February 14, 2025 • 20 mins
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores mental health as a workplace issue, sparked by a Professional Safety Journal article on mental health and suicide in construction. He emphasizes that while work doesn’t necessarily cause mental health struggles, it can be a significant stressor, with leadership, culture, and supervision playing key roles in employee well-being.
A major insight is that direct supervisors can influence employees’ mental health as much as their family members. Poor leadership can create a toxic environment, while supportive leadership can foster well-being. The episode challenges the common “blame-the-worker” approach to safety incidents, arguing that mental health issues often contribute to distraction and errors.
Access to mental health resources remains a challenge, with employees facing stigma, unresponsive EAP programs, and difficulty finding suitable providers. However, survey findings from the construction industry were not as negative as expected, indicating some progress in workplace mental health initiatives.
Dr. French expresses optimism about increasing employer investment in mental health resources, as seen at HR and safety conferences. He calls for varied, adaptable approaches to mental health support, ensuring employees feel safe discussing their struggles. Ultimately, fostering a strong workplace culture that prioritizes mental health alongside physical safety is essential for employee well-being and overall organizational success.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:01):
This week on the podcast, we're talking about
mental health in the workplace.
It's a leadership issue, it's asafety issue, it's a people
issue, and it's huge, and hasalways been part of what we need
to work on and where we canimprove. This week on the
podcast, you Music.
(00:35):
Welcome to the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
Your host is Dr Mark French.
Mark's passion is helpingorganizations motivate their
teams. This podcast is focusedon bringing out the best in
leadership through creatingstrong values, learning
opportunities, teamwork andsafety. Nothing is more
(00:56):
important than protecting yourpeople safety creates an
environment for empathy,innovation and empowerment.
Together, we'll discover meaningand purpose through shaping our
safety culture. Thanks forjoining us this episode and now
here is Dr Mark French. Youmusic. Hello and welcome to this
(01:29):
episode of the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
Thank you for joining me. I'mexcited that I can be part of
your podcast playlist. So thankyou for joining me this week.
We're gonna touch on a subjectagain, and I think we've
probably talked about this alittle bit before, mental health
(01:50):
in the workplace. It's somethingthat's very near and dear to my
heart. It's something that'svery real, and it's something
that it's uncomfortable to talkabout. Sometimes it's hard to
analyze, it's hard to figure outhow to handle it, and there's
just a lot there. So let's seeif we can unpack it in the short
(02:10):
amount of time we have togetherthis week, at least get a high
level and talk about it andhopefully begin better
conversations about how weaddress mental health in our
workplace. So what triggeredthis, for me is there is a
fantastic article that was partof the ASSP journals,
(02:30):
professional safety journal, nowknown as PSJ. It's the January
2025,edition, and there is a peer
review journal in there, andit's called a silent hazard, a
regional survey on mental healthand suicide in construction.
(02:52):
Very interesting survey, veryinteresting data that they came
with from the constructionindustry, which I think is a
really tough industry. There's alot of stigma, there's a lot of
there's a lot of stuff therethat can prevent mental health
from really taking root. Andthat's not being judgmental,
(03:12):
that's not being anything otherthan just saying
it's hard to be able to talkabout mental health, and in some
settings, it's even harder thatthere's some places that is more
accepted to talk about it thanin other places, and in some
places there's more resourcesthan in other places. Seeing
(03:33):
that we're addressing it andlooking at it and evaluating it
in the construction industry isreally interesting. Now I want
to begin by taking a step backand going mental health is a
work issue, not saying that thatwork causes it. It can. Work can
be a stressor. It can be a bigstressor. And a lot of that,
(03:54):
interestingly, is linked tocompany culture, values and
supervision, leadership thatyou're those leaders can
actually have more influence orequal importance as family
members when it comes to overallhappiness. So do we influence it
as leaders in the workplace?
Yes. Does it also come with usas part of our potentially
genetic makeup, part of what webring in as what we are exposed
(04:18):
to an environment and also whatour life situation is, yeah,
super complex, but that'speople. We are complex, and so
many times it's unfortunate, butthere's the blame the worker
scenario when there we overusethe statistic and we overuse
(04:38):
this statement that and takeyour percentage in the 90s, high
90s, low 90s, I'm going to pickthe mid 90s. The 95% of all
industrial accidents are becauseof a behavior, okay? And
(04:59):
so if we're.
