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The University of British Columbia is not timing the announcement
of its new centre of excellence in depression research to coincide
with its Health Work and Wellness conference. But both imminent
events will chip away at the stigma of depression and its devastating
impact on business, said UBC’s head of clinical neuroscience
Raymond Lam.
His specialty is helping employers understand the illness of depression,
and he has successfully found supporters in the business community.
Coast Capital Savings CEO Lloyd Craig founded the B.C. Business
and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health after his depressed son
committed suicide in 2001.
Craig’s roundtable raised about $3 million in donations
and persuaded the provincial government’s Leading Edge endowment
fund to commit an additional $2.25 million for UBC to create its
new centre of excellence in depression research. It is still fundraising.
Craig believes the new centre and speeches such as Lam’s
will erode some of the stigma facing depressed workers.
“If you take a scan of a depressed brain and a scan of a
healthy brain, you’ll be able to tell that depression is
a physical illness,” Craig said. He lamented that co-workers
of those who suffer from depression frequently believe depression
is a not a health problem in the same way that, for example, a
broken leg or a cancerous lesion is. “There’s still
a stigma,” he said.
Lam, who frequently speaks at wellness conferences across North
America, said the upcoming Vancouver wellness conference will be
a great opportunity for local human resources managers to hear
international experts. Speakers will address everything from nutrition
to how to balance work and family to how to develop human potential.
Lam said too many employers fail to recognize depressed employees
because they don’t understand the symptoms. Instead, they
believe the employee is simply in the wrong job.
“Common symptoms include problems with concentration, poor
memory, lost motivation or energy and interest,” Lam said. “The
behaviour can appear to be poor performance but it can also show
up as irritability, agitation and mood swings.”
Lam urged companies to adopt policies telling employees how to
seek help and stressed that they will not be penalized for doing
so. Depressed employees can be treated quickly and effectively
so they are unlikely to be a burden on the company, he said.
Health Canada estimates that depression costs British Columbia’s
economy about $2 billion a year and Canada’s economy $14
billion a year.
One of Lam’s solutions is for employers to establish employee
assistance programs. Those programs include free and confidential
counselling through the company’s benefit program.
Business Objects director of human resources Michael Kavanagh
said his company was fortunate that it realized the value of employee
assistance programs in August 2001. The next month terrorists flew
planes into the World Trade Centre in New York, traumatizing many
global Business Objects staff, he said. “9/11 heightened
our awareness around a variety of things – trauma,
depression – things that impact an employee’s ability
to cope at home and at work,” he said.
Canada’s largest employee assistance program provider, FGI,
recently released findings of a study showing that counselling
works. FGI asked 24,500 people who had FGI-sponsored counselling
in the past two years whether counselling improved concentration
at work. More than 70 per cent said it did.
©Business in Vancouver
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