Disability and employment

Funding agency: Canadian Standards Association

Key project partners: Canadian Standards Association 

Status: Completed

Every year, tens of thousands of Canadians become disabled and are unable to work, thereby becoming excluded from the numerous health advantages of workforce participation. According to Statistics Canada, one in five Canadians aged 15 and older had one or more disabilities in 2017. The annual cost of work disability is estimated to be very significant for employers and society as a whole. The true economic burden is substantially high, given that many working age adults with disabilities who can and want to work are not connected to workplaces and are often not counted as part of the labour force.

Reducing work disability is best achieved by targeting the social, insurance, workplace and individual barriers to work. Effective strategies to reduce work disability include workplace interventions such as work accommodation and return-to-work coordination. There are many benefits of having formal policies and procedures for workplace accommodation and for hiring and retaining workers with disabilities such as shorter work absences, higher levels of worker engagement, increased productivity workforce morale and reduced turnover. Therefore, organizations need a way of taking best practices from the work disability prevention management field and incorporating them into their operations.

This project aims to develop and promote a Work Disability Management System Standard that will help increase the capacity of employers to systematically manage work disability prevention activities. A standard in this area could help create better, safer, more sustainable workplaces and lessen productivity costs due to work disability by helping organizations implement work disability prevention best practices into their management system. This is a multi-stakeholder initiative involving labour/worker representatives, employers, occupational health and safety organizations, academics, educators, government, injured workers and disability groups.

Every year, tens of thousands of Canadians become disabled and are unable to work, thereby becoming excluded from the numerous health advantages of workforce participation. According to Statistics Canada, one in five Canadians aged 15 and older had one or more disabilities in 2017. The annual cost of work disability is estimated to be very significant for employers and society as a whole. The true economic burden is substantially high, given that many working age adults with disabilities who can and want to work are not connected to workplaces and are often not counted as part of the labour force.

Reducing work disability is best achieved by targeting the social, insurance, workplace and individual barriers to work. Effective strategies to reduce work disability include workplace interventions such as work accommodation and return-to-work coordination. There are many benefits of having formal policies and procedures for workplace accommodation and for hiring and retaining workers with disabilities such as shorter work absences, higher levels of worker engagement, increased productivity workforce morale and reduced turnover. Therefore, organizations need a way of taking best practices from the work disability prevention management field and incorporating them into their operations.

This project aims to develop and promote a Work Disability Management System Standard that will help increase the capacity of employers to systematically manage work disability prevention activities. A standard in this area could help create better, safer, more sustainable workplaces and lessen productivity costs due to work disability by helping organizations implement work disability prevention best practices into their management system. This is a multi-stakeholder initiative involving labour/worker representatives, employers, occupational health and safety organizations, academics, educators, government, injured workers and disability groups.

Main deliverables:

Canadian Work Disability Management System Standard (CSA Z1011:20)

Webinar series to promote the uptake of the standard

Funding agency: Canadian Standards Association (CSA Group)

Status: Ongoing

Impairment in the workplace could be due to fatigue, crises at home, substance use, caregiving responsibilities, experiences of sexual harassment or bullying, and others. Regardless of the cause, impairment in the workplace can raise several concerns, including in­creased costs, absenteeism, reduced productivity, and workplace morale, as well as safety concerns. Hence, organizations should have strategies to address impairment in the workplace.

A voluntary standard was recently developed “to specify requirements and provide guidance on activities required to manage impairment in the workplace in accordance with principles consistent with occupational health and safety management systems.” The unique approach makes that standard applicable to organizations of all sizes, within all industry sectors. However, there may be certain nuances between organizational sizes and industries that need to be taken into consideration to optimize uptake and adoption of the standard. For example, small businesses often have limited resources and expertise to develop and effectively implement important occupational health and safety policies and procedures, and it is no different when it comes to addressing impairment in the workplace. We aim to understand the specific barriers across industries and business sizes to better support them in implementing the standard.

Project manager: Bronson Du, MSc

Funding agency: Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Key project partners: Study & Research Centre in Mental Health & Work, UQAM, Université de Montréal, Queen’s University, University of Toronto, and a wide variety of supported employment programs in Ontario and Quebec

Status: Ongoing

Job tenure is a significant issue for individuals with a severe mental disorder (e.g., schizophrenia), as successful employment and the economic self-sufficiency it provides are important for recovery. Supported employment (SE) programs are recognized as evidence-based practices to help people with severe mental disorders (SMD) obtain competitive employment. However, job tenure for people with SMD is often brief, with studies showing that nearly half of all clients leave or lose their employment within six months. One of the best predictors of job tenure for individuals with SMD is the implementation of work accommodations in the workplace. However, accessing accommodations in the workplace requires disclosure of the psychiatric condition, and fear of stigma may lead employees to choose not to disclose. Decision-making about disclosure at work is thus a complex process, as disclosing can have both positive (e.g., work accommodations) and negative (e.g., stigma) outcomes. We will specifically be exploring disclosure to the immediate supervisor, as the supervisor plays a significant role in the implementation of work accommodations and relevant employment outcomes (e.g., job tenure).

The specific objectives of the study are:

• To assess the antecedents and outcomes of disclosure decision in the workplace
  • To assess the influence of personal, and organizational variables on the disclosure decision considering demographic variables
  • To assess the impact of the disclosure decision on work accommodations, stigma, work productivity, job satisfaction, and job tenure, including significant predictors of disclosure decisions
• To develop an in-depth understanding of the disclosure process, including disclosure needs, values, and goals, and disclosure events.

Project manager: Dr. Kate Toth, CHRL

Status: Ongoing

As the COVID-19 pandemic caused worldwide lockdowns, millions of families had their entire lives shifted to their homes, often with work for one or both partners and schooling now occurring within that sphere. This pandemic has had a greater impact on women compared to men for a variety of reasons. Approximately 75% of unpaid care and domestic work is done by women and girls worldwide and based on calculations by the International Labor Organization (ILO) women perform on average almost 4.5 hours of care work a day (pre-pandemic) compared to 1.5 hours for men following along the lines of traditional gendered social norms.

There has been some suggestion that the unprecedented movement to working from home for both parents may actually result in positive shifts towards more equal distribution of divisions of labour within the home. While evidence does suggest that there has been a narrowing of the gender gap in time spent on unpaid work, time allocation studies in a number of countries during the pandemic have already demonstrated that women have disproportionately taken on these additional burdens compared to their male partners. Multiple studies have documented the negative impact of these additional burdens on women's mental health and work-life balance satisfaction. To our knowledge, there is no research in Canada exploring the experiences of working mothers during the COVID-19 lockdown and following.

We will conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a sample of approximately 30 working mothers and 10 organizations in Canada. Our research questions centre on the experience of mothers in balancing paid and unpaid work and the policies and practices of organizations in supporting employees, particularly women, in maintaining productivity and employment while fulfilling family obligations during and following the COVID-19 lockdown.

Project manager: Dr. Kate Toth, CHRL