2. I would like the first [xx] rows in the room to stand up.
These rows are about 25% per cent of our audience.
That’s the percentage of Canadians impacted by mental health.
I was driving down the street the other day and I saw this sign in a bus stop.
And that couldn’t be more true.
Mental health is health.

3. Mental health at the WSIB Pamela Steer / Chief Financial Officer, WSIB, June 14, 2018
My name is Pamela Steer and I am head of Finance and Employer Services at the WSIB and I’m here to talk to you about mental health and our journey at the WSIB.
We proactively encourage efforts to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses and to improve return-to-work and recovery outcomes.
We strongly believe that mental health, like physical health and safety, should be a focus for workplaces.

4. Recognizing the cost of mental health
500,000 Canadians
1:3 one in three claims
70% of disability costs
$51 billion per year
So we’re all Finance professionals…why am I up here talking about mental health?
Mental health costs.
500,000 Canadians, in any given week, are unable to work due to mental health problems.
One in three workplace disability claims are related to mental health.
70 per cent of disability costs are attributed to mental health-related reasons.
Mental health is estimated to cost the Canadian economy $51 billion per year.

5. Recognizing the value of our people
2017 spent $427 million
Almost 4,000 employees
14 regional offices across Ontario
75 per cent unionized
And these costs translate to your workplace too!
There are obvious costs that we are all aware of like absenteeism and costs associated with long-term and short-term disability claims.
The approach we took at the WSIB was to start by asking ourselves what social and human capital means to our organization.
In 2017, we spent $427 million on salaries and short-term benefits. As evident by this cost, people are a major asset for the WSIB.
We invest in our people and rely on them to provide valuable services to Ontarians.
We not only want to ensure that they are coming to work and able to do their jobs, we want to add value on this investment by making efforts to ensure our people come to work engaged and motivated to go above and beyond and make discretionary efforts to innovate and improve service levels.
And, in the long-term we want to also see returns on investment in mental health reflected through benefits like long-term disability.

6. ROI
+ VOI
• At the WSIB, we are taking an approach that looks at both long-term return on investment (ROI) to justify a mental health spend and also value on investment (VOI).
• What does VOI mean?
VOI includes financial return, but also takes into account more abstract value received from an investment like encouraging increased discretionary efforts or increased employee engagement/retention.
VOI can be harder to measure, but can include measuring engagement, looking at discretionary efforts and studying short-term behavioral and attitudinal changes, higher retention and more.

7. Mental health strategy roadmap
We value our people, and want to maximize the value from investment in our people, so embarked on a mental health journey.
We are in the process of implementing our mental health strategy roadmap.
Some efforts to far include:
mental health awareness training for all employees
launch of peer support program
mental health first aid availability for all employees
mental health stigma training
integration of mental health best practice in our disability program
resiliency training pilot
The road is intentionally winding, we know there will be challenges ahead. As our organization, our work, and our people evolve, so will our needs.

8. A4S CASE STUDY
We are working on a case study for A4S, that discusses ROI and VOI that outlines our approach and our efforts.
Stay tune for it’s release [xx date].

9. Step 1 Recognize the value of people
Our approach starts with recognizing the value of our people, as I highlighted earlier.
We make a major investment in our people and they are crucial to helping us successfully deliver our mandate
We want to get value on that investment and see a return on our investments in programming to support them

10. Step 2 Get buy-in from the right people at the right time
Another key to our success was engaging the right people at the right time. We engaged our Board, senior leaders and the union early and embedded our commitment to mental health into our Collective Agreement, Corporate Policy, Chief Mandate letters and even into our corporate business planning process.

11. Step 3 Manage expectations
We were also clear to manage expectations about how actual monetary returns on investment are long-term and a culture does not change overnight.
We were very clear that in the short-term there may actually be increased uptake of mental health services, like our Employee Family Assistance Program (EFAP) because the early indicators of our success will be reduced stigma, and therefore an increased use of our programs. As predicted, in 2017, we saw a two per cent annual increase in the use of the EFAP. We discussed how these are early indicators of the culture shift.

12. Step 4 Use data to monitor, evaluate and refresh
Finally, we are measuring and monitoring and using targeted analysis of our data to refine and target our efforts strategically so we are maximizing the value of where we spend our time/money.
Many of these efforts are long term and will require time to mature. Here are some of the outcomes we can or will eventually be able to measure:
Decreased volume and duration of mental health short-term and long-term disability claims (increased stay at work cases)
Decreased employee absenteeism for mental health reasons
Increased employee engagement
Lower turnover / higher retention rate and commitment to organization
Increased resource awareness, such as employee and family assistance program
Excellence Canada platinum certification (by 2020)

13. More Bobs and Brendas
Finally, we are measuring and monitoring and using targeted analysis of our data to refine and target our efforts strategically so we are maximizing the value of where we spend our time/money.
Many of these efforts are long term and will require time to mature. Here are some of the outcomes we can or will eventually be able to measure:
Decreased volume and duration of mental health short-term and long-term disability claims (increased stay at work cases)
Decreased employee absenteeism for mental health reasons
Increased employee engagement
Lower turnover / higher retention rate and commitment to organization
Increased resource awareness, such as employee and family assistance program
Excellence Canada platinum certification (by 2020)