B6 | RE P O RT O N BUS I N ES S G TH E GLOBE AND M AIL | THUR SDAY , MARC H 26, 2020

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Leon’s lays off roughly half of all workers

Leon’s Furniture Ltd. is laying off 3,900 employees –
or about half its total current work force – as it deals with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The retailer says it will temporarily close 72 of its 205 corporate-owned stores across Canada.
The move comes as businesses across the country cut staff to deal with the economic slowdown
caused by steps taken to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. The company’s retail banners
include Leon’s, the Brick, the Brick Mattress Store and the Brick Outlet, as well as Appliance Canada and
Midnorthern Appliance. Leon’s says it will offer supplemental payments to its employees on top of
any employment insurance benefits. The company will also extend company-paid
benefits to these individuals. THE CANADIAN PRESS

NATHAN DENETTE/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Companies must offer Dodig: CEO focused on health

mental-health support
In a time of uncertainty the situation continues to change, and we will
be there listening and adapting and ensuring
and high stress for employees, our team has the best supports possible.”
businesses must be pro-active and Insurer Manulife Financial Corp., which pro-
provide much-needed resources vides mental-health benefits of $10,000 a year
per employee and their dependents (yes, you
read that correctly), is also boosting supports
RITA for its staff. In addition to providing remote
TRICHUR wellness sessions such as dial-in guided medita-
tion and chair yoga on Skype, its resident men-
OPINION tal-health specialist, Dr. Georgia Pomaki, is pro-
viding advice to employees.
Other businesses, however, are having trou-
crisis, calls pandemic ‘a human
story that’s touching everybody’
FROM B1
The top priority is still “solving
the health-care problem,” Mr. Do-
dig said, adding what worries him
most is whether Canadians have
the ability and the collective will
to curb its spread fast enough.
“This is our moment of truth as
a bank,” he said. “Nobody’s ever
faced anything like this. It’s a
highly human story. So unlike the
crises of the past, which were liq-
uidity and funding and leverage-
related, while leverage exists in
ents that have given small retail-
ers relief. “That’s a situation that
we’re highly attuned to, the gov-
ernment is as well, and you’ll see
solutions emerging on that
front,” he said.
Federal Finance Minister Bill
Morneau said Wednesday that his
government has been working
with banks, “literally overnight,
over the days” to create “the ca-
pacity for the banks to deliver on
all size of businesses the kind of
credit they’re going to need to get
through a challenging time.”

