It’s bright and early on a Thursday, and the sun is just now hitting the hills and heating the Treasure Valley. In Boise, Idaho, a safety talk is underway at a concrete company like the millions of other boots-on-the-ground hubs nationwide.
The main difference? This talk isn’t about trench collapses, near misses, or PPE. Instead, the focus is mental health, and there’s a palpable silence and seriousness within the shop that highlights just how important this talk is for the industry.
At the front of the room of silent workers stands a woman with confidence, tenure, and a passion for mental health awareness in the construction industry. They call her ‘Safety Sondra,’ but her real name is Sondra Lavoie, and she’s a powerful advocate for safety in Idaho and beyond.
In fact, Lavoie, CSP, ASP, CHST, STS, is a Risk and Loss Control Specialist and OSHA keynote speaker on mental health. According to the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP), Sondra “has over 27 years of experience in the construction industry, 13 of them being in safety, risk, and loss control…Her passion for safety and understanding the needs for the construction workforce safety has been recognized twice by BCSP with the Award of Excellence in Safety.” As she explained later in her talk, “OSHA asked me specifically to talk on mental health and suicide prevention in construction.” She says it’s a topic she covers worldwide, with trips to Alaska, Spain, and Italy already on her calendar.
At Concrete Placing Co., Inc., Lavoie begins by setting up coffee and donuts on a table beside the projector. The hardworking construction workers of CPC naturally partake and then sit down contently. At this moment, Lavoie knows she has just 30 minutes to fit what she later explains is a two-hour course into their morning meeting.
As she began, she stated, “What’s actually killing construction workers? I’m going to give you Idaho-based facts. What’s killing construction workers four times faster than any other industry in the nation…We’re going to talk about suicide and mental health, and, yeah, it’s a hard conversation to have.” Sondra emphasized the need to have open conversations about mental health, especially among those who are directly affected, “People on higher levels are having this conversation, but the people that are passing are the boots on the ground.”
Lavoie continued by issuing a show-of-hands survey to the room, “How many of you have ever had a talk with somebody in regard to their mental health?” Roughly half of the room raised their hands at this point and looked around at one another. Then, Sondra went one step further, “Now, how many of you know that in your company, there are benefit packages where you can get free mental health support?” Out of the room, no one’s hand was raised. “Okay, that tells me a lot,” she stated, “Because you have a lot of resources at your disposal.”
Humanizing the Numbers for a Compassionate Future
When discussing her own ‘skin in the game,’ Lavoie shared that her daughter, a Gen Z lineman, helps her to see these statistics from a human perspective. Instead of 7,804 lives lost in construction on the Fatality Catastrophe Report (FAT CAT) from OSHA, Sondra urged the audience to see them as friends and coworkers who could have had their lives saved with a single talk with a member of their team, “This is how people are dying in your industry…Did anyone offer them a moment to say, “Hey, are you okay?””
Sondra then revealed a particularly startling fact, “We know about the focus four, right? More construction workers are dying from the act of suicide now than the focus four. Why? Why are we not able to have this conversation and allow someone to breathe and talk about their mental health?”
Stigmas and Barriers to Mental Health Discussions
As the talk continued, Lavoie explained how common stigmas surrounding mental health directly impact the comfort levels of boots-on-the-ground workers when talking about these issues with one another.
As she explained in her safety talk, when something unsafe happens on a job site, we say something. Saying stop when someone is being reckless or violating OSHA regulations is a part of the job on any work site. However, when it comes to someone not operating heavy machinery in the right state of mind, we find it more difficult. Why?
“53 out of every 100,000 construction workers commit to the act of suicide,” Lavoie highlighted, “I investigate a lot of deaths; I have to go out into the field and ask, ‘What happened?’ And the thing that gets me is the people you work with out in the field 40 to 60 hours a week often tell me, “Yeah, I saw that coming. Yeah, he was getting a divorce. Yeah, he was losing his house. Yeah, he was in financial trouble.” These things happen. We’re humans, too.”
This is where the stigmas often placed on ourselves, and those around us were finally discussed, “We do hard things. This is a hard conversation. This is a hard topic. Am I sweating up here? Yeah, you betcha I am. We get up at 5 am; people don’t understand that we don’t get to walk our kids to school. We don’t get to see that first baseball game. We don’t usually sometimes get even to have dinner with our family at night. It’s hard. We do hard things to be the backbone of America, and they still put stigmas on you.”
According to Lavoie, the most common stigmas come from the ‘tough guy’ and ‘tough gal’ mentalities the boots-on-the-ground industries have. In her presentation, she states, “Workforce culture, including the stoic “tough guy and gal” work ethic where feelings aren’t talked about, and the job must go on accounts for most of the stigmas like “get’r done,” “do it or get out,” “back in my day,” “man up,” and “leave those problems at home.”
She also states that other stigmas stem from company factors, including the nature of the work being performed, the location of the job, the amount of work done, the schedule of daily operations, and the amount of overtime. When the work hours are long and the pay is competitive, it becomes easy to disregard emotions and expect nothing but quiet compliance from a blue-collar team. However, this mentality can be the precise kind of environment that leads to unexpected tragedy in the long run.
