Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Mental Health’s Place in Business
Mental health in the workplace has become a requirement not only for productivity and successful business, but also for the wellbeing of the employee.
This article discusses the environment, available resources, and programs that are put in place within a business to alleviate the stress of the job. In the past the entities have been used mainly for the benefit of the employee and their well being, this article discusses the use of how businesses can know is their investments in mental health are having a positive impact on their productivity. It suggests that they can establish a baseline from where they will measure off of.
Another study discusses how salary and may contribute to stress in the workplace, a study shows that employees which feel they are paid equally and fairly also feel they are contributing to the organization feel their job is more significant.
This is an interesting finding within a separate study that is mentioned in this article because more woman is taking lower-level jobs and lower-paid jobs meaning most likely it is women who feel dissatisfaction with their salaries. This particular issue may be alleviated by mental health programs which could increase productivity throughout the entire business which in turn could allow for increased pay wages and therefore alleviate the stress on women in the workplace.
Overall I found this article to be beneficial to our community of students because we should be considering companies that not only will provide us with a safe and reliable working environment, but also cares about our mental health. Mental health in the workplace, and school environment, is a long-overdue conversation.
Citaion:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadians-stressed-about-pay-1.5172384
The Ontario Teachers Strike & Subsidization by the Government EMPR200
“Ontario public elementary school teachers set to begin rotating strikes on Monday – Province offering up to $60 a day to parents during strike”
Source: CBC – Toronto
Date: Jan 15, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/etfo-public-teachers-strike-1.5427368
The article discusses the intention and current outcomes of the Ontario teacher strike. The teachers believe the current provincial government policies are not only unfair but counterproductive to students. The Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce attempted to counteract the effects of the strikes by providing families with subsidization in an effort to be “proactive”. The teachers union representative Sam Hammond responded to this by saying “it is just a tactic to bribe parents”. The school districts effected are the Toronto District School Board, Simcoe Country District School Board, Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board, Trillium Lakelands District School Board, Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, Rainy River District School Board, Near North District School Board, Grand Erie District School Board, and Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board. The article states that the cost of the subsidization program is about $48 million dollars a day and an average day of teachers’ salary is about $60 million dollars. Hammond suggests that the province should take that money and invest it in the future of education.
This article is a great example of a work and employment relations issue because it shows the use of a union to represent employees when confronting management about not providing an adequate working environment (http://www.alrb.gov.ab.ca/faq_mediation.html). Although the government has compromised on parts of the original policy, they have not come to an agreement on certain demands that the teachers union want and say they need. The teachers union states that the new government’s policies of limited support workers (i.e. nurses and administration), increased class size and mandatory elearning courses in secondary schools will impede their ability to teach. In elementary schools, the government is not addressing key issues about preserving full-day kindergarten, students with special needs, or the violence in schools today.
I personally can resonate with this topic and article because a teacher strike occurred at my high school in Brampton Ontario that forced me to be out of school for about a month. Although this was irritating because it impacted my education, looking back I realize that the teachers were fighting a better education for everyone. Seeing the impacts that the teachers strike is having today on teachers, the government, students, and their families makes me sympathetic for all the parties involved. The best way to address this issue is through mediation with a third neutral party that can guide the agreement while considering both parties (http://www.alrb.gov.ab.ca/faq_mediation.html). Finding a third party that is neither invested in the provincial government or public school education can be difficult, most often people are usually biased about both because they are affiliated with both.
In the past, studies have shown that CBC network attracts people who self identify as left-wing, more so than people who self identify as right-wing (LilleyMore, 2019). Therefore, because we currently have a conservative provincial government led by Doug Ford, the article may be biased towards the teachers union. In order to determine a more concrete way to address the problems discussed in this article, the topic would need more representation of the government’s reasons behind their actions.
Literature Cited:
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.alrb.gov.ab.ca/faq_mediation.html
LilleyMore, B., & Lilley, B. (2019, October 20). LILLEY: CBC still won’t sue Liberals, time they admit their bias. Retrieved from https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-cbc-still-wont-sue-liberals-time-they-admit-their-bias
EMPR200
Hi!
I’m Rachel, a 4th-year biology student here at Queens, and also a bartender. Throughout my undergrad, I have had the privilege of serving at four different restaurants. In the future, I hope to become a midwife.
I am interested in this course because of the way in which it focuses on shape work and employment relations in Canada. I believe this online interaction will be helpful in my future employment relations within the work force. More specifically, i’m interested employment law and human behaviour in organizations discussions within this class.
Introduce Yourself (Example Post)
This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.
You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.
Why do this?
- Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
- Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.
The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.
To help you get started, here are a few questions:
- Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
- What topics do you think you’ll write about?
- Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
- If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?
You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.
Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.
When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.
Rachel's Blog 