Co-workers are integral to successful return-to-work process: Studies

March 19, 2013 By

Cana­dian Safety Reporter this week drew our atten­tion to two qual­i­ta­tive stud­ies, joint ven­tures between past and present sci­en­tists from Toronto-based Insti­tute for Work and Health (IWH), and col­leagues in Aus­tralia. Both stud­ies shed light on the oft-neglected stake­holder in the return-to-work process: co-workers.

Study 1: Fac­tors affect­ing co-worker sup­port, key conclusions

Among the key con­clu­sions, Debra Dun­stan of the Uni­ver­sity of New Eng­land in Aus­tralia and co-author Ellen MacEachen reported:

  • Most co-workers have no infor­ma­tion regard­ing when a return­ing co-worker is due to arrive at the workplace
  • Con­fu­sion about job reas­sign­ment is common.
  • In terms of offer­ing sup­port, the most will­ing co-workers are those with a pre-existing pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship with the return­ing worker.
  • Other fac­tors influ­enc­ing will­ing­ness and con­sis­tency of sup­port included: work­place cul­ture (e.g. are work­ers team-oriented?) and the dura­tion of the required support.

Notably, although some work­ers in the study saw the return-to-work process in pos­i­tive terms, most described the process as detri­men­tal. Com­ment­ing, Dun­stan and MacEachen:

Spe­cific neg­a­tive impacts on co-workers included extra work or heav­ier duties, and dis­rup­tions of per­sonal work effec­tive­ness, orga­ni­za­tional effec­tive­ness and work­place social rela­tion­ships. In the worst-case sce­nar­ios, co-workers suf­fered ‘rip­ple effects’ such as emo­tional dis­tress, phys­i­cal injury and ter­mi­na­tion of their own employment.

Addi­tion­ally, confidentiality/privacy require­ments posed chal­lenges to sup­port­ing the process. Con­tinue Dun­stan and MacEachen:

Co-workers, who saw them­selves as poten­tial resources in RTW plan­ning, some­times felt shut out of the process due to con­fi­den­tial­ity require­ments — even when they wanted to show sup­port to the return­ing worker…as well, co-workers’ lack of infor­ma­tion about the nature of the work­place injury some­times led to dam­ag­ing rumours and speculation.

Study 2: The Struc­ture of work, key conclusions

The sec­ond return-to-work study echoed the find­ings of the first (above). The study, led by Agnieszka Kosny, for­mer sci­en­tist at the Toronto-based Insti­tute for Work and Health and now a research fel­low at Australia’s Monash Uni­ver­sity, concluded:

  • The struc­ture of work can impede co-worker sup­port and con­tribute to mak­ing injured work­ers’ expe­ri­ences difficult.
  • Fac­tors and work con­di­tions con­tribut­ing to these dif­fi­cul­ties include:
    • a com­pet­i­tive and cost-cutting cul­ture that facil­i­tates the view of injured work­ers as a liability
    • job inse­cu­rity (i.e. pre­car­i­ous­ness of work)
    • dif­fer­ent “camps” in the elec­tri­cal sec­tor, which were unlikely to help each other (for exam­ple, those with steady employ­ment ver­sus those with non-permanent work)
      lit­tle mod­i­fied work
    • poor offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion among work­place parties.

Com­ments Kosney:

Man­age­ment can model accept­able and unac­cept­able behav­iours for their workforce…it sets an exam­ple for how injured work­ers are regarded and treated.

Improv­ing co-worker expe­ri­ences with the return-to-work proces

Study 1 authors Dun­stan and MacEachen pro­posed some ways that man­age­ment can improve co-workers’ expe­ri­ences with return-to-work. These include:

  • hir­ing replace­ment staff to ease the work­load on co-workers;
  • com­mu­ni­cat­ing effec­tively so co-workers under­stand the injury (respect­ing privacy);
  • con­sult­ing about return-to-work plans;
  • receiv­ing guid­ance on how to best help;
  • tan­gi­ble acknowl­edge­ment rec­og­niz­ing co-worker con­tri­bu­tions (e.g. mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion, extra hol­i­day time).

More infor­ma­tion

For more infor­ma­tion on Dunstan’s research, see the pre­sen­ta­tion here, with links on that page to the pre­sen­ta­tion slides (PDF format).

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How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

APA Survey Finds US Employers Unresponsive to Employee Needs

March 5, 2013 By

A March 2013 report on a new sur­vey from the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Association’s Cen­ter for Orga­ni­za­tional Excel­lence (http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/03/employee-needs.aspx) has some find­ings that our blog read­ers may find rel­e­vant and infor­ma­tive for their work­place employee sup­port prac­tices. Notably, the following.