W
hen the coronavirus crisis escalat-
ed last week with businesses clos-
ing and warnings for Canadians to
stay at home, Denis Trottier sprang
into action.
As chief mental health officer of KPMG’s Can-
adian operation, he knew this pandemic would
lead to physical and emotional distress. Not on-
ly did he set up virtual mental-health support
events for staff across the country (registration
is very high), but he also reached out to them to
offer other resources and some much-needed
reassurance.
“How we cope with and experience this chal-
lenging time will differ for each of us,” Mr. Trot-
tier wrote in an e-mail to about 8,000 Canadian
staff. “I encourage all of you to open up to each
other, and not to be afraid to express any chal-
lenges or concerns you are feeling. You are not
alone.”
If only more companies were this pro-active
about supporting the mental health of their
employees.
As Canadians try to cope with increasing un-
certainty, there’s an urgent need for organiza-
tions to step up and help their staff during this
crisis and beyond. Although the business com-
munity has made strides on mental-health
awareness in recent years, there’s much more
work to be done.
It’s still early days in the pandemic, and com-
panies are already experiencing increased de-
mand for mental-health supports. Bell Canada
Enterprises Inc., a corporate leader in mental-
health awareness with its Bell Let’s Talk cam-
paign, is seeing “significant increased usage” of
its employee and family assistance program,
and is responding by increasing resources for
staff.
The telecommunications company is pro-
viding a 24/7 virtual health-care service that
employees can use for secure online medical
consultations, and adding to its library of men-
tal-health videos and podcasts with a new CO-
VID-19 hub that provides tips on managing anx-
iety, social distancing and working remotely.
“It’s a time of heightened stress and uncer-
tainty in general, but we also need to ensure our
employees have the support they need as Bell
keeps networks and service running through
the crisis,” says Mary Deacon, chair of Bell Let’s
Talk.
“The needs of our team are going to evolve as
ble meeting the increased demand. “We’re hear-
ing from employers all across Canada that
they’re struggling to respond in many different
ways,” says Jordan Friesen, national director of
workplace mental health with the Canadian
Mental Health Association (CMHA).
The CMHA, which provides mental-health
services across the country, is offering tips for
how businesses can respond to employee anx-
iety about COVID-19 through improved com-
munications and pro-actively directing em-
ployees to psychological support services.
It’s understandable that businesses are wor-
ried about controlling costs at a time when reve-
nues are falling, but mental-health supports
aren’t wasted investments. Deloitte Canada
published research last November that found
companies with mental-health programs in
place for one year had a median annual return
on investment (ROI) of $1.62 for every dollar in-
vested.
There are also free resources. For instance,
the National Standard of Canada for Psycholog-
ical Health and Safety in the Workplace, the first
of its kind in the world, is a management system
available free of cost to companies of all sizes. It
offers guidance on critical event preparedness
and managing change.
Compliance with the standard is voluntary,
but perhaps it should be mandatory given that
companies have a legal obligation to provide
psychological protection to their employees.
Businesses should also be considering what
preventive measures and monitoring to put in
place as they prepare for the eventual return to
the office of employees working from home,
says Liz Horvath, manager of workplace mental
health at the Mental Health Commission of
Canada.
The commission, which is focused on men-
tal-health policy and research, is offering infor-
mation on its website about mental-health first
aid during the COVID-19 pandemic and the
Working Mind COVID-19 Self-Care & Resilience
Guide.
“It isn’t business as usual,” says the commis-
sion’s president and chief executive, Louise Bra-
dley.
“I have listened to some very difficult and ve-
ry horrific situations that people are facing. …
It’s important that we really and truly listen to
people and have compassion. Because if not, it’s
going to be worse.”
the system, this is a human story
that’s touching everybody.”
CIBC is grappling with its own
set of challenges. As the coronavi-
rus spreads, the first order of busi-
ness has been to co-ordinate
more than 40,000 employees to
keep them working to help cli-
ents, but also support staff as they
cope with family demands. About
20,000 staff are working from
home, but a similar number is
still “on the front lines,” Mr. Dodig
said. By closing 206 advice-based
branches, the bank created what
he called a “reserve squad” who
can rotate into those jobs, easing
the pressure on staff in branches
and call centres, where CIBC is
trying to uphold principles of so-
cial distancing.
“It’s not business as usual, for
sure,” Mr. Dodig said. “Each and
every day gets to a steadier and
steadier state, but it all depends
on how the health-care problem
evolves.”
Even the CEO is isolated: Mr.
Dodig is working from his home
in west-end Toronto, with his
family, taking short walks in his
backyard and riding a stationary
bike in his basement to stay
healthy. Mostly, he fields calls
from bank staff, clients, govern-
ments and regulators to co-ordi-
nate CIBC’s response. “I have
spent more time on the phone on
any particular day than at any
time in my career,” he said.
There is collective agreement
that Canada’s energy sector and
airlines need more intervention
from governments, “so I would
expect to see that,” Mr. Dodig
said. But the big issue emerging
for small businesses – especially
those that have had to close – is
how they can get a break on pay-
ing rent on commercial proper-
ties.
Mr. Dodig has spoken to real
estate investment trust (REIT) cli-
“The banks are working well
together with us, but we don’t
have anything final to report in
terms of exactly the parameters
of how we’re going to move for-
ward,” he told reporters.
To help small businesses, the
federal government has received
proposals as dramatic as induc-
ing banks to give small and medi-
um-sized businesses zero or low-
interest loans for up to six
months, with those loans back-
stopped by government to reduce
the risk to banks. Earlier this
week, Germany’s government an-
nounced plans to cover up to 90
per cent of the risk for banks mak-
ing low-interest commercial
loans to struggling companies,
with no limit on funds available.
Mr. Dodig stopped short of call-
ing on government to guarantee
bank loans to encourage more
lending. But he said “everything”
governments can do “to encour-
age banks to support industry, to
support individual Canadians, to
bridge us through to the next pe-
riod of normalcy, is a good and
constructive thing – done respon-
sibly.”
The financial system “is resil-
ient, we’re all well capitalized,
and we’re all on to make sure we
can bridge the next period,” he
said.
He also urged clients who re-
ceive relief from banks and gov-
ernments to spread those bene-
fits more broadly, citing a client
who said that after CIBC deferred
his mortgage payments, it al-
lowed him to pass that relief on to
tenants in four rental apartments
he owns.
“That’s what we’re looking for,
is that trickle-down effect into the
economy so that the deferrals
that we’re providing … are passed
on to the individual so we can all
get through this together,” he
said.