Mental Health and the Workplace - A Practical Guide
Mental health is an issue that impacts every workplace in Canada. Mental illness can lead to numerous workplace challenges including absenteeism and health and safety risks. In some cases, mental illness will also engage an employer’s duty to accommodate the employee to the point of undue hardship. Although many employers have mastered the accommodation of employees’ physical restrictions, accommodating mental illness in the workplace poses a unique challenge that often requires a different approach.
During this seminar, we will focus on practical strategies for dealing with employee mental health in the workplace, including circumstances in which mental health may be linked with performance issues or interpersonal conflict. We will review the relevant legislative framework as well as recent employment and labour law decisions regarding the accommodation of mental illness in the workplace and the boundaries of the duty to accommodate. We will also discuss best practices to create and maintain a psychologically healthy and safe workplace.