Leadership & Management

Addiction

Addiction is a complex disease that can include mental health issues as a root cause or as symptoms arising from the stressors related to the addiction. Addiction may begin as an unhealthy coping strategy for stress and anxiety. Although you do not have control over whether an employee experiences an addiction, you can minimize the workplace impact of addictive behaviours.

The following 10-step strategy will help you understand the key elements for addressing addiction and creating a healthier workplace. Each section offers resources to assist you at each step and suggests when it is advisable to engage others, including addictions specialists.

10 steps to help address addiction in the workplace

1. Understand substance abuse and addiction
2. Assess your workplace risks
3. Develop a wellness & substance-free workplace committee
4. Develop a substance-free workplace policy
5. Train management
6. Educate employees
7. Respond to crisis
8. Help employees get assistance
9. The return to work
10. Follow-up

Adapted from:

You Are The Key: 10 Steps for Employers to a Drug-Free Workplace [PDF] courtesy of Sunshine Coast Health Centre.

Please note that the policies and prevention responses are provided as information only about some of the factors related to addiction that may impact mental health. As such, this information does not address or take into account legal requirements that may apply to your organization in this regard, and this information should not be relied upon for this purpose.

Resources

The following are links to resources that may be of interest to you. If you click on a link you may be entering a third party website not maintained or controlled in any way by Great-West Life.