The Alberta government has introduced new guidelines to help workplaces support employees recovering from mental health and addiction challenges.
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Dan Williams made the announcement on Jan. 21 together with the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence—the province’s addictions Crown corporation.
The guidelines, available to all employers in the province, aim to create “recovery-friendly workplaces” through initiatives such as raising awareness of mental health and substance-related disorders, implementing prevention measures, and facilitating access to care.
“Wherever someone is suffering from addiction, we want to meet them there and give them an off-ramp out of addiction,” Williams said. “Addiction leads to only one of two ends,” he added. “It either ends in recovery and a second lease on life, or tragically, the outcome of death.”
Ian Robb, a representative of Building Trades of Alberta, told reporters the story of Logan, a 26-year-old Alberta welder in addiction recovery who died of an overdose after being sent to a work site where he was constantly exposed to drugs and alcohol.
Robb said the welder asked his co-workers and supervisors for help in reducing his exposure to the substances or replacing him on the job, but they didn’t due to staff shortages and the need to finish the job. “The workers on the site didn’t know what to do,” said Robb. “They just didn’t know how to help him.”
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Roughly 10 percent of employees in Alberta have struggled with substance abuse in the past and are now in recovery, according to the province. Nearly half of those who suffer from addiction have worked in the trades, and three in four are men.
In addition, about 20 percent of Albertans struggle with mental health at any given time, according to provincial estimates.
Leaving mental health and addictions issues unaddressed comes at an average productivity cost of approximately $8,500 annually per employer, said Williams.
Recommendations for employers in the new guidelines include adopting policies that facilitate the hiring and retention of people in recovery, recognizing recovery as a feasible goal, providing education on mental health, and creating a culture that “recognizes, normalizes, and values recovery.”
The minister said the new guidelines will help workplaces be prepared to support employees undergoing recovery. “We shouldn’t facilitate addiction, not at homes, not in hospitals and not in our workplaces,” he said.
“We need to get people the help they deserve because every single human, every single Albertan living and working in this great province, has inherent dignity, and they deserve an opportunity at recovery.”