As Sondra continued, “People have difficulties. They show up to work to get paid. There’s a thing that I learned when I was working for a company here in the valley: ‘Time is money, money is time.’ You have to show up. Your time is worth something. You are worth something; you are valued.”
Lavoie then went on to cover stressors on the job, including long hours, physically and mentally demanding working conditions, harsh environments, family obligations, bills, pets, social pressure, nutrition, exercise, alcohol and substance abuse, and even work conflicts. All of these aspects of the job can impact the mental well-being of workers and lead to them feeling overwhelmed. This is especially problematic when these individuals are opposed to self-care practices, behavioral health services, and taking time off for mental health.
Identifying Risk Factors
As Sondra went on, she broke down some of the physical and mental signs that can help you determine whether or not someone is struggling with mental health issues on the job. For physical health conditions, Sondra highlighted some of the factors of physical health that can lead to mental health crises, including:
- Fatigue
- Sudden changes in weight
- High blood pressure
- Chronic pain
- Cardiovascular disease
Meanwhile, some of the behavioral health conditions to pay attention to include:
- Stress and anxiety
- Depression
- Heavy binge drinking or drug use
- Risk-taking
- Isolation
- Agitation
This is where the importance of having the right resources at your disposal comes into play. As Sondra stated, “I want to show you how to have a conversation here, because you may ask somebody one day, “How are you doing?” and they’re going to say, “I’m not good.” and you’ll be able to turn around because of this presentation and say, “Hey, do you know about these resources?”
Recognizing the Warning Signs
When looking at the warning signs of mental health crises, Sondra explains, “A lot of people are like, “Oh, it’s just talk, it’s just talk, it’s just talk.” Talk is a sign.” On top of this, Sondra highlights a few other common warning signs in the field:
- Aggression
- Anxiety
- Appearing nervous, shaken, or worried
- Engaging in violence
- Withdrawing from the rest of the team
- No longer doing things they used to enjoy
- Expressing concerns that they ‘feel like a burden,’ have ‘let down their coworkers or family,’ or ‘feel worthless’
- Reckless behavior
- Mentioning depression, stressors, or anger
- Changes in habits or appearance
- Tying up loose ends (ensuring life insurance is set up, making amends out of nowhere, asking coworkers to take care of pets or family, etc.)
- Saying goodbye or changes in mood suddenly
- Seeking access to a means to an end
All of these signs should be addressed swiftly, as these are the most common signs that someone is in emotional distress and needs the help of those around them. While it’s easy to dismiss these signs, one choice to disregard a coworker’s cries for help could be the last thing you do before their passing.
It all comes down to the ways you make your team feel. As Lavoie states, “What if your success, all your success, was measured just by how safe someone felt next to you?” This is how she aims to encourage boots-on-the-ground workers to communicate with one another and create safe spaces to share their true feelings on the job.
Knowing the Resources at Your Disposal
As Sondra closed out her discussion, she emphasized the importance of knowing what resources are at the disposal of workers in these industries. She began by sharing the difference between 911 and 988, “911 is for police and emergency services. But we’re going to go over 988. By the end of the day, I hope that each of you puts 988 on your phone like you have 911. 988 is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. We have it in English, and Spanish, and a whole generation won’t even pick up their phones, so we have a text version as well.”
She then went on to share another resource, the NAMI HelpLine. As she explained, this option is perfect for private conversations about mental health when you fear you are being watched or judged for your problems.
Her final slide on resources included:
- Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)
- Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention (CLASP)
- Text HELLO to 741741
- Suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat
- American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
- CDC Suicide Prevention
- Construction Working Minds
- Suicide in the Construction Industry: Breaking the Stigma and Silence
All of these resources are excellent additions to your crisis management guides as a company and also serve as excellent resources when faced with mental health issues on job sites worldwide. By equipping yourself with these resources, you can become a safe space with solutions for yourself and your team in moments of need. This is how real impact and real change are made.
As Sondra closed, “You can break the silence. If I can get up here and talk to you all, you can actually ask the person that you’re working with 40 to 60 hours a week, ‘Are you okay?’ You guys are the backbone and the infrastructure that keep this city, state, and country going, and I’m really honored to have presented in front of you guys today on a subject this important.”
As the talk concluded, many approached the safety SME, asked more questions about resources, and issued their thoughts on the subject. One that particularly stood out was a member of the crew at CPC who stated that they had left their last job because of a toxic workplace culture. Wearing a pink handkerchief and choosing to be safe led to him being berated on the job, and his morale and mental health took a turn for the worse. As he explained, sexual harassment on the job site is not always in the form of sexual interest but rather homophobia and degradation.
This kind of environment is precisely what leadership must mitigate moving forward. Emotions are human. Avoiding dangerous situations is logical. It’s time we stop allowing ‘bro culture’ to seep into our workplace dynamics for the betterment of our teams and their mental and physical safety on the job.
While our time with Sondra concluded that day, we sat down once again with ‘Safety Sondra’ over the Labor Day weekend to talk even further about the mental health issues these hardworking professionals face, PPE for diverse workers, and the workplace dynamics that lead to unsafe working conditions according to OSHA standards.
Stay tuned for this engaging interview, and until then, stay safe and be a comforting shoulder to lean on for your team before another life is lost too soon.