As the frequent bearer of bad news about the restaurant industry, I welcome the opportunity to share a win. And I think three hours of free therapy qualifies as positive.
Hospitality workers have struggled with anxiety, depression, burnout, and high rates of addiction since long before COVID-19. In March 2020, workplace issues such as wage theft and tip-based abuse that could be verbal, sexual, physical, and emotional were mixed with pandemic interruption, mass layoffs, and the conflict inherent in enforcing health guidelines.
The industry’s sales may have improved, with 2023 revenue exceeding that of 2019 (though much of the increased revenue is due to higher menu prices to offset food and other cost inflation). But after a couple of years of wage inflation and being courted by employers desperate to fill jobs, workers are back where they were before.
Last year, Smart Serve Ontario, the organization responsible for alcohol training and certification, conducted a survey to learn how it could better help its constituency.
The survey hid the organization’s name — executive director Richard Anderson says most people in the industry think Smart Serve is a government agency. When I worked in Ontario restaurants, I was required to get my food handler’s certificate through Toronto Public Health. I assumed Smart Serve was broadly similar, but it’s not. It’s a charity.
Founded in 1995, Smart Serve conducts education sessions on post-secondary campuses about the perils of binge drinking, opioid overdose, cannabis, and sexual violence. It provides access to services, such as HR consultation, financial support, and legal support. But, primarily, it trains hospitality workers to work safely and responsibly with alcohol, with lessons on overpouring, overserving, and appropriate workplace culture and behaviour.
When the survey results rolled in, one thing was clear: Smart Serve clients, most of whom are between 18 and 25 years old, wanted mental-health support.
“I knew right away a partnership with Not 9 to 5 was the way to go,” says Anderson. “They had the clout and trust that we were lacking.”
Not 9 to 5 is a non-profit that creates resources for what co-founder Hassel Aviles calls a mental-health crisis in the hospitality industry.
Smart Serve reached out and asked Aviles whether her organization could offer a couple of hours of free therapy support or other resources.
“If you have benefits, that’s great,” says Aviles. “But so many industry professionals don’t have insurance. [Smart Serve] had been talking to other service providers. So we pitched GreenShield to Smart Serve.”
GreenShield is Canada’s only non-profit health insurer. In 2021, it acquired Inkblot, an online therapy platform.
“I personally have used the Inkblot therapy platform for years. When I’ve been depressed and in my sweats, that has saved me,” says Aviles. “I like that I can choose my care provider with the GreenShield platform. You can choose someone with your own identity, in a different language, someone who has specific expertise, like substance abuse or depression.”
Smart Serve Cares, which launched in May, provides registered users with three hours of virtual mental-health counselling through GreenShield. Their partners get three hours as well. The credits renew annually.
“Ideally, it would be 300 hours,” says Aviles. “But I still think it’s better than zero. It gets people started, and it gets people comfortable. More importantly, it gets people over that initial fear and stigma.”
Smart Serve Cares also makes Not 9 to 5’s mental-health certification for workplaces free, eliminating any cost barrier for restaurateurs who want to train managers in developing psychological-safety and harm-reduction standards.
There’s still work to be done. Employers can help more by paying for employees’ time while they take this online course, which runs about five hours. Governments could compel businesses above a certain size to provide this training to managers.
“We have mandatory Smart Serve and mandatory food and health safety. But workplace mental health needs to work toward becoming mandatory training or getting this kind of information and education into hospitality schools,” says Aviles. “Until now, people have treated workplace mental-health resources as a nice to have, instead of a must-have. I think that is what needs to come next. And that can only happen with government support.”
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