Going to focus on behaviors,don't we have to go a little bit
deeper, because this goes backto the whole like, blame, shame,
retrain terrible mentality ofwhen it comes to disciplinary
action or helping with safety.
But if we take it that, yeah, wethere are behaviors that can
lead to that we need to go onestep deeper and ask why, what,
(05:22):
how, and really deep dive thataspect of human nature. And if
we look at it, we can see thatmental health, mental wellness,
mental acuity, mental readiness,is a big piece of it. And
(05:43):
if we're saying that the workculture or a supervisor is
causing and can cause that muchissue in the workplace, why are
we not addressing it? Now, thisis a soap box, and I'm going to
move on past this, but I have tosay it, because we can't. We
can't, on one hand, say, Ohyeah, the worker was distracted.
(06:04):
Let's retrain them. Let's sayit's behavior related, and then
not look at ourselves and say,what did we do to enable that
behavior, or did we encouragethat behavior? Was there a
decision that encouraged thatbehavior? And I'll definitely
say if you look at some of thecurrent research coming out of
the Kraus Bell group, especiallylooking at safety decision
(06:27):
making and seeing how decisionsreally do, long term, affect the
safety at the moment and thechoices and behavior in the
moment of an accident.
So I feel that we we have tohold accountable both sides. And
now let's go back and look atthe root of mental health in the
(06:49):
workplace and so many timesoutside of work, we even blame
mental health on a lot ofthings, and what really
infuriates me is the lack ofresources that are there. It's
not easy to get mental healthhelp for a lot of reasons. One,
(07:11):
sometimes it's hard to ask forhelp because there is still the
stigma that you can't see it,you can't touch it, you can't do
a clinical test and say, Ohyeah, it's mental health. You
can't do those. So is it real?
It's real, and yet there's stillthe stigma behind it that is
hard to say those things and tothink about those things. So
(07:32):
when we look at that, and wetake that just a little bit
deeper, and say, well, now Ifeel like I can finally say
something. I feel empowered.
I've seen the resources. I'veseen what. And that takes a lot
of effort for an organization,for a person, there's a lot of
(07:53):
energy that gets pushed intothat, for someone to go, Okay,
I'm aware that there's help, andmaybe I do need that help, and
when they reach out, is someoneavailable. I have heard horror
storiesin the HR world of people
calling and calling for help onan EAP number and being hung up
on having like no one answering,being referred to someone who
(08:19):
then actually isn't available.
Taking an absurdly a long timeto get a referral. By that
point, you begin to second guessyourself and go, Oh my this is
too much work. This is too muchhassle. I don't think I'll do
it. And that also is someinteresting excuses for a lot of
health things. It'sinconvenient, it's expensive,
(08:42):
it's all those things. Sotherefore I won't do it and put
myself at risk. Mental health isthe same, and I think, even more
neglected than some other items.
Secondly, it's really hard tofind matching help, because just
like finding a good doctor, youwant someone who really
understands, someone who canhelp with what you're looking
(09:04):
for and tailored to you. So it'shard, it's hard to find the
right person. That's wherehaving resources available as a
company is so important, havinga good resource available,
having leadership thatrecognizes not to pry in
people's lives, but to recognizethat someone may be in distress,
(09:24):
and then offer it and keepputting it in front of them to
go, Hey, we have resources. Webeer. This is that I've heard
good story. I've heard thisabout it. I Anything, anything
that would help someone feelmore comfortable about getting
the help that they may need atthat time, we have to have it
available. It has to be good,and it has to match up with
(09:48):
hopefully more and more. Iremember years ago where it was
hard, really hard, to find aninsurance that paid for a level
of mental health.
