No mincing words. In the Edmonton workplace, for employees and employers, the incidence of personal sick days and stress leave is a touchy topic.
Of course, it matters! It matters for employee health. It matters for workplace efficiency, absenteeism and productivity. It matters for doctors and health providers, HR, management staff and sometimes lawyers who deal with situations of personal sick leaves, often due to mental health.
After more than a decade of stealthily trending, burnout and mental health issues now are common, causing the incidence of personal sick days and stress leaves to spike.
“There has been a dramatic rise in the incidence of stress and mental health leaves in the workplace,” notes Eric Lam, managing partner in the Edmonton office of Taylor Janis Workplace Law. “These have manifested in the number of sick days, stress leaves and short-term disability claims that have impacted the workplace and the resultant legal issues that arise.
“Factors such as increasing economic and business uncertainty, an overall better understanding of mental health challenges and the greater knowledge of legal protections available to employees may be contributing to this rise.”
A major recent workplace study showed that, particularly since the pandemic disruptions, a significant number of employees are experiencing increasingly more stress days at work. Many employees cite rising financial concerns like high cost of living, stagnant wages and job insecurity as major contributors to their workplace stress.
Employers and employees acknowledge and caution that the incidence of burnout and chronic stress leaves are causing workplace toxicity.
LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence survey found that four in 10 workers are burned out on the job and that onsite workers are more likely to burn out than hybrid or remote workers, and employees of large corporations are more likely to burn out than those at smaller companies.
Younger workers are also more likely to experience burnout than their older peers, and women are more likely to report burnout than their male colleagues. According to recent research by Hays Specialist Recruitment Canada, employees say they were more unhappy this year than last, and 71 per cent dream about quitting their jobs.
Health and HR specialists explain that overall well-being and job performance are impacted, and workplace stress and stress leave are a growing concern for employers when it comes to inefficiency, productivity losses and employee turnover.
“Particularly pandemic-related changes in the workplace, factors like terminations and layoffs, new workplace policies, as well as health and safety initiatives, are making workplaces more challenging work environments, for many employees and employers,” Lam says. “It is also affecting increased absenteeism, use of personal days, as well as sick leaves.”
While the need for stress leave is a sad and unfortunate fact of contemporary work life, both the employer and the employee share rights, wrongs and obligations.
According to Deborah Abiola, spokesperson for the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC), “The Alberta Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination at work based on one or more protected grounds, including physical and mental disability. Employers have a duty to accommodate mental and physical disabilities in the workplace.
“This includes allowing for leaves from work when an employee is medically unable to work due to disability. Employees may need to provide medical information from their doctor about whether they are fit to work or require accommodation at work. Under the Act, disability is widely defined to include many medical issues, such as mental and physical illnesses and injuries.”
AHRC specifies that stress in and of itself is not necessarily considered a disability. “Stress leave” and “medical leave” are protected when they are connected to a diagnosed mental disability and employees may take up to 16 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for illness, injury, or quarantine, which includes stress-related conditions under the Alberta Employment Standards Code.
The letter of the AHRC law applies to employers and employees.
“Employees are entitled to job protected leaves for illness or injuries,” Lam explains. “Upon a return to work, they must be accommodated in any medially supported way necessary up to the point of undue hardship and should not be retaliated against in any way for taking the leave. This includes changes to pay or schedules unless that is what is needed based on the employee’s medical practitioner’s restrictions.”
He adds that there are protections available for leaves and recourse if an employer fails to provide the necessary time off or accommodations necessary upon a return to work, but accommodations are very much a two-way street. It requires the employer to inquire about the accommodations needed and for the employee to provide supporting information and documentation for any leave and accommodations required.
Abiola says that AHRC requires Alberta employees who take allotted sick leave to “provide the employer with documentation, and employees are protected from job termination while on stress leave. Alberta law also emphasizes an employer’s obligation to make reasonable accommodations for employees with mental health conditions, including stress, unless it creates undue hardship.”
Chronic stress leaves and personal sick days are often a difficult and delicate workplace dilemma. The just business/nothing personal challenge is determining when sick leave phases from legit and unfortunate to chronic workplace toxicity, affecting workplace efficiency, productivity and morale.
What are Edmonton employees’ rights? How should the Edmonton employer most effectively manage a chronic stress leave situation? There is often confusion, aggravated by the sometimes contentious human rights-in-the-workplace gray area of the formal (and legal) differentiation between sickness and disability.
Since the Alberta Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination at work based on one or more protected grounds, including physical and mental disability, employers have a duty to accommodate mental and physical disabilities. This includes allowing for leaves from work when an employee is medically unable to work due to disability.
Employees may need to provide medical information from their doctor about whether they are fit to work or require accommodation at work. Under the Act, disability is widely defined to include many medical issues, such as mental and physical illnesses and injuries.
While the fine print of Alberta employment law specify that “stress leave” and “medical leave” are protected only when they are connected to a diagnosed and documented mental disability, when it comes to “chronic stress leave,” the tricky wrinkle in the law and management is that stress, in and of itself, is not necessarily considered a disability.
Since an employer asking for proof, and an employee proving “stress” as a mental health disability can get complicated, Lam points out that the wording of Alberta’s employment law spells things out.
“The onus is on the employee to provide the medical note or certificate. It is part of the workplace leave process to get the proper documentation for the leave – through a medical note or certificate that indicates the leave date and expected return either before commencing leave.”
Edmonton’s workplace trends will likely continue.
“The year 2025 will likely bring ongoing changes to the workplace,” he cautions. “With a greater understanding of workplace mental health issues and concerns, it is likely that there will be a greater incidence of stress and mental health leaves and related workplace legal issues.”
