Month: July 2021

Each week, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman reflects on what we’ve learned as we participate in ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program. This program is free for all ICBA members – check out icba.ca/wellness for details.

We’re on to Month 2 of our Wellness Program, and the theme is depression and anxiety. To start us off, we watched a video from TopThink outlining three components of emotional burnout:

1. Emotional exhaustion
2. Depersonalization
3. Reduced personal accomplishment

In other words, the video says, people can’t give 100% to work or relationships, they start acting like a different person, and they struggle with motivation and self-perception.

I imagine there are many people feeling this way, especially given the COVID-19 isolation we have just come through. We have all been living in a heightened state of anxiousness for a long time, which has significant effects on our ability to process. In doing a little more reading on this, I came across this explanation:

Burnout may be the result of unrelenting stress, but it isn’t the same as too much stress. Stress, by and large, involves too much: too many pressures that demand too much of you physically and mentally. However, stressed people can still imagine that if they can just get everything under control, they’ll feel better.

Burnout, on the other hand, is about not enough. Being burned out means feeling empty and mentally exhausted, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring. People experiencing burnout often don’t see any hope of positive change in their situations. If excessive stress feels like you’re drowning in responsibilities, burnout is a sense of being all dried up.

I’ve never seen it described that way, but it makes sense to me.

ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program is helping more than 50 companies, and thousands of construction professionals, better understand mental health. The program is free for ICBA members — see icba.ca/wellness.

Each week, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman reflects on what we’ve learned as we participate in ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program. This program is free for all ICBA members – check out icba.ca/wellness for details.

Anxiety is a familiar experience for me, but I had no idea there were different types of it, which made this week’s reading very interesting. It makes sense, of course: while we use a blanket term like “anxiety,” there will be different ways it’s experienced — and why it’s come on. Here are the five types of anxiety:

• Generalized – worrying excessively and uncontrollably about daily life events and activities
• Social – nervous or uncomfortable in social settings
• Panic disorder – unexpected and repeated panic attacks
• Post traumatic stress disorder – after being exposed to a major trauma
• Health – can result in somatic symptoms or conditions

We’re also learning how to support our co-workers when they are anxious. Learning about anxiety; being open and gentle when approaching it; involving colleagues in walks or activities; expressing empathy; and encouraging them to seek support. These are all things we can do to help make work a little better, and relieve anxiety in a colleague’s mind.

ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program is helping more than 50 companies, and thousands of construction professionals, better understand mental health. The program is free for ICBA members — see icba.ca/wellness.

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[et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]The following op-ed, by ICBA President Chris Gardner, first appeared in Business in Vancouver on July 12, 2021.

As we come to the end of the global pandemic, companies are facing the challenge of rethinking the workplace.

Construction contractors are no different – whether it’s on the job site or in the office, workers are looking for the choice and opportunities that come from more flexible work arrangements. The backdrop to all of this – an intense competition for talent, the acute shortage of training spaces in trades colleges, and the escalating prices for materials – is forcing upward pressure on construction costs and contributing to an affordability crisis the likes of which we have never seen before.

That’s why the BC Government’s recent announcement of a return to compulsory trades is more than just a head scratcher. Dubbed a “skilled trades certification” program, which sounds wonderful, it’s more red tape that will not solve any of the real challenges facing construction in BC.

Once a trade is included in this new program, anyone working on a job site in that trade must either be a ticketed tradesperson or a registered apprentice. Premier Horgan admitted the significant impact of this policy when he said it would be a “big change for workers and employers.”

Imposing compulsory trades is like saying, ‘we don’t really need bookkeepers, everyone must be a CPA,’ or ‘nobody can prepare a meal in a restaurant except for a red seal chef,’ or ‘forget notaries public, we just need lawyers.’ It makes no sense in the real world and prevents entry-level workers from exploring construction as a career option and branching off into specialty paths.

What will be served by mandating registration for apprenticeship programs when the wait list to get into classes is generally a year, often two and sometimes more? Imagine the look on a young worker’s face when you tell them that it might take them more than a decade to complete their four-year apprenticeship program.  And, for many trades, there is only one school (located in the Lower Mainland) offering courses for apprentices. Not great for construction workers in the North, on the Island, or in the Interior.

The government also announced that they will soon be setting ratios of the number ticketed tradespeople who must work with an apprentice. This will require a new costly inspection and enforcement regime – a level of bureaucracy that is mindboggling. Worse, ratios will end up limiting the number of workers who will be able to enter the trades.

A 2013 study by the C.D. Howe Institute underscores the pitfalls of compulsory trades. It notes that rather than regulating “entry” into apprenticeship training – as compulsory trades does – governments should focus its oversight activities on quality of work and safety standards. It found that provinces that have imposed tight restrictions on “entry” into the trades were found to have 44 percent fewer workers in the trades than those without a compulsory approach.

The return of compulsory trades is the result of government looking in the rear-view mirror and hoping that policies of yesterday will address the challenges of today and tomorrow. And, let’s be clear, this is not about improving the quality of work – no British Columbian should be worried about the work performed by BC’s nearly 250,000 construction workers. It’s designed by the best in the world, it’s highly regulated, permitted, and thoroughly inspected.

Today, 85% of B.C. construction workers – and 82% of B.C. trades apprentices – have chosen to be open shop workers. And this takes many forms – being a member of a progressive union, joining an employee association, working at an employee-owned company, or being non-union.

So how did we end up in this place? Simply put, governments often do what they want to because they can. Every major study on this issue was ignored and government failed to engage in broad industry consultation. The contracting community was not at the table in a meaningful way, nor were the vast majority of construction associations. Even ICBA – the single largest sponsor of apprentices in the province – was left out of the process.

As we drive to build better workplaces in construction, attract more people to the trades, train them more effectively and become more innovative, government has just slammed construction into reverse.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column]
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