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Author of the article:<\/p>\n
Kevin Carmichael<\/span> <\/div>\n\n
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Feb 26, 2021<\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 8\u00a0hours ago<\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 7 minute read<\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 18 Comments<\/span> <\/div><\/div>\nThe mental health of the working population is a threat that employers and shareholders must confront.<\/span> Photo by Peter J. Thompson\/National Post files<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n If you (re)read The Plague earlier in the pandemic, then you were ready for what we\u2019re going through now.<\/p>\n
\u201cRieux and his friends now discovered how tired they were,\u201d Albert Camus said of his protagonist after the quarantine had dragged on longer than anyone had ever imagined. \u201cDr. Rieux noticed it when he observed the steady growth of a strange indifference in himself and in his friends,\u201d he continued. \u201cMen who up to now had shown such a lively interest in any news about the plague, no longer bothered with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re well into what the late psychiatrist Beverley Raphael would have called the \u201cdisillusionment\u201d phase of the COVID-19 disaster. The \u201cheroic\u201d stage, when we were all in this together, is a distant memory, while the \u201choneymoon\u201d phase \u2014 that blissfully naive summer of 2020 when a V-shaped recovery briefly looked possible \u2014 feels like a fever dream.<\/p>\n
The final destination on Raphael\u2019s psychological mapping of the human response to disasters is \u201creconstruction,\u201d which tends to begin around the first anniversary of the moment when everything changed. And, sure enough, if you squint, as Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem did this week, you can see better days on the horizon.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n \u201cWe expect a solid rebound in the immediate months ahead,\u201d he said in a speech on Feb. 23. \u201cWith vaccinations expected to ramp up, we can be more confident in sustained strong growth through the second half of the year and into next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the governor conceded, the virus and its variants could yet wreck his optimistic forecast. For now, uncertainty reigns, meaning frustration and anxiety do, too. That\u2019s a societal problem, first and foremost, but one that also threatens the economic recovery. Yet our fragile mental health is rarely discussed in economic terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of consensus that we are living through a low-grade trauma,\u201d said Amanda Matejicek, a Mississauga, Ont.-based coach who has a PhD in organizational psychology.<\/p>\n
\nThere\u2019s a lot of consensus that we are living through a low-grade trauma<\/p>\n
Amanda Matejicek<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Think about what that means. About 20 per cent of Canadians have been diagnosed with depression, according to a poll that Mental Health Research Canada commissioned in December \u2014 the highest level the group has recorded.<\/p>\n
The reconstruction phase of disaster recovery is no picnic. It describes the period when the human brain comes to grips with what has happened and begins processing the grief. Things will start to feel better, but there also will be setbacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact of trauma doesn\u2019t recede once the traumatic event recedes,\u201d said Tatijana Busic, a Toronto-based psychologist. \u201cIn fact, once a traumatic event stops, you see people develop PTSD months, even years, later. We haven\u2019t seen that yet, because we still are in survival mode.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n A pedestrian walks past a City of Toronto poster advertisement stating \u201cLife on pause sucks. Agreed. Keep fighting and we\u2019ll get through this.\u201d<\/span> Photo by Peter J. Thompson\/National Post files<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMany of us who avoid depression will continue to grind, like Camus\u2019 heroes. To be sure, there is something romantic about the thought of the 5.4 million Canadians working from home in January pushing through the final stage of the pandemic together. But it won\u2019t be especially productive if we\u2019re all doing it in a fog. We\u2019ll be an unhappier society. We\u2019ll also be a poorer one.<\/p>\n
Some 500,000 Canadians were already unable to work on any given day in 2019, according to Bryan Benjamin and Charles Boyer at the Conference Board of Canada. The cost of treating depression and anxiety had risen to about $50 billion a year, while the opportunity cost of lost productivity was about $30 billion annually.<\/p>\n
The situation now is, no doubt, worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing the exhaustion,\u201d Matejicek said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing the burnout. We\u2019re seeing people trying to keep going even though they are starting to experience the impacts of the stress, the pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019re seeing the exhaustion. We\u2019re seeing the burnout<\/p>\n
Amanda Matejicek<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It\u2019s broadly understood that there\u2019s a problem. The issue is whether we\u2019re sufficiently equipped to deal with it.<\/p>\n
The men and women who have their hands on the levers of power are accustomed to responding to more concrete threats.<\/p>\n
If the central bank\u2019s money creation and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland\u2019s deficits spark runaway inflation, then Macklem will simply jack up interest rates until order is restored. It would be painful, but it would work.<\/p>\n