  1. Less than half of work­ing Amer­i­cans reported that they receive ade­quate mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion or non-monetary recognition.
  2. Only 43 per­cent said that recog­ni­tion is based on fair per­for­mance evaluations.
  3. Less than half said their employ­ers ‘hear’ them by seek­ing input, and only 37% of employ­ees said employ­ers take action on this feedback.
  4. Less than half of employ­ees sur­veyed said that there were resources to sup­port their men­tal health needs (and fewer still, 36%, said that there were resources to sup­port man­ag­ing stress).

Says Nor­man B. Ander­son, PhD, CEO of the APA:

This isn’t just an HR or man­age­ment issue. The well-being of an organization’s work­force is a strate­gic busi­ness imper­a­tive that is linked to its per­for­mance and success.

For women, the office is not “a level play­ing field”

The sur­vey fur­ther inves­ti­gated how female employ­ees per­ceived the work envi­ron­ment. Sum­ma­riz­ing the results:

  1. Forty-eight per­cent of women felt less val­ued than men.
  2. Fewer employed women than men reported that their employer pro­vides suf­fi­cient oppor­tu­ni­ties for inter­nal career advance­ment (35 % ver­sus 43%) or resources to help them man­age stress (34% ver­sus 38%).
  3. More women than men said they “typ­i­cally feel tense or stressed out at work” (37% ver­sus 33%).

Work-Life Fit?

In terms of work-life bal­ance, the sur­vey results revealed:

  1. Only 52% of work­ers believe employ­ers value work-life balance.
  2. Only 39% of work­ers reported that their employ­ers pro­vide options for flex­i­ble work.
  3. Sur­pris­ingly per­haps? Thirty-seven per­cent of women reported reg­u­larly using employee ben­e­fits designed to help them meet work-life demands (whereas almost half of male work­ers reported tak­ing advan­tage of these ben­e­fits); and just 38% of women said they reg­u­larly uti­lize work arrange­ments, com­pared to 42% of men.

Con­clud­ing the report, David W. Bal­lard, PsyD, MBA head of APA’s Cen­ter for Orga­ni­za­tional Excel­lence, comments:

When employ­ers acknowl­edge that employ­ees have respon­si­bil­i­ties and lives out­side of work, they can take steps to pro­mote a good work-life fit and help indi­vid­u­als bet­ter man­age these mul­ti­ple demands…Forward-thinking orga­ni­za­tions are reeval­u­at­ing work prac­tices, pro­vid­ing employ­ees with resources that sup­port well-being and per­for­mance and apply­ing new tech­nolo­gies that help shift work from some­where we go from 9-to-5 to some­thing we do that is mean­ing­ful and cre­ates value.

 
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How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

We’re offering our expertise at Canada Pension and Benefits Institute event February 12

February 9, 2013 By

Home­wood Human Solu­tions’ Dr. Anne Malain VP of Client Ser­vices is a sub­ject mat­ter expert at Cana­dian Pen­sion and Ben­e­fits Insti­tute’ “Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety in the Work­place” event, tak­ing place at the Toronto Board of Trade Cen­tre Feb 12 (Bel­l­Let­sTalk! day). Great tim­ing; great info!

The event dis­cusses a vari­ety of per­ti­nent issues relat­ing to the new Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety Stan­dard we have been blog­ging about since its final release last month, including:

  • Employer spon­sored health ben­e­fits and employe pro­grams in the new standard.
  • Trends in law refer­ring to work­place men­tal health and Duty to Accommodate.
  • ROI from a well­ness per­spec­tive and a busi­ness case for improv­ing work­place men­tal health.

Don’t miss out, it’s upcom­ing fast.. on Tues­day! Reg­is­ter and more infor­ma­tion here: http://bit.ly/XvnUkc

 
 
 
Like us on facebook.com/homewoodhumansolutions

Fol­low @HomewoodHS on Twitter

Link with linkedin.com/companies/homewood-human-solutions

Watch us on our Home­woodHS YouTube channel

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

Mental Health: Continue the Conversation!

January 30, 2013 By

Men­tal Health: Con­tinue the Conversation!

Let’s face the facts – men­tal ill­ness indi­rectly affects all Cana­di­ans at some time in their lives, whether it’s through a fam­ily mem­ber, friend or col­league. Men­tal ill­ness affects peo­ple of all ages, edu­ca­tional and income lev­els, and cul­tures. 20% of Cana­di­ans will per­son­ally expe­ri­ence a men­tal ill­ness in their lifetime.

