If a safety professional does not understand his or her role, they will find it difficult to manage change where change is needed within the organization, he adds.

Vulnerable workers
A peek into the future tells these industry observers that the issue of mental health is going to be one of the biggest challenges of health and safety professionals in the workplace.
“I think where mental health is today is where safety was probably 50 years ago,” says Johnston. “We really need to provide some model or some manual for employers to be able to implement things to deal with (mental health issues).”

That “manual” may become available in 2012.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), in partnership with CSA Standards, is developing a new standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace. Shaw, a member of the workforce advisory committee with the MHCC, says the standard is expected to be released by the end of 2012.

“I think it will be a push to have organizations pay some attention to the whole area of workplace stress, workplace depression, and our ability to recognize and to bring people into the workplace with mental illness, in the same way that we bring people into the workplace with other forms of illness or disability,” Shaw says.

Johnston noted, however, that organizations should be proactive about doing something about mental health in the workplace. Industry observers acknowledge that there is increasing trend that mental illness among workers is becoming a bigger issue for organizations. They need to start looking for best practices and standards to help them implement programs and policies that deal with mental illness, as early as possible.

Gathering relevant data about mental illness is a good place to start, he says, but they’re not always readily available. Benefits providers would likely have that information and employers should look to them as a resource.

“It’s not until you actually get those reports that you can then start to make the case — and it’s a no-brainer once you get those numbers,” Johnston says.

Another trend health and safety professionals are facing is the continuously aging workforce. Baby boomers are reaching retirement age and the economic downturn of the last few years is making them rethink their retirement plans for financial considerations. Older workers are delaying retirement and this presents certain health and safety challenges — particularly in more physically demanding tasks.

“Jobs don’t change because someone is older,” says Gouthro. “And so it’s not so much that there’s more injuries, but the injuries themselves, instead of being, say, a sore back, the younger worker may come back (to work) right away in a day or two, while the older worker might need a week.”

Again, the challenge for health and safety professionals is having a better understanding of the “multigenerational impact of employees in our workplaces.”

“And this is only going to get worse,” says Shaw. “As young people are coming with their own perception of the workplace, what the future workers are going to be demanding of the workplace.”

Health and safety professionals need to help build an organizational culture that is adaptable and takes many factors — such as demographics and human behaviour — into consideration when developing health and safety management systems.