00:00:00
- When we talk about supporting our employees in terms of psychological health, we want to include diverse groups and be aware of diversity, equity and inclusion.
00:00:20
- Individuals from diverse groups such as gender and sexual minorities, immigrants, racialized individuals and folks with psychological and physical disabilities, face obstacles in society in general, and at work in particular. These, in turn, can influence their psychological health and well-being.
00:00:46
- I would say that the main source of stress related to our new foreign workers is mainly due to administrative overload. It triggers a lot of anxiety.
00:00:56
- The immigration process lasted 18 months. The stress and so on, so I couldn't sleep.
00:01:03
- The second source of anxiety is being away from their family.
00:01:06
- For the family, it's a bit sentimental. I have three children, they are in Tunisia. My little girl, she is rather reserved. She would not say anything, but…
00:01:21
- We realized that there were a lot of problems about getting into the job. We would see a lot of anxiety, so we wanted to adjust our tactics and connect them with a person who was really there to support them full-time.
00:01:31
- At a societal level, job insecurity and precarity are really important factors to consider.
00:01:37
- I have friends who came here. After only a few months, they went on unemployment, I don't know why. Fortunately, I didn't experience that. Since I've been here in Canada, working, I've given up stress on my very first day. I can sleep well now. I can show you a photo. See the difference? I'm here at ease, quiet, so I felt I could do everything I wanted.
00:02:03
- At the organizational level, psychosocial risk factors emerge as being important determinants of psychological health at work. Self-management strategies have to take into account how acculturation and inclusion processes influence psychological health. We can also try to take into account the role of religion in self-management for folks that come from different religious backgrounds.
00:02:25
- As far as mental health is concerned, it's a sensitive subject for them, because culturally speaking in their country, it is not subject they are used to talking about, or it's not a subject they are comfortable with. So on our side, we have to be proactive, we have to read between the lines to insure that these people are well integrated, even if they do not talk about their mental health problems.
00:02:45
- Members from diverse groups have not always had access to culturally sensitive help. So that can create another barrier to their asking for help, because they are afraid that they won't get the help that they need.
00:02:55
- We want the organization to understand their social responsibility, but also the sensitivity of the subject. We suggest to start by having a better idea of what your demographic and cultural portrait looks like. The second step would be to create a committee including diverse groups to be able to make sure that we have the proper priorities, that we address them in a proper way, to be relevant and to be able to answer their needs of all diverse groups within your population. We also want to train the managers to be able to feel comfortable with the sensitive subjects when they have to intervene with their employees. And last but not least, we want to make sure that our human resources department collaborates with the health awareness committee to be able to make sure that everything is integrated together when we want to offer the initiatives to our employees.
00:03:45
- The company endeavors to do everything that is possible to make us feel comfortable in our job.
00:03:50
- We have left our families in Tunisia. We have found another family here.
00:03:55
- A big family, yes.
00:03:56
- I am glad to hear that.
00:03:58
- It is only true.
