Description: In a work environment with positive psychological and social support, all employees feel a sense of belonging and contribution.
Access our free workshop materials to start a discussion on the psychological and social support employees need to be successful in their jobs.
Provide effective support for employees with personal or health issues.
- Help managers, supervisors, and leaders respond to concerns related to:
- work stress
- conflict
- bullying
- harassment.
- For examples on how to improve understanding between leaders and employees, see Identifying employee issues for leaders.
- A tool to support employee success can help leaders support employees. Employee concerns provides many more resources to address various issues.
- Check out the Performance management resource for use with any employee, including those experiencing mental or physical health issues.
- Manage co-worker reactions to accommodation and address potential perceptions or resentment.
- Use the Protecting the psychological health and safety of volunteers toolkit | PDF to support volunteers.
- Use Return to work response for leaders to learn how to stay connected when people are away from work due to illness, injury or caregiving obligations.
Reduce stigma in the workplace.
- Refer to Stigma reduction plan for help eliminating stigma and discrimination in the workplace.
- Ensure everyone understands that their words and behaviours can impact physical and psychological health and safety.
- Host a Psychologically safe interactions workshop that gets everyone thinking about how behaviours and words impact the work environment.
- Employees' role in psychological health and safety is another helpful resource.
Improve mental health awareness and well-being for all employees.
- Look for ways to address isolation of employees who work remotely. Hybrid teams has tips and strategies that can help employees who may feel disconnected, isolated, or lonely.
- Help employees develop personal coping strategies to improve how they respond to stressors. Resilience is a tool that can help.
- Offer mental health education throughout the year. Include the services and benefits available in your organization, community and online.
- Use the Mental health resource list in Identifying employee issues for leaders to help create an inventory. The leader can use this list to explain to their team what’s available to them.
- Consider subscribing to the free Mental health awareness weekly emails. Use them to encourage conversations about positive mental health.
- If you have an employee and family assistance program or benefit provider, invite them to present to all employees. Most will do this at no cost.
- Train leaders to Refer employees to relevant and available resources. This can also help leaders set appropriate boundaries for:
- Resolving workplace issues
- Supporting work success
- Referring to other experts for personal, health, family or financial stressors
- Share community or online resources to help with psychological health concerns. Start with those shared in Health resources and Personal growth.
Build social support with and among your team members.
- Build resilience and reduce stress through team building activities.
- Incorporate mindful practices in day-to-day work, like gratitude moments, meditation and expressing appreciation. Healthy break activities has some helpful ideas.
- Consider Peer support programs that allow trained employees to assist colleagues. Effective peer supporters have similar experiences in both life and work.
- Assign mentors to new employees so they have someone to go to for support in addition to their leader. See Mentoring for tips on how to do this well.
Additional actions and resources
- Review Psychological health and safety policy recommendations to see where you can improve psychological health and safety.
- Review Evidence for psychological health and safety for a literature review of studies that show how psychological health and safety can have a positive impact on business goals and objectives.
Putting psychological and social support on the agenda provides you with materials to support a team discussion on approaches to psychological and social support.
Adapted from Guarding Minds at Work™
Guarding Minds at Work was commissioned by Canada Life and additional resources are supported by Workplace Strategies for Mental Health.