that's a longlist. There's I know I have to
know
Candace Giesbrecht (24:04):
there's protection and physical safety.
Jessica Samuels (24:05):
And then we go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then
there's pieces to each of thatas So I can imagine staff
turnover, growth or constrictionof a company. So an employer may
feel, Okay, we're in this grooveor in this mentally healthy
workplace group. And then whoknows what the socioeconomic,
(24:29):
political, whatever financialclimate changes, things go awry
and they have to start again.Yeah.
That's really, really tough. AndI wonder if there's even after a
while, I wonder how employersare feeling like, gosh, we're
never going to get this right.Do they ever 100% get it right?
Candace Giesbrecht (24:49):
Well, I guess it depends in the eyes of
whom, right? So maybe in theeyes of some of their employees,
nope, haven't got it right yet.But maybe in, you know, when
we're looking at, like, what arewe measuring? Why and how? And,
you know, we haven't even talkedabout measuring and there are
some awesome free tools.
(25:09):
There's a survey called guardingminds at work, which is
completely free.
Jessica Samuels (25:13):
Well, that actually goes into the measuring
because I was wondering earlier,who determines if it's a
mentally healthy workplace? Likedoes the CEO, the president say,
that's it. We are mentallyhealthy. My work here is done.
I'm sure that's not the case.
Candace Giesbrecht (25:29):
It is not the case. What is the
Jessica Samuels (25:31):
case then?
Candace Giesbrecht (25:31):
Yeah. So, I mean, the hope is that there is
some kind of measurement andthere are a ton of different
engagement surveys or differentversions, but guarding minds at
work is evidence based. So thatmeans it's grounded in research.
It's been around for quite along time. And it's solid.
And it measures these 13different factors. What we used
(25:52):
to do here at CMHA Kelowna, weused to do guarding mines
annually. We switched to everytwo years just because it's just
factoring in it. It does take alittle bit of time and work
mostly because the first step ismeasuring. But then we want to
report back to staff.
We asked you to tell us what youthought and here's what we
(26:13):
heard.
Jessica Samuels (26:13):
And want to do something about it.
Candace Giesbrecht (26:15):
We want to do something. If we were to do
three things within the next sixmonths, what are the things that
are going to make the biggestdifference? And so hopefully,
the investment in this isn'tjust on HR's plate. Hopefully,
(26:37):
the entire senior leadershipteam has bought in to measuring
this and identifying the plan.And then hopefully we also take
the opportunity because, well,Mike Golic, our CEO, he often
says there's what it is and whatit does.
And so what it is, is you get ascorecard it's with some traffic
(26:58):
light coloring that shows youwhere you're in the green.
Everything's looking great.Here's some cautionary areas.
But by asking people, how are wedoing in these areas? How are
you feeling?
How's it going? Then just byasking, we're making an impact.
(27:21):
Now that impact is going to beshort lived if we don't do
anything about it. And if wekeep asking people year over
year for their input, but theydon't really see any real
change. But if we say to people,okay, like this happened, I
don't mind sharing.
When I came here a couple yearsago, it was looking like a lot
(27:42):
of our staff were at risk forburnout. That's what showed on
our Guarding Minds report, lotsof risks areas. And so when we
dug a little bit further intothe results, what we discovered
was that there was probably abig opportunity for us that
would accomplish both clearleadership and expectations, as
(28:02):
well as a little bit of growthand development. And we saw that
we could really improve ouronboarding processes and just
train people better at thestart. But we decided which
metric we wanted to move.
We decided that we wanted tomove the ones that were related
to burnout. And we wanted to dothat by focusing on this one
(28:27):
thing, and really shining alight on it, and not just trying
to accomplish 10 differentthings and do a wide and shallow
kind of an approach. But wewanted to go deep on it. And I
thought we would have gotthrough it within about six
months. But you know, I can sayit ended up taking us close to
(28:48):
two years before we really dugin because what we discovered
was that job descriptionsactually weren't really
reflecting what the actual workwas.
So we did some work on those.And then that had an impact on
our job postings. And when welooked at our job postings, then
we realized, oh, hey, if we do abetter job of articulating in
the postings what the jobactually is, then we might do a
(29:10):
better job of attracting more ofthe right kinds of candidates
that we want. So we've seenreductions in turnover, and
we've seen better improve, likewe've seen improvements within
these scores. I'm not going torest if there's even 1% of
people who are right.
These are the kinds of thingsI've experienced burnout. It's
devastating and hard. So we'regoing to keep going. We will
(29:34):
never be done. Okay.
And we can celebrate that twoyears ago, we identified that
this was a growth area and wedecided we were going to tackle
it. We were going to do what wecould to try and shift this. And
I mean, we also had fun while wewere doing it, which I trust.
(29:56):
There's what it is and what itdoes. I trust that it also made
an impact because it washilarious.
We had groups of leaders inrooms looking at the job
postings, they were going, Oh,I've been Yeah, no, we need to
spend some time. And then whathappens when leaders start
spending time at the front linesa little bit more and really
(30:18):
looking at how things are goingthen, I mean, we also, we went
in to accomplish these one ortwo things, and we came out with
a list of 10 more things that wereally want to be following up
on, checking in on,appreciating, celebrating,
considering, especially as welook at adding different
(30:40):
services or growing as anorganization too.
Jessica Samuels (30:43):
What's interesting to me about that is
you talked about two years toaddress one part of one thing
that you saw, which led to this,this, this and this in two
years. And this is for a mentalhealth organization. So it
happens and can happen toanybody. Okay, just you
mentioned burnout. We were goingto have to have you back to have
(31:06):
another conversation becauseburnout is a really interesting
topic to me and obviously showsup in many aspects of our lives,
primarily in the workplace.
So we'll have to put a littlepin in that and come Yeah, But
there's somebody in a workplacewhose senior leadership and
employer listening now, they'vejust heard about this two year
experience that CMH had. Andthey're like, oh, great, Yeah.
(31:28):
Where do they start?
Candace Giesbrecht (31:30):
How do they get started with even thinking
about implementing or checkingto see if they have a mentally
healthy workplace? Yeah, I wouldrecommend the Guarding Minds at
Work tool, or even just going tothe website. You can just Google
Guarding Minds at Work and it'llcome up, it'll be the top of the
page for you. But there are alsoa lot of big resources that like
(31:53):
toolkits and fact sheets andlinks out on any one of these
topics. And I remember this wasseveral years ago.
And there was a study that wasdone somewhere in Europe, and it
actually was looking at themental health of elite athletes.
Now, all I did with it was Itook it to a person in our
(32:17):
community and I said, if we wereto replicate this study with
your team, do you think we'dfind similar findings? And the
findings were things like youngmale athletes were twice as
likely to develop eatingdisorders as a result of being a
(32:37):
part of the sport. And younggirls, so in this case, I just
looked at boys and girls, werefour times as likely to develop
eating disorders as a result ofbeing at an elite level in this
particular sport. And so all Idid was I just presented the
stats and I said, If we were torun this within your team, what
do you think we'd find?
(32:59):
And initially, it was likeresist, resist, resist. I think
we got this. I've done all thethings. But then when I just put
those stats in front, then theconversation shifted big time.
And this person said, We'dprobably find very similar
results.
And then the follow-up is, Howcan I help? And so I think, to
(33:20):
your question around employers,you could pick anything that you
find of interest. You're asenior leader. Take one of the
stats. I think there's going tobe a lot of resources within the
show notes.
Have a look or take a snippet ofsomething that maybe you've
heard in this conversation andask some folks. What do you
(33:42):
think about this in ourworkplace? Because there's what
it is and there is what it does.And so, sometimes just asking
and beginning the conversationgoing first as a senior leader's
huge stigma is still alive andwell. There are so many people
who are not asking for the helpthat they need because they're
(34:03):
afraid of what people are goingto think.
Maybe they've had badexperiences when they have asked
for help. And it's beenminimized or shoved aside or
maybe they were made fun of. Wedon't know what people say.
There are a lot of reasons whypeople don't say, I'm not okay.
I'm really struggling.
(34:24):
And so, if a senior leader islistening, could even be
something for them to say, At ameeting, I'm noticing I'm not
myself these days. I'm thinking,like, I'm wondering if anybody
(34:44):
else is feeling that way too.That would take a lot of
courage. When we just begin theconversation, then amazing
things can happen.
Jessica Samuels (34:57):
Candice, thank you so much for being here.
Candace Giesbrecht (34:59):
Thanks for having me.
Jessica Samuels (35:01):
Well, we talked about some resources and
definitely the 13 psychosocialfactors, the guarding minds and
a few others we're going to havelinked on the show notes and as
well as on the way forwardpodcast presented by Bean Credit
Union page on the cmhacolona.orgwebsite. United has won. Beam's
(35:30):
founding credit unions now serve190,000 members across BC.
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