Help, and then finding a personthat would actually take that
insurance for that it that wasreally tough back in the day,
(10:08):
and it has gotten easier, andit's getting better. We're
getting more awareness,so hopefully the the read, the
baseline resources and theunderstanding are there for how
we can affect and improve mentalhealth in the workplace. Let's
actually talk about the articleand some of the findings there,
and how I'm actually a littlebit optimistic by the findings
in this research on the secondhalf of the leading and learning
(10:32):
through safety podcast. You arelistening to
the leading and learning throughsafety podcast with Dr Mark
French, dsda Consulting, learnyou lead others. The Myers,
Briggs Type Indicator is anamazing tool. Problem is that it
(10:54):
can be easily misinterpreted. DrMark French is MBTI certified
and ready to help you discoveryour inner strengths. The MBTI
assessment can help with teambuilding, stress management,
communication, conflictmanagement, and so much more,
individual and group sessionsare available to help you
discover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
(11:17):
consulting.comWelcome back to the second half
of our leading and learningthrough safety podcast. So this
week, we're talking about mentalhealth in the workplace and
using a really great article inthe professional safety journal
from the ASSP january 2025,edition. And I was pleasantly
(11:38):
surprised by some of thefindings. I expected it to be
much worse. I expected the stateof mental health in the
construction industry from thisrelatively small but powerful
survey and researchto be worse. But let me talk a
little bit about what some otherfindings were one when they
(12:00):
talked about the question like,where is your stress coming
from?
It? It reaffirms some otherprevious research from other
areas that say that thesupervisor manager are equal to
in most cases, or even slightlybehind, but mostly equal to a
(12:22):
spouse or partner, that amanager, you have that much
powerto make someone's life poor.
As a life partner,that's a powerful thing. It's
the negative side that by actingas a leader that doesn't care,
but acting as a leader who isn'treally a leader. Not even going
(12:45):
to say that if you're doingthese things to make people
miserable, you're not a leader.
Don't, don't even bother callingyourself. That you can be, you
can change, but you have so muchpower to make someone's life
miserable.
I don't it's tough in anorganization. Your
organizational culture sustainsthat or or creates it, or gets
(13:08):
rid of it. It has a choice, butyou have to do it.
And I really encourage a lot oforganizations to focus on and
I've heard Simon Sinek even talkabout this, finally, a hole.
That's the everybody will knowwho that is. If you say, Hey,
who's that? Who's that person inour organization, they'll point
to them. They'll know who theyare. And that's a really funny
story. When he talks about it'shis story about the Navy SEALs,
(13:31):
how they find their next leader.
And it's about trust and it'sabout performance, but it's more
about trust. They'd rather havehigh trust in average
performance than super highperformance and low trust,
because that the morale, themental well being of the team is
a loss because of that.
So some of the other interestingitems is, like effort, like
(13:55):
employee perspective, my myorganization, could do more to
improve mental health. A lot ofjust neutral, like I expected to
be, to be very overwhelminglynegative, and it was actually
mostly neutral. There was someagrees, but that's of course, we
could do more. I don't think youcould ever do enough, but it's
sometimes hard to find the rightresources. And I'm being
(14:18):
perfectly honest and open thatyou can get a you can evaluate
your employee assistanceprogram. You can make sure it
works, make sure it's strong andhas. There's some really
specialty organizations that canhelp with just mental health,
but it's still hard. It's noteasy, to keep finding new
resources, new ways, and ittakes a lot of effort to do
(14:40):
that.
And then some of the otherquestions is
worker discomfort in discussingmental health, and it goes from
strongly agree to stronglydisagree, and it's almost like a
20% split all the way around.
Again, I expected that to be alot more negative. I didn't.
Expect there to be such a strongagree and significantly agree
(15:04):
that thatthey're willing to talk about
it, that we're willing to put itout there and actually have
conversations or at leastaddress it so that we can do
something about it. Because,again, we say and we that
behavior is part of the injuriesthat happen. This isn't just a
psychological safety. This turnsinto physical safety quickly,
because if we're distracted byother things, the mental health
(15:28):
issues that are there, we're notthe performer that we need to
be, and that's when we needextra support. We need those
extra times to an extra effortand extra everything. That's
when there has to be thatsupport system in place to help
people perform to the best oftheir ability.
(15:54):
Again, the research, when Ibriefly read through it and say
about looking at responsibility,looking at resources. It's
better. It could be improved. Ofcourse, it can be improved, but
overall, it felt very positive.
