“Many of the small-business owners in the chamber network feel that they have been left on the front lines of the mental-health crisis after the pandemic,” said Simranzeet Singh Vig, senior policy analyst at the OCC and author of the report.in Ontario, the sector employs more than four million people, or 71 per cent of the private-sector work force in the province, the OCC says.
Christina Fuda, a mental-health first aid co-ordinator at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences, describes burnout as a state of mental, emotional and sometimes physical exhaustion that comes from feeling overwhelmed for a period of at least six months. According to the paper, more than half of small-business owners were aware of employees struggling with mental-health-related challenges last year – up from 35 per cent in 2020. The OCC also found that 78 per cent of businesses in Ontario recognized the importance of investing in mental-health care support, but only 37 per cent had established a formal strategy.
Along with its report, the OCC proposed 21 recommendations that tackle the challenges being faced by businesses, communities and health care systems in the province. One of them urges small businesses to develop a mental-health strategy and to offer mental-health and addictions support programs for employees.But programs can be expensive. “Unfortunately, mental-health training is not subsidized through our health care funding,” Ontario Shores’ Ms. Fuda said.