The key to a great work environment may be to find "sneaky" ways to not work as hard.
The Southeast Enviro and Safety Seminar hosted occupational therapist Sylvia Yaeger, who spoke not only about physical strains of the workplace but also the psychological ones. With about 200 people gathered in the conference room at the Southeast Training Institute March 20, Yaeger's keynote address went over the problems of when work life can impede satisfaction in everyone's day-to-day lives.
Hosted annually by the Southeast Environment and Safety committee, the seminar is meant to provide information about safety issues and industry standards that may affect everyday operations for businesses.
Yaeger said there is a mind-body connection that needs to be in good balance if people are going to work their best and smartest. Stress leave is a relatively new phenomenon, she noted, adding that nobody ever heard of it until very recently.
"When you think about what stress in the workplace can do to people, it's terrible," Yaeger told the attendees. "Who heard of stress leave even 25 years ago? Now stress leave is costing Canadian businesses over $12 billion a year, and that is exponentially increasing."
She said that has never been seen before in the country, and the incidences of depression in Canada are "unparallel" to any other time in history.
"Think about that for a second. Post-war in North America we didn't have the level of depression that we have now," she said, noting post-war levels in Europe weren't as high either. "We live in the land of plenty. We have so much. How can that be? One of the big things that has changed is work, the way that we work, the amount that we work, the expectations."
She said many people are rarely away from their job now that it's so easy to remain tethered to work with a smartphone. Some employers want people to turn their phones off when away from work, but that is a minority.
"The expectation is that we're available," she said.
That constant connectedness to work and the stress it can create is where many people fall short in their adherence to safety.
"The part where we're really lacking is understanding safety of the mind, psychological safety," said Yaeger. "There are choices that we make everyday that impact our safety. That's fine if it's just about you, except it never really is."
Safety, she said, isn't all about wearing safety glasses, but is also about the mind-body connection. She said those two elements are not separate, as everything that happens in one's mind causes a chemical reaction within the body.
"Safety has to be more than just protecting your body at work, because some of the people that we work with are psychologically distressed," she said, noting that if someone is distracted, or thinking about problems away from the workplace, they may not be able to work safely. That may put both them and their co-workers at risk.
Eighty per cent of workplace accidents took place when workers reported they were very stressed out, calling their stress a contributor to the accident. Workplace injuries in the United States came to 2.9 million in 2010. Repetitive strain injuries from 2000-2001 in Canada were 2.3 million people. About a quarter of all injuries on the job are back related and between 30 and 40 per cent of all workplace absences in Canada are a result of back pain.
"For those guys, the price could be life," said Yaeger, who added that depending on the injury, some employees will never return to work.
Others who do return to work may only return to a light-duty position or another job they weren't doing before. For those who really enjoyed their work, they may find themselves unfulfilled in the new posting, she added.
She said employers should make it clear to their employees that safe-work procedures are not optional and are designed to make work easier for everyone. All employees should then follow those procedures. If an employee injures himself or herself by working outside the safe-work procedure, it could result in disciplinary action from the employer.
"You never want to be in a situation where you choose an injury, psychological or physical, or make a choice that leads to that because you don't know what the outcome is. You don't know if everything is going to be OK," said Yaeger.
She also warned against work being one's life, suggesting that while it can be a passion, life should start when one leaves work.
"How many people go home and hit the couch because they're exhausted? They have nothing left. They've given it all to work," added Yaeger. "What's really sad is that they do that for years and years, and then they retire and everything is worn out. They can't enjoy the life that they've planned for themselves because they are too worn out."
The employee's job is to find those "sneaky" ways through ergonomics and creative solutions to not work as hard, she said. That may be what it takes for some people to be able to enjoy life away from their jobs.
