Canadians want workplace flexibility for personal emergencies: survey

The mental health of Canadians wasn’t as bad in December 2021 as it was in December 2020, according to a monthly survey, but employees still have strong concerns regarding their workplace when reflecting on their wellbeing.

The LifeWorks Mental Health Index (MHI) uses online survey data from 3,000 Canadians to create a report every month scoring the mental health of Canadians compared to pre-pandemic levels.

In December 2021, Canadians scored -10.2. While this is nowhere near the pandemic low of -11.8 the previous December, it still marks a decline from November.

LifeWorks is a human resources company previously known as Morneau Shepell, and their survey data focuses on employee mental health.

According to December’s report, the top thing that Canadians are looking for from their employers is full flexibility in being able to step away from work if they have a personal emergency, with almost a third of Canadians saying this is a priority.

Around a quarter of Canadians surveyed stated that flexibility in their hours is the most important thing, while another quarter stated location of their work was the most important, meaning whether they could work remote or not.

In terms of what Canadians believe would work best for their teams, 38 per cent said that full flexibility, which means giving employees the ability to weigh in on when, where and how long they work, would be the most ideal scenario.

“As workplace flexibility continues to grow in importance among Canadians, it is critical for employers to listen to their employees and determine how they can provide support – whether that means flexible hours for those working from home to allow time for childcare, or the ability to step away from work for an appointment or other personal matters among frontline workers,” Stephen Liptrap, president of LifeWorks, said in a press release.

“Ensuring that employees feel trusted and encouraged to balance their work and personal lives in a way that works for them is essential to fostering a workplace culture that prioritizes employee wellbeing.”

Only 15 per cent of respondents said that fully remote would be the best option for all of their coworkers, while just 17 per cent said that they wanted everyone to be physically at the office together.

One key detail was that only half of Canadians believe that their CEO genuinely cares about the wellbeing of employees.

Only 59 per cent said that HR policies at their place of work actively supported employee wellbeing. Those who worked at places where they reported the HR policies did not support their wellbeing had much lower mental health scores than those who felt supported by HR.

Around 42 per cent of Canadians in December said they felt their career options would be limited if they had a mental-health issue that their work was aware of.

LifeWorks has been publishing the monthly MHI results since shortly after the start of the pandemic. Canadians’ mental health had been on an upswing from January to August of 2021, reaching a peak of -9.7 in August compared to pre-pandemic levels, but levels have dropped slightly in recent months.

And there’s a large gender gap. Throughout the pandemic, women have reported much lower mental health scores than man, and in December 2021, the mental health score of women alone was -11.8, compared to -8.6 for men.

The 3,000 participants who took the survey were selected in order to accurately represent the ages, gender, industry and geographic distribution of Canadians as a whole, and all are currently employed or have been in the last six months.

In December 2021, four per cent of respondents stated that they were not currently employed, and 10 per cent reported reduced hours or salary.

Finances can weigh heavy on the minds of Canadians, the report suggests. Those who had their salary reduced compared to the prior month reported a mental health score of -23.9, lower than those who didn’t have a job. Those who reported not having any emergency savings continued to report lower mental health, scoring -32.0, compared to those who had emergency savings.

Across Canada, results varied by province. The Maritimes saw the greatest decline in mental health from the previous month, declining by 1.6 points to a score of 13 points lower than the pre-pandemic benchmark. However, this is only excluding Newfoundland and Labrador, which continues to have the highest mental health score on the MHI in Canada, at -6.2.

Manitoba saw the largest improvement since November, going up almost five point to -6.5.

The MHI is created by comparing the survey data to existing data from 2017, 2018 and 2019, which create a benchmark for pre-pandemic mental health levels.