I was motivational speaker for the Schedule 2 Employers Group on October 7, 2015 in Toronto, Ontario.
Here, I had the pleasure of watching guest speakers, Jo-Anne Bassett and Julia Tahardi, from Hydro One talk about their strategy to mental health at work.
Hydro One employees serve their communities by providing reliable power to customers.
The utility company has 5,369 full time employees, of which 78 % are men. Hydro One's goal is for work to be a psychologically safe and healthy workplace.
A psychologically healthy environment supports employee engagement, worker health and well being, recruitment and retention.
The reasons Hydro One embarked on a mental health program are it:
Removed the mental health stigma
Created healthier employees
Created more engaged employees
Improved customer service
The Current programs they have are:
Cardiovascular health screening
Fitness challenges
Flu shot clinics
To date Hydro One has:
Hosted 90 clinics
1592 employees have participated in a fitness challenge and lost a total of 1928 pounds.
The slogan for the program is Amp up your Health.
Hydro one hosts a website, created with help of sunlife financial that carries evidence based resources. They also host a Building resiliency elearning process that features Course that help people understand and build resilience.
I enjoyed the guest speakers from Hydro One. The company has put a lot of time and attention into creating a mentally healthy workplace.