Talk­ing about men­tal health is the first step in mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in the lives of all Cana­di­ans. To encour­age dis­cus­sion about men­tal health and reduce the stigma around men­tal ill­ness, Bell Canada’s Let’s Talk Day on Feb­ru­ary 12th, 2013 intro­duces an exten­sive array of ini­tia­tives to sup­port anti-stigma, increased access to care, addi­tional research and the cre­ation of an over­all cul­ture of men­tal health sup­port across the Cana­dian busi­ness landscape.

In sup­port of the won­der­ful work Bell Canada is doing, and to sup­port you in main­tain­ing a healthy and pro­duc­tive work­place, Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM invites you to share your sto­ries with us!

Is your work­place doing any­thing spe­cial for Let’s Talk Day? Do you have any sto­ries or com­ments to share sur­round­ing men­tal health and/or men­tal ill­ness? Let us know, and there’s a chance your story will be posted on our Healthy Work­places Blog (www.healthyworkplaces.info) and/or tweeted on our Twit­ter account (www.twitter.com/homewoodhs)! Limit your story to 500 words please (sto­ries may be edited for content).

On Feb­ru­ary 12th, for each tweet that we make with the hash­tag #Bel­l­Let­sTalk, Bell Canada will donate 5 cents to men­tal health ini­tia­tives across Canada! This is the per­fect oppor­tu­nity for you to get involved in a great project, spread the word on men­tal health and/or men­tal ill­ness, and share a story!

Send com­ments and sto­ries to: homewoodhs@gmail.com

 

 

Like us on facebook.com/homewoodhumansolutions

Fol­low @HomewoodHS on Twitter

Link with linkedin.com/companies/homewood-human-solutions

Watch us on our Home­woodHS YouTube channel

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

Psychological Health in the Workplace Conference March 17–20 Banff, AB

January 29, 2013 By

Announc­ing “Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health in the Work­place” 45th Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Behav­ioural ScienceScience.

From the con­fer­ence description:

…our soci­ety has devoted rel­a­tively lit­tle atten­tion to men­tal health in the workplace…recent con­sid­er­able advances in the behav­ioural and social sci­ences must be brought to bear upon these challenges…complemented by a rapidly devel­op­ing arma­men­tar­ium of effec­tive, evidence-based pre­ven­tion, treat­ment and eval­u­a­tion procedures.

Tak­ing place Marc 17–20, 2013 in astound­ingly beau­ti­ful Banff, Alberta, Canada.

Reg­is­ter online at: www.banffcentre.ca/conferences/2013/BVS1303/

 

 

Like us on facebook.com/homewoodhumansolutions

Fol­low @HomewoodHS on Twitter

Link with linkedin.com/companies/homewood-human-solutions

Watch us on our Home­woodHS YouTube channel

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

The Buzz Jan 27: Psychologically Healthy Workplaces: Articles of relevance to Employers

January 27, 2013 By

Psy­cho­log­i­cally Healthy Work­places: Arti­cles for Employees

Note: Posted links are rec­om­men­da­tions of the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion Cen­ter for Orga­ni­za­tional Excellence

5 ways lead­ers rock employee recog­ni­tion (Forbes, Jan 13, 2013)

Focuses on the issue of employee recog­ni­tion. Many employ­ees are used to being rec­og­nized and rewarded for com­plet­ing small tasks. The author sug­gests using the fol­low­ing approach to improve employee recog­ni­tion. She argues that employ­ees should be rec­og­nized (1) in the moment, (2) in con­text, (3) in an appro­pri­ate volume/scale, (4) in an authen­tic man­ner, and (5) in a way that ties the recog­ni­tion to the employee’s per­cep­tion of value. Hence, the author argues that recog­ni­tion is some­thing that requires a great deal of thought and con­sis­tency if it is going to pro­duce desired results.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghanbiro/2013/01/13/5-ways-leaders-rock-employee-recognition/

Employ­ees over­es­ti­mate their own health (Busi­ness News Daily, Jan­u­ary 10, 2013)

Focuses on the issue of employee health. Research by Aon Hewitt, National Busi­ness Group on Health and The Futures Com­pany found that while 90% of employ­ees believe that they are in good health, more than 50% report height and weight that would clas­sify them as over­weight or obese. Employ­ees are also mis­in­formed about what their orga­ni­za­tion pays for their health­care. While many orga­ni­za­tions pay almost 80% of an employee’s health­care bill, employ­ees believe that orga­ni­za­tions only pay 40% of the cost. The sur­vey also shows that using account-based plans may be asso­ci­ated with more pos­i­tive health behav­iors on the part of employees.

