Human Side of Construction - Podcast Series

A few years ago a company I had never heard of painted a suicide crisis line onto the side of a ready-mix drum and drove it through every town it worked in. Somebody who already had a plan to end their life saw it and called the number instead.

In this episode, sponsored by Grand Valley Construction Association and Mark’s Commercial, I sat down with the person who led that program, and most of our conversation was not about the trucks at all. It was about the far less photogenic work that came after.

1. Awareness is the easy half, and we keep stopping there

Our industry has gotten reasonably good at the first move. We know the stats now. We put up the posters, we do the yellow shirt day, we say it is okay to not be okay. Shannon says that phrase is a good one and she is right, but she also calls it what it is: the surface layer. The question that separates a campaign from a program is what happens in the ninety seconds after someone actually

takes you up on it.

Here is the detail from her story I keep coming back to. When they decided to put the crisis line on the drums, some of the drivers were nervous. Not because they disagreed, but because they had a reasonable fear: what if a member of the public walks up to me at a pour and asks what this is about, and I have nothing to say? So before a single truck went out, the company ran an education campaign for its own people. They gave the drivers a script. You can talk to this person, or you can point them to this number.

That is the difference between a marketing decision and an operational one. If you put the message out without equipping the people carrying it, all you have done is transfer your discomfort onto the front line and call it leadership.

2. Train where the first call actually lands

The instinct is to put this capability in safety and HR. That is where Shannon started, with occupational health nurses and twelve safety professionals trained in mental health first aid. But the program only really took hold when superintendents, foremen, and site managers started putting their hands up.

The reason is not sentimental, it is structural. When somebody is falling apart, they do not book a meeting with HR. They call in sick, and the person who takes that call is the foreman. Shannon’s team found that operational leaders were coming to her saying, I just got a phone call like this and I have no idea what to do. That is the real front line, and for most companies it is completely untrained.

She also kept the whole thing voluntary, which I think is the most underrated decision in the entire program. A few people went through the training and then backed out, because they realized how much weight was actually involved. She let them, and she says it openly. A program that lets people opt out honestly is far stronger than one that conscripts everybody and quietly produces a roster of people who will freeze.

3. The legal line is narrower than the fear around it

Every time I raise this with senior leaders, someone brings up liability. Shannon has had those conversations too, and they were hard ones. Her answer is clean enough that it should end most of the debate.

You are not treating anyone. You are not diagnosing, you are not prescribing, and even the occupational health nurses do not diagnose. What you are is a safe place for someone to speak, and a person who knows which number to call next.

The moment you understand that, the legal exposure looks very different. Training your people is not what creates the risk. It is what manages it.

The analogy she and I landed on is the one worth stealing. If a guy falls on site and breaks his arm, his foreman does not put a cast on it. He tells him to go to the hospital. Nobody thinks that is practising medicine. This is the same act, pointed at a different injury.

4. The business case is real, and it still is not the point

I asked Shannon what she would say to the VP who wants the ROI before the budget. Her honest answer was that you will not see it as a line item saying we made an extra half million because we promoted mental health. You will see it in retention, in turnover rates, and in the fact that the nurse care they extended to employees; families became the thing people talk about when they describe working there.

The numbers do exist if you need them. The World Health Organization put the return on scaled up treatment for depression and anxiety at roughly four dollars for every one invested. Replacing a person you lose runs one and a half to two times their salary. In Ontario, construction workers make up about 3.6 percent of the population and accounted for close to 8 percent of opioid toxicity deaths, which is a workforce pattern, not a collection of personal failings.

But Cal Beyer has the line that actually settles it, and I quoted it back to Shannon during the recording. The human case is the business case. If a leader does not accept that, the spreadsheet was never going to convince them anyway.

Shannon’s advice for Monday morning costs nothing and takes about ninety seconds. On site, before you spend fifteen minutes on ladder safety, spend a few of them asking how everyone is actually doing. In the office, take a lap before you open your laptop and say good morning to people by name. She points out how many people walk past each other without saying a word. It is not a couple of words. It is a message that says you matter enough for me to take five seconds.

Full conversation with Shannon here: https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com/p/ep26-solutions-not-slogans?r=5j1naj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Thank you to our sponsors:

The Grand Valley Construction Association’s mission is Building Better Community. While their work is rooted in building the spaces and infrastructure that shape our communities, GVCA recognizes that nothing gets built without the people behind it. That’s why they’re committed to raising awareness, education and support around mental health and suicide prevention in construction, because building better community starts with taking care of the people who build it.

Learn more at: https://www.gvca.org/

Mark’s Commercial’s commitment to helping people get home safely extends beyond physical safety to mental health and well-being. That’s why they’re proud to support this podcast and the important conversations that help create safer, healthier workplaces. Because getting home safely means taking care of both body and mind.

Check them out at: https://www.markscommercial.com/en-ca/

If you are struggling, you are not the only one. In Canada and the US, call or text 988 for the Suicide Crisis Helpline.

Thanks for reading,

Angelo