Employers want to address concerns happening in their workplace. Matters that are not addressed cost your business money and time with high turnover rates, absenteeism, presenteeism, and increased short- and long-term disability claims, as well as WCB claims.

WCB psychological claims are the most expensive, and with the amendment to Bill 29, The Workplace Safety and Health Act, it is likely that WCB claims will increase.

The amendment to Bill 29 explicitly includes psychological safety in The Workplace Safety and Health Act. This significant shift means mental well-being is now legally recognized as part of workplace safety, it’s not just an HR or wellness initiative.

Here are a few key takeaways and practical implications for employers:

Elevated Responsibility – Psychological hazards (e.g., chronic stress, bullying, exposure to traumatic events) must be treated like physical hazards. Employers will need to identify, assess, and control these risks systematically.

Compliance Expectations – Regulators will expect active measures, not just policies. Examples of active measures are training supervisors and staff on recognizing psychological hazards, preventing burnout through realistic targets and workload management, and support systems that give staff access to counselling, peer support, and debriefing after traumatic incidents.

High-Risk Roles – Frontline positions in healthcare, social services, emergency response, and customer service will likely require specific risk assessments for psychological safety.

Organizational Culture – Toxic interactions and harassment are now safety issues, not just HR concerns. Employers should foster a culture of respect and open communication.

Being proactive can help your organization get ahead of the curve and mitigate circumstances that can lead to psychological claims.

Psychological claims tend to stem from two causes: acute and chronic injury hazards and team hazards. Psychological injuries also prolong claim frequency and length associated with physical injuries.

Typical acute hazards that lead to psychological injury include exposure to traumatic incidents and witnessing or experiencing an incident or assault. Typical chronic hazards include:

• Workplaces that serve high-risk populations.
• Chronic exposure to verbal abuse, physical incidents, or assaults. Risk tends to increase for those with more than 10 years exposure.
• Work requires a constant state of safety awareness.
• Chronic work-related stress, for example, a dissonance between what the employee believes is effective and the workplace operations.
• The workload is chronically intense or excessive or has repetitive periods of intense or excessive work.
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Team hazards are more common in teams when: 

• The direct supervisor struggles to manage the complexity of the operational and team dynamics, for example, balancing the workload, team interdependencies, etc.
• The employee has a poor relationship with the direct supervisor.
• The workplace culture fails to promote a supportive and safe workplace between colleagues.
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Workplace Solutions can assist your organization by introducing psychological safety into your workplace health and safety strategy.

Using the National Standard of Canada, CMHA can customize solutions that are relevant to your workplace. The Standard, the first of its kind in the world, provides a framework to create and continually improve a psychologically healthy and safe workplace, from identifying and assessing hazards to implementing structures and practices and fostering a culture that promotes psychological health and safety.

Practical Steps for the Workplace

Strengthen your governance systems by:

• Training your safety teams and committees in psychological health and safety
• Introducing monitoring systems into your WSH committees
• Improving pathways to raise safety concerns and promoting reporting practices
• Systematically review quarterly data on hazards, reports, and claims

Focus on prevention activities, including:

• Implementing the duty to inquire across all workgroups
• Building psychologically safe workplace cultures
• Developing positive manager-employee relations
• Ensuring that the managers have the skills and supports to effectively oversee the complexity of the operational and team dynamics
• Assessing workplaces and positions to mitigate hazards and prevent injury

Offer early intervention and injury supports:

• When an accident occurs, provide the employee with an incident package
• Make quality post-incident supports available
• Develop clear follow-up procedures post-incident and while on leave

Return-to-Work and Accommodations:

• Provide active case management and follow-up with the employee up to one-year post-return to work
• Plan early for common accommodations, for example, identify work or positions that employees can return to rapidly either on a temporary or permanent basis