BV Supports Mental Health Awareness | Black & Veatch
Perspective

Recognizing Mental Health in EPC

BV Supports Mental Health Awareness

In the construction and engineering world, safety is always top-of-mind, and companies allocate significant resources to ensuring the physical safety and health of their workforce. But although construction and engineering companies recognize the critical importance of physical health, all too often the mental health aspect is left to languish in the shadows.  

With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, Black & Veatch wants to take a moment to recognize the role that mental health plays in the construction and engineering space. Mental Health Awareness Month is a national movement to raise awareness around mental health in an effort to combat the persistent stigma it still carries. The month involves participation from mental health advocacy groups and medical organizations, who use this opportunity to come together to educate the public and advocate for policies that support mental health.

The construction and engineering sectors are notorious for being high-stress and high-pressure. This can be attributed to several factors – the presence of inherent physical risk on job sites, the high financial cost associated with many projects, long work hours (more than 40 hours per week) due to a shortage of skilled labor and financial incentives to work overtime, plus the chronic pressure to deliver on time and under budget.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these mental impacts are taking their toll. The construction industry has the second-highest suicide rate out of all the industries (farming, fishing and forestry is No. 1). According to the CDC report, 53.3 construction workers out of every 100,000 commit suicide – a shocking statistic, especially when one considers that the national rate of suicide in the U.S. is 12.93 people per 100,000.

Plus, we have to recognize that the impacts of COVID-19 and the global events of 2020 and early 2021 – when there was no shortage of horror in the headlines – have only added new levels of stress, fear and anxiety to this burden. Throughout 2020, far too many people were left to struggle, whether that meant balancing work demands, juggling family pressures, homeschooling their children, or dealing with isolation, loneliness and the lack of social outlets. Any one of these factors would be fodder for mental health struggles, let alone a roaring combination of them.

The flip side is that these circumstances have opened the door for a broader conversation about mental health, raising awareness of the challenges our professionals face, both at home and in the workplace. It’s an important topic that all construction and engineering companies must begin to address. Here at Black & Veatch, we see mental health as a critical component of overall safety and health. Rather than continue to persist, grit it out and power our way through these shared challenges, we should focus on working together to pursue a greater understanding of how mental health issues manifest and can be addressed in the corporate environment.

We often talk about our overarching goal to always achieve Zero Injuries Today™ – and to accomplish this, we follow a carefully crafted Think, Plan, Act initiative. Our Employee Involvement Process (EIP) is designed to proactively improve employee behaviors and actions both in the field and in our offices. We understand the need to apply research-supported intervention strategies to improve behaviors and actions, as well as mitigate hazardous conditions.

We have a carefully designed Well-being Program through Virgin Pulse to encourage our professionals and their families to improve both their physical and mental health, and to keep safety and health at the forefront.

We’re committed to work environments where safety and health are pre-planned into every task, one day at a time, with a mindset that every injury is preventable. Our goal is zero injuries, and we provide clients and our professionals with the time, equipment and training necessary to achieve it.

This includes providing mental health support through our global Employee Assistance Program partner, SupportLinc, which offers Black & Veatch professionals short-term counseling, work-life benefits and other resources. We are also working with SupportLinc to provide an online training for managers around mental health awareness.

Together, we help to integrate mental health into all safety and health considerations, helping to improve the overall well-being of all our professionals.

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