It felt like we're improvingcompared to where I would have
said a few years ago or longer,that it's getting better, and
(16:18):
that's good, because I am seeinga lot more effort when I go and
again, I always look for, whereis the money flowing? Like if
you go to a an HR safety tradeshow, like an educational
conference, and you look at,what are the vendors selling?
Follow the money. If they'recoming up with new and inventive
things, there's a market for it,and there's a reason for it, and
(16:39):
I'm seeing more and moreresources for mental health, for
employee education, on thosethings, employee life, skill,
style, items. More and morewe're seeing these markets pop
up. Why? Because there's a need,and someone sees the need and
fills it with a product orservice. That's great. It's good
to see this. The more that I'mseeing that come up, it means
(17:01):
that more and more companies arewanting it. More and more
organizations are demanding thatthis type of help, like they're
saying, This isn't ourwheelhouse. We can't do this. We
need help doing this thing withmental health. And again, mental
health is is tangible and yetintangible, because it affects
everyone so differently. There'scategories like any diagnosis,
(17:24):
but it affects us all subtly. Itcannot be subtle. It can have
very different effects on verydifferent people. And so their
approach to addressing it has tobe varied. It's definitely not
one of those approaches whereyou can do one approach and it's
going to work for everyone.
(17:45):
There has to be variedapproaches, even if it's subtly
varied, there has to be at leastsome variation help people, just
like a good safety program, youhave to be able to motivate and
train and educate and lead witha varied approach, because not
one style is ever going to work100% of the time you can, you
(18:07):
can shoot for the average, but alot of times you still have to
vary it up to make that work fitwho's around you, who you're
working with, and what you'redoing. And that's why safety,
the core function of justpeople, physical safety expands
so fast when you think aboutbehaviors and actions and
(18:28):
different engineering, it reallyfocuses so broadly on what we do
all the time, and it's aboutleadership and figuring out how
we motivate people to be able tobe their best when they come to
work, or at least know that whenthey can't be their best, we
(18:50):
have a strong culture that canhave their back. Thanks for
joining me on this episode ofthe leading and learning through
safety podcast as always. Thankyou for making me part of your
playlist until next time wechat, stay safe.
(19:13):
Thank you for listening to theleading and learning through
safety podcast. More content isavailable online at www dot tsda
consulting.comall the opinions expressed on
the podcast are solelyattributed to the individual and
not affiliated with any businessentity. This podcast is for
(19:35):
informational and entertainmentpurposes. It is not a substitute
for proper policy, appropriatetraining or legal advice.
(19:59):
You.
This has been the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
You.
This week on the podcast, we're talking about
mental health in the workplace.
It's a leadership issue, it's asafety issue, it's a people
issue, and it's huge, and hasalways been part of what we need
to work on and where we canimprove. This week on the
podcast, you Music.
(00:35):
Welcome to the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
Your host is Dr Mark French.
Mark's passion is helpingorganizations motivate their
teams. This podcast is focusedon bringing out the best in
leadership through creatingstrong values, learning
opportunities, teamwork andsafety. Nothing is more
(00:56):
important than protecting yourpeople safety creates an
environment for empathy,innovation and empowerment.
Together, we'll discover meaningand purpose through shaping our
safety culture. Thanks forjoining us this episode and now
here is Dr Mark French. Youmusic. Hello and welcome to this
(01:29):
episode of the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
Thank you for joining me. I'mexcited that I can be part of
your podcast playlist. So thankyou for joining me this week.
We're gonna touch on a subjectagain, and I think we've
probably talked about this alittle bit before, mental health
(01:50):
in the workplace. It's somethingthat's very near and dear to my
heart. It's something that'svery real, and it's something
that it's uncomfortable to talkabout. Sometimes it's hard to
analyze, it's hard to figure outhow to handle it, and there's
just a lot there. So let's seeif we can unpack it in the short
(02:10):
amount of time we have togetherthis week, at least get a high
level and talk about it andhopefully begin better
conversations about how weaddress mental health in our
workplace. So what triggeredthis, for me is there is a
fantastic article that was partof the ASSP journals,
(02:30):
professional safety journal, nowknown as PSJ. It's the January
2025,edition, and there is a peer
review journal in there, andit's called a silent hazard, a
regional survey on mental healthand suicide in construction.
