82 REAL-LEADERS.COM / SPRING 2022 MENTAL HEALTH L ooking back in my career, occupational health and safety (OH&S) has concerned itself mainly with physical safety in the workplace and pivoted the past two years toward preventing the spread of COVID-19. During this period, leaders everywhere stepped up to provide much-needed equipment and materials in the fight to save lives. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we can say the same about protecting people frommental injury and illness. Even I was not adequately prepared to mobilize properly the mental wellness support needed in my company. In my opinion, society was already losing the mental illness battle before the pandemic began. Organizations today offer many benefits, including clinical support and return-to-work programs. In the spectrum of benefits, these fall into the treatment category — benefits that follow an illness. Some companies generously offer more preventive benefits, including EFAPs, wellness programs, and even mental health first aid, which go a step further to help prevent a mental injury becoming an illness. Despite these additional benefits, an estimated 35% of STD and LTD claims result from a mental illness. COVID-19 has given us valuable insights into the psychological safety of our employees. To begin with, we still don’t talk openly enough about mental injuries like we do other injuries. We don’t make it safe to talk about the challenges of maintaining a positive mental outlook. We seldom engage on the subject in our weekly one-on-ones with each other. And because we don’t do this, we don’t make it safe for employees to talk about mental injury when it happens. This limits our ability to prevent damage from occurring in the first place. They become unreported injuries. This hit home for me in October. I was chatting to a young man working in his first job. He confided in me that he was suffering from panic and anxiety. In addition, he admitted to being too afraid to talk with his employer about it, fearing it could jeopardize his career. As angry and disappointed as I was to hear this, it’s easy to see how it can happen in the most well-intended organizations. It’s not enough to give your employees a benefits handbook and tell them to read it. This isn’t how we help build resilience, help them become their best, and contribute to society. COVID-19 has given us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild and improve the state of the world. This is our leadership challenge and our opportunity for impact as we rebuild a shattered world. n Ian Ricketts is president of Ocean Brands, a Canadian sustainable fishing company. By Ian Ricketts One in five people will experience amental health injury or illness every year. This number has always botheredme. But consider that these are the numbers before the pandemic. As we recover and rebuild our economies, I fear the effects of the pandemic onmental healthwill be far reaching. Here’s how to begin the healing. INCLUDE MENTAL HEALTH IN YOUR BUSINESS MEETINGS
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