Workplace mental health toolkit

 

1. Review your organization’s Psychosocial Factors Performance

The Psychosocial Factors Performance is a snapshot of your organization's performance in relation to the 13 psychosocial factors. It uses Work Environment Survey (WES) questions that are mapped to the Standard.

Note: More information on WES can be found on Compass.

Access Workplace Health and Safety Dashboard -> Psychosocial Factors Performance tab (IDIR Restricted). To scroll to the right, you may need to use the scroll right arrow in the bottom left corner. The scroll bar alone will not move you through the tabs.

If you don’t have access to the Dashboard, you can request the information from your ministry human resources contact.

Couldn’t find your organization’s results or need more detailed breakdown? You can use this manual tool (XLSX, 493KB) to map your latest WES results to the Standard.

2. Analyze your results

Compare your performance to the larger BC Public Service results. These comparisons serve as a guide, highlighting areas that may need attention to improve workplace psychological health and safety.

3. Gather your organization’s data

Examine the information on your Workplace Health and Safety Dashboard, HR Analytics reports, Workforce Plan, and any other relevant internal sources for aggregate data from your organization. For example:

• Employee engagement surveys (WES, exit surveys, etc.)
• People Plan, Workforce Plan
• Long-term and short-term disability rates
• WorkSafeBC rates
• Turnover rates
• Psychosocial hazards (PDF, 1.2MB) 

Use these insights to help establish your baseline.

4. Record your baseline

Take the data you have access to and record it. You may need to reach out to your ministry’s human resources team. This will let you track your progress. Here is an example of how a table that records your baseline might look:

Sample: Baseline Information for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace

Indicator	Baseline Information (as of XXXX year)
Information from your team’s WES or Psychosocial Factors Performance Tab	Record your data here
People Plan or Workforce Plan	Record your data here
Psychosocial hazards identified in your workplace	Record your data here
Number of employees who have participated in training (i.e. Orientation to Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace)	Record your data here
Etc.	Etc.

5. Celebrate your progress

You can only manage what you can measure. Congratulations on completing the first step!

Important: When using this tool, remember that it is a proxy. This means that it is an approximation and not a definitive assessment. It should be used as an indicator that there might be something to pay attention to, but it would not tell you if a particular issue or concern identified by the Standard is in fact occurring in your workplace. Therefore, it should only be used to identify the psychosocial factor or factors you want to investigate first.

 

Now determine a starting point for your workplace. Consider the following as you pick the area of focus:

• Identify what your organization is good at and what areas need to be improved
• Understand that everything in your business is linked. Realize that if you make changes in one part, it can have a big effect on other parts
• For example, having clear leadership and expectation goals can help lessen your team's stress and workload, which can improve their performance indirectly
• Choose a starting point wisely, focusing on the area where you can make the biggest positive difference
• Don't be overwhelmed if the job seems too big; start making changes in one place and slowly grow from there

 

1. Create an Action Plan

Use the suggested evidence-based actions from Workplace Strategies for Mental Health to draw up your action plan. Your objectives come out of your selected psychosocial factors buckets, baseline data, and psychosocial hazards self-assessment (PDF, 1.2MB).

2. Align actions with your business planning

Does your action plan align with your organizational goals? For example:

• Workforce Plan
• Safety management program
• Onboarding and recruitment
• Performance Development Plan (PDP) conversations

3. Create an action plan template

Your action plan template is a visual reference to the objectives you want to include in your plan. It shows how each objective aligns with a particular goal in your organization.

Below, you can see an example of what an action plan template might look like.

Objective	Goals alignment	Actions
Create awareness culture of Psychological Health and Safety	Ministry Workforce Plan	1. All employees to complete an Orientation to Psychological Health and Safety
Create awareness culture of Psychological Health and Safety	Ministry Workforce Plan	2. Update Onboarding Guidelines to include the Orientation to Psychological Health and Safety

 

1. Use your baseline

Remember the first step? It's time to revisit your baseline and identify which measures you expect to see improvement in based on your chosen area of focus. This will give you a clear picture of the progress you've made so far and areas that still need attention.

2. Track and measure your activities

Pull together your baseline and action plan, so you can track your progress. Establish timelines for your planned actions, define target outcomes and decide how you will measure them. Build this information into a table so you can keep track of changes over time relative to your baseline.

Measure and track each objective individually so you can stay aligned with your organization’s business planning goals or adapt as these goals change.

Objective: Create awareness culture of Psychological Health and Safety

Goals Alignment: Ministry Workforce Plan

Actions	Timeline	Outcome Measure	Data Source	Target	Status
1. All employees to complete Orientation to Psychological Health and Safety	Review one year from establishment of baseline (YY/MM/DD)	Percentage of total employees participating in training	HR Analytics	90% of employees completed	In progress
2. Update Onboarding Guidelines to include the Orientation to Psychological Health and Safety	Start on (YY/MM/DD) Complete by (YY/MM/DD) and review against baseline measure	All new employees as of XXXX date receive the orientation as part of their onboarding orientation	HR Analytics	100% of new employees as of XXXX date completed	In progress

That’s it! This is a continual improvement model. Come back when you are ready to pick your next bucket.