(02:52):
Very interesting survey, veryinteresting data that they came
with from the constructionindustry, which I think is a
really tough industry. There's alot of stigma, there's a lot of
there's a lot of stuff therethat can prevent mental health
from really taking root. Andthat's not being judgmental,
(03:12):
that's not being anything otherthan just saying
it's hard to be able to talkabout mental health, and in some
settings, it's even harder thatthere's some places that is more
accepted to talk about it thanin other places, and in some
places there's more resourcesthan in other places. Seeing
(03:33):
that we're addressing it andlooking at it and evaluating it
in the construction industry isreally interesting. Now I want
to begin by taking a step backand going mental health is a
work issue, not saying that thatwork causes it. It can. Work can
be a stressor. It can be a bigstressor. And a lot of that,
(03:54):
interestingly, is linked tocompany culture, values and
supervision, leadership thatyou're those leaders can
actually have more influence orequal importance as family
members when it comes to overallhappiness. So do we influence it
as leaders in the workplace?
Yes. Does it also come with usas part of our potentially
genetic makeup, part of what webring in as what we are exposed
(04:18):
to an environment and also whatour life situation is, yeah,
super complex, but that'speople. We are complex, and so
many times it's unfortunate, butthere's the blame the worker
scenario when there we overusethe statistic and we overuse
(04:38):
this statement that and takeyour percentage in the 90s, high
90s, low 90s, I'm going to pickthe mid 90s. The 95% of all
industrial accidents are becauseof a behavior, okay? And
(04:59):
so if we're.
Going to focus on behaviors,don't we have to go a little bit
deeper, because this goes backto the whole like, blame, shame,
retrain terrible mentality ofwhen it comes to disciplinary
action or helping with safety.
But if we take it that, yeah, wethere are behaviors that can
lead to that we need to go onestep deeper and ask why, what,
(05:22):
how, and really deep dive thataspect of human nature. And if
we look at it, we can see thatmental health, mental wellness,
mental acuity, mental readiness,is a big piece of it. And
(05:43):
if we're saying that the workculture or a supervisor is
causing and can cause that muchissue in the workplace, why are
we not addressing it? Now, thisis a soap box, and I'm going to
move on past this, but I have tosay it, because we can't. We
can't, on one hand, say, Ohyeah, the worker was distracted.
(06:04):
Let's retrain them. Let's sayit's behavior related, and then
not look at ourselves and say,what did we do to enable that
behavior, or did we encouragethat behavior? Was there a
decision that encouraged thatbehavior? And I'll definitely
say if you look at some of thecurrent research coming out of
the Kraus Bell group, especiallylooking at safety decision
(06:27):
making and seeing how decisionsreally do, long term, affect the
safety at the moment and thechoices and behavior in the
moment of an accident.
So I feel that we we have tohold accountable both sides. And
now let's go back and look atthe root of mental health in the
(06:49):
workplace and so many timesoutside of work, we even blame
mental health on a lot ofthings, and what really
infuriates me is the lack ofresources that are there. It's
not easy to get mental healthhelp for a lot of reasons. One,
(07:11):
sometimes it's hard to ask forhelp because there is still the
stigma that you can't see it,you can't touch it, you can't do
a clinical test and say, Ohyeah, it's mental health. You
can't do those. So is it real?
It's real, and yet there's stillthe stigma behind it that is
hard to say those things and tothink about those things. So
(07:32):
when we look at that, and wetake that just a little bit
deeper, and say, well, now Ifeel like I can finally say
something. I feel empowered.
I've seen the resources. I'veseen what. And that takes a lot
of effort for an organization,for a person, there's a lot of
(07:53):
energy that gets pushed intothat, for someone to go, Okay,
I'm aware that there's help, andmaybe I do need that help, and
when they reach out, is someoneavailable. I have heard horror
storiesin the HR world of people
calling and calling for help onan EAP number and being hung up
on having like no one answering,being referred to someone who
(08:19):
then actually isn't available.
Taking an absurdly a long timeto get a referral. By that
point, you begin to second guessyourself and go, Oh my this is
too much work. This is too muchhassle. I don't think I'll do
it. And that also is someinteresting excuses for a lot of
health things. It'sinconvenient, it's expensive,
(08:42):
it's all those things. Sotherefore I won't do it and put
myself at risk. Mental health isthe same, and I think, even more
neglected than some other items.
Secondly, it's really hard tofind matching help, because just
like finding a good doctor, youwant someone who really
understands, someone who canhelp with what you're looking
(09:04):
for and tailored to you. So it'shard, it's hard to find the
right person. That's wherehaving resources available as a
company is so important, havinga good resource available,
having leadership thatrecognizes not to pry in
people's lives, but to recognizethat someone may be in distress,
(09:24):
and then offer it and keepputting it in front of them to
go, Hey, we have resources. Webeer. This is that I've heard
good story. I've heard thisabout it. I Anything, anything
that would help someone feelmore comfortable about getting
the help that they may need atthat time, we have to have it
available. It has to be good,and it has to match up with
(09:48):
hopefully more and more. Iremember years ago where it was
hard, really hard, to find aninsurance that paid for a level
of mental health.
Help, and then finding a personthat would actually take that
insurance for that it that wasreally tough back in the day,
(10:08):
and it has gotten easier, andit's getting better. We're
getting more awareness,so hopefully the the read, the
baseline resources and theunderstanding are there for how
we can affect and improve mentalhealth in the workplace. Let's
actually talk about the articleand some of the findings there,
and how I'm actually a littlebit optimistic by the findings
in this research on the secondhalf of the leading and learning
(10:32):
through safety podcast. You arelistening to
the leading and learning throughsafety podcast with Dr Mark
French, dsda Consulting, learnyou lead others. The Myers,
Briggs Type Indicator is anamazing tool. Problem is that it
(10:54):
can be easily misinterpreted. DrMark French is MBTI certified
and ready to help you discoveryour inner strengths. The MBTI
assessment can help with teambuilding, stress management,
communication, conflictmanagement, and so much more,
individual and group sessionsare available to help you
discover what makes you great.
For more information, visit uson the web at tsda
(11:17):
consulting.comWelcome back to the second half
of our leading and learningthrough safety podcast. So this
week, we're talking about mentalhealth in the workplace and
using a really great article inthe professional safety journal
from the ASSP january 2025,edition. And I was pleasantly
(11:38):
surprised by some of thefindings. I expected it to be
much worse. I expected the stateof mental health in the
construction industry from thisrelatively small but powerful
survey and researchto be worse. But let me talk a
little bit about what some otherfindings were one when they
(12:00):
talked about the question like,where is your stress coming
from?
It? It reaffirms some otherprevious research from other
areas that say that thesupervisor manager are equal to
in most cases, or even slightlybehind, but mostly equal to a
(12:22):
spouse or partner, that amanager, you have that much
powerto make someone's life poor.
As a life partner,that's a powerful thing. It's
the negative side that by actingas a leader that doesn't care,
but acting as a leader who isn'treally a leader. Not even going
(12:45):
to say that if you're doingthese things to make people
miserable, you're not a leader.
Don't, don't even bother callingyourself. That you can be, you
can change, but you have so muchpower to make someone's life
miserable.
I don't it's tough in anorganization. Your
organizational culture sustainsthat or or creates it, or gets
(13:08):
rid of it. It has a choice, butyou have to do it.
And I really encourage a lot oforganizations to focus on and
I've heard Simon Sinek even talkabout this, finally, a hole.
That's the everybody will knowwho that is. If you say, Hey,
who's that? Who's that person inour organization, they'll point
to them. They'll know who theyare. And that's a really funny
story. When he talks about it'shis story about the Navy SEALs,
(13:31):
how they find their next leader.
And it's about trust and it'sabout performance, but it's more
about trust. They'd rather havehigh trust in average
performance than super highperformance and low trust,
because that the morale, themental well being of the team is
a loss because of that.
So some of the other interestingitems is, like effort, like
(13:55):
employee perspective, my myorganization, could do more to
improve mental health. A lot ofjust neutral, like I expected to
be, to be very overwhelminglynegative, and it was actually
mostly neutral. There was someagrees, but that's of course, we
could do more. I don't think youcould ever do enough, but it's
sometimes hard to find the rightresources. And I'm being
(14:18):
perfectly honest and open thatyou can get a you can evaluate
your employee assistanceprogram. You can make sure it
works, make sure it's strong andhas. There's some really
specialty organizations that canhelp with just mental health,
but it's still hard. It's noteasy, to keep finding new
resources, new ways, and ittakes a lot of effort to do
(14:40):
that.
And then some of the otherquestions is
worker discomfort in discussingmental health, and it goes from
strongly agree to stronglydisagree, and it's almost like a
20% split all the way around.
Again, I expected that to be alot more negative. I didn't.
Expect there to be such a strongagree and significantly agree
(15:04):
that thatthey're willing to talk about
it, that we're willing to put itout there and actually have
conversations or at leastaddress it so that we can do
something about it. Because,again, we say and we that
behavior is part of the injuriesthat happen. This isn't just a
psychological safety. This turnsinto physical safety quickly,
because if we're distracted byother things, the mental health
(15:28):
issues that are there, we're notthe performer that we need to
be, and that's when we needextra support. We need those
extra times to an extra effortand extra everything. That's
when there has to be thatsupport system in place to help
people perform to the best oftheir ability.
(15:54):
Again, the research, when Ibriefly read through it and say
about looking at responsibility,looking at resources. It's
better. It could be improved. Ofcourse, it can be improved, but
overall, it felt very positive.
It felt like we're improvingcompared to where I would have
said a few years ago or longer,that it's getting better, and
(16:18):
that's good, because I am seeinga lot more effort when I go and
again, I always look for, whereis the money flowing? Like if
you go to a an HR safety tradeshow, like an educational
conference, and you look at,what are the vendors selling?
Follow the money. If they'recoming up with new and inventive
things, there's a market for it,and there's a reason for it, and
(16:39):
I'm seeing more and moreresources for mental health, for
employee education, on thosethings, employee life, skill,
style, items. More and morewe're seeing these markets pop
up. Why? Because there's a need,and someone sees the need and
fills it with a product orservice. That's great. It's good
to see this. The more that I'mseeing that come up, it means
(17:01):
that more and more companies arewanting it. More and more
organizations are demanding thatthis type of help, like they're
saying, This isn't ourwheelhouse. We can't do this. We
need help doing this thing withmental health. And again, mental
health is is tangible and yetintangible, because it affects
everyone so differently. There'scategories like any diagnosis,
(17:24):
but it affects us all subtly. Itcannot be subtle. It can have
very different effects on verydifferent people. And so their
approach to addressing it has tobe varied. It's definitely not
one of those approaches whereyou can do one approach and it's
going to work for everyone.
(17:45):
There has to be variedapproaches, even if it's subtly
varied, there has to be at leastsome variation help people, just
like a good safety program, youhave to be able to motivate and
train and educate and lead witha varied approach, because not
one style is ever going to work100% of the time you can, you
(18:07):
can shoot for the average, but alot of times you still have to
vary it up to make that work fitwho's around you, who you're
working with, and what you'redoing. And that's why safety,
the core function of justpeople, physical safety expands
so fast when you think aboutbehaviors and actions and
(18:28):
different engineering, it reallyfocuses so broadly on what we do
all the time, and it's aboutleadership and figuring out how
we motivate people to be able tobe their best when they come to
work, or at least know that whenthey can't be their best, we
(18:50):
have a strong culture that canhave their back. Thanks for
joining me on this episode ofthe leading and learning through
safety podcast as always. Thankyou for making me part of your
playlist until next time wechat, stay safe.
(19:13):
Thank you for listening to theleading and learning through
safety podcast. More content isavailable online at www dot tsda
consulting.comall the opinions expressed on
the podcast are solelyattributed to the individual and
not affiliated with any businessentity. This podcast is for
(19:35):
informational and entertainmentpurposes. It is not a substitute
for proper policy, appropriatetraining or legal advice.
(19:59):
You.
This has been the leading andlearning through safety podcast.
You.
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