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3720-employee-health-preception.html

Call Williams Yost: Why we have to rethink work-life bal­ance (Forbes, Jan­u­ary 8, 2013)

Focuses on the issue of employee health. Research by Aon Hewitt, National Busi­ness Group on Health and The Futures Com­pany found that while 90% of employ­ees believe that they are in good health, more than 50% report height and weight that would clas­sify them as over­weight or obese. Employ­ees are also mis­in­formed about what their orga­ni­za­tion pays for their health­care. While many orga­ni­za­tions pay almost 80% of an employee’s health­care bill, employ­ees believe that orga­ni­za­tions only pay 40% of the cost. The sur­vey also shows that using account-based plans may be asso­ci­ated with more pos­i­tive health behav­iors on the part of employees.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/01/08/cali-williams-yost-why-we-have-to-rethink-work-life-balance/

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

The Buzz Jan 25: Free webinar to explain the new Psychological Health Standard

January 25, 2013 By

The Occu­pa­tional Health and Safety group is host­ing a webi­nar to explain the new Cana­dian Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health Stan­dard on Jan­u­ary 29.

A free webi­nar is tak­ing place Jan. 29 to help employ­ers and safety or HR pro­fes­sion­als find out about a new national stan­dard for psy­cho­log­i­cal health and safety in Cana­dian work­places. The Men­tal Health Com­mis­sion of Canada (MHCC), the Bureau de nor­mal­i­sa­tion du Québec, and CSA Group released the vol­un­tary National Stan­dard of Canada, “Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety in the Work­place – Pre­ven­tion, pro­mo­tion and guid­ance to staged imple­men­ta­tion,” on Jan. 16.

For more infor­ma­tion, and to reg­is­ter, visit here.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

The Buzz Jan 23 : Tweets and news about the Psychological Health and Safety Standard

January 23, 2013 By

Smok­ers who quit before age 40 have lifes­pan almost as long as peo­ple who never smoked (Video)

“Quit­ting smok­ing before age 40, and prefer­ably well before 40, gives back almost all of the decade of lost life from con­tin­ued smok­ing,” said Dr. Prab­hat Jha, head of the Cen­tre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hos­pi­tal and a pro­fes­sor in the Dalla Lana School of Pub­lic Health at the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto.  That’s not to say, how­ever, that it is safe to smoke until you are 40 and then stop,” said Dr. Jha. “For­mer smok­ers still have a greater risk of dying sooner than peo­ple who never smoked. But the risk is small com­pared to the huge risk for those who con­tinue to smoke.”

Source: http://www.stmichaelshospital.com/media/detail.php?source=hospital_news/2013/20130123_hn

Sui­cide major con­cern for teens even after treat­ment, study finds

The study also cor­rob­o­rated pre­vi­ous research find­ing girls to have higher rates of non­lethal sui­ci­dal behav­ior than boys. How­ever, boys use more lethal meth­ods of sui­cide such as firearms and there­fore are more likely to die by suicide.

But again, the most glar­ing aspect of the study had been the results that over 55 per­cent of ado­les­cents had devel­oped thoughts of sui­cide after receiv­ing men­tal health treatment.

Source : http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?Section=Top_Story&template=%2FContentManagement%2FContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=149947

Does your org offer sim­i­lar awards?

Source: http://www.psychologists.bc.ca/content/psychologically-healthy-workplace-awards

Always great to see the work of good pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tions to sup­port healthy workplaces

About the pro­gram: http://www.apa.org/practice/programs/workplace/index.aspx

Not about our Stan­dard, but related story on work­place health (Psy­chol­ogy Today)

Source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-good-life/201012/psychologically-healthy-workplaces

‘Suf­fer­ing from RSP?’ ING takes down com­mer­cial after men­tal health backlash

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/23/suffering-from-rsp-ing-takes-down-commercial-after-mental-health-backlash/

Never under­es­ti­mate your power with social media. Witness:

Accord­ing to a state­ment made by Mark Nichol­son, the head of dig­i­tal and inter­ac­tive for ING in Toronto, research indi­cated RSP sea­son cre­ated feel­ings of stress, anx­i­ety and con­fu­sion in their cus­tomers. As such, the mes­sage the team wanted to send out was that they could help.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

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