During the coronavirus pandemic, McCarthy Tétrault elevated its well-being program and made sure employees had access to the resources they needed.
But within a couple of years, Rita Apa (pictured right), the law firm’s chief human resources officer, said her team realized it was “deploying tactics instead of truly developing and implementing a coherent wellness strategy.”
Speaking during Benefits Canada’s 2024 Healthy Outcomes Conference, she highlighted the need to address some of the aspects of McCarthy Tétrault’s business and the culture of the legal profession that are mental-health risk factors, including time pressures, unclear expectations, workload issues and lack of feedback.
Read: 70% of global employers seeing ROI on employee well-being programs: survey
The firm is now one year into a three-year plan to address the most pressing well-being opportunities for its roughly 1,800 employees. The goal, according to Apa, is to embed well-being in all of the firm’s practices and in the behaviour of managers and staff.
“It is intended to be more than a program or a suite of benefits; it’s really our commitment . . . to bring about real cultural change. The intent is really to elevate our focus on prevention and reducing stigma and to more consistently consider the importance of individual well-being to the collective success of our firm.”
Erin Dick (pictured left), assistant vice-president of well-being services at Aon, worked with the law firm on its strategy, diving deep into benefits data, employee assistance program utilization and conducted an employee survey to learn how employees were feeling and how they’d rate their own psychological health in the workplace, to identify the most important needs. Aon also conducted listening sessions and invited employees to be part of stakeholder groups and weigh in on the strategy as it was being developed.
The strategy has pillars for employees’ mental, physical, social and professional health. Speaking to the latter, Apa said McCarthy Tétrault has created a list of questions for leaders to ask if they notice someone exhibiting early signs of stress and burnout. It also introduced regular performance feedback so that employees know how they’re doing and how to grow in their roles.
Read: 69% of Canadian workers experiencing symptoms related to burnout: survey
It also launched a well-being hub on its internal site that articulates the strategy’s mission and the company’s expectations for people leaders. It started incorporating its commitment into its policies, practices and processes, including through mental-health education for staff and managers. And in the past year, the firm hosted mental-health training and resilience workshops, as well as piloting a dedicated clinical counsellor who’s available to meet with employees.
McCarthy Tétrault aligned its strategy with the National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, noted Dick. “They really wanted to take it to the next level and see that embedding of psychological health and safety and . . . truly caring about employee mental health and have their actions speak to that.”
Read more coverage of the 2024 Healthy Outcomes Conference.