But if a critical mass of the country\u2019s workforce is coping with low-grade post-traumatic stress disorder, there aren\u2019t any simple levers that policy-makers can pull.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an important concern, and in some ways, one that might get lost in everything else that is going on around COVID-19,\u201d Gordon McKenzie, chief executive of Saskatoon-based potash exporter Canpotex Ltd., said in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting COVID fatigue from a long year of working remotely or working from home. A lot of people suspected COVID would be over within 2020. It\u2019s not over. The mental-health side of that is even more important now than it was a few months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n A pedestrian in Toronto in February.<\/span> Photo by Peter J. Thompson\/National Post files<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe House of Commons Finance Committee earlier this month made 145 recommendations to add to the next budget. The first was to \u201cdevelop and implement a long-term mental health COVID-19 recovery plan to ensure all Canadians \u2014 especially the most vulnerable \u2014 can access the care they need, no matter where they live.\u201d<\/p>\n
The federal government last year said it would spend $10.2 million on research related to how COVID-19 might be affecting mental health and substance abuse.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not anti-government, but we\u2019re in trouble if Canada\u2019s business leaders leave this issue to the politicians, as many of them are wont to do when faced with sensitive matters.<\/p>\n
The public sector is having a hard enough time getting us vaccinated. The mental health of the working population is a threat that employers and shareholders must confront.<\/p>\n
There is reason to worry that Corporate Canada may not be up for it. Only about third of Canadian companies have mental-health strategies, according to a study by Deloitte. There\u2019s also plenty of anecdotal evidence that the business elite just don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n For example,\u00a0dozens of big companies took money from the federal government\u2019s emergency wage subsidy while they continued to pay dividends and, in some cases, repurchased shares. Those companies said they were entitled to do so, and that they had a responsibility to take care of their shareholders.<\/p>\n
But that was never the point. People are angry because wealthy executives and shareholders refused to sacrifice along with everyone else. Studies show that feelings of inequity are among those that erode our mental well-being.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n A quarter of Canadian workers consider quitting their jobs as stress levels shoot up <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n Millennials grow more resentful towards older generations as restrictions, economic fallout hit them harder <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n Adapt, endure and expand: How Black entrepreneurs are handling the challenges posed by the pandemic <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n Almost half of working Canadians say they need mental health support \u2014 and it\u2019s hurting our productivity <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\nSuch callousness on the part of management might be unconscious. Many corporate boards are made up of semi-retired, rich and powerful people who may not have learned much about the intricacies of mental health on their way to the top.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t teach agile emotion regulation and we don\u2019t teach agile relationship dynamics,\u201d Matejicek said on a Zoom call from her garage, where she and Busic had decided to meet so they could make plans for their counselling and coaching startup, People in Business Inc., at a safe distance.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n They think business schools have left today\u2019s leaders ill-prepared to deal with the mental well-being of their organizations, if only because psychology has advanced so much since Boomers and Generation Xers got their MBAs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur business leaders don\u2019t have the tools they need to effectively engage the humans they have,\u201d Matejicek said. \u201cThey know the processes. They know the reward systems. The bonus systems. The ways of creating engagement. They don\u2019t know how to manage the human dynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The situation isn\u2019t hopeless.<\/p>\n
Sonja Volpe, who leads Paris-based BNP Paribas SA\u2019s Canadian unit, started adding new programs related to mental health in May. She expanded the benefits program to include a tele-health service that provides access to therapists, makes a point of holding weekly meetings with smaller staffing groups where the point is simply to talk, and hands out extra vacation days.<\/p>\n
One overarching goal is to make sure BNP employees learn to create space. \u201cYou have to have lunch,\u201d Volpe said.<\/p>\n
McKenzie did similar things at Canpotex. Like Volpe, McKenzie said he\u2019s made a point of hosting regular virtual townhalls to keep staff in Asia, Brazil and Canada connected. He also put an emphasis on results, as opposed to time served at their desk, in hopes of encouraging people to power off their computers, and he tripled the amount of money that employees can claim on psychologists.<\/p>\n
These are small things, but if enough leaders do likewise, it could make a difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to be Shakespeare,\u201d Busic said. \u201cJust stop and say hello to people. The value of that is tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Financial Post<\/em><\/p>\n\u2022 Email: kcarmichael@postmedia.com | Twitter: