Nearly half of employees in Australia and New Zealand (48 per cent) are experiencing daily workplace stress, according to recent research from Gallup. 

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 report revealed that stress levels in Australia and New Zealand are 17 per cent higher than than the global average. What’s more, just a quarter of employees in this region report feeling engaged at work. Around two thirds (64 per cent) are passively disengaged, while 11 per cent are actively disengaged – i.e., taking actions that directly harm or obstruct the organisation.

“When people are stressed and disengaged, at best, they’re ambivalent, and at worst, they’re actively working against the organisation’s goals,” says Claire de Carteret, Managing Director, APAC at Gallup.

“That can have an impact on customers. It can have an impact on [the employee’s] own feelings of efficacy. And it can even go so far as to impact their physical health.”

Below, de Carteret offers research-backed advice for HR and managers to address workplace stress in the short, medium and long term. 

Short-term strategy: Intervene with the right questions

Short-term exposure to stress at work is unlikely to do serious damage – in fact, some forms of temporary stress have been shown to benefit performance and motivation. However, left unchecked, stress can cause our bodies to be in a constant state of stimulation, increasing the risk of serious harm to our mental and physical health.

In light of employers’ new legal obligations to manage psychosocial hazards at work, it’s particularly crucial for both HR and managers to be vigilant in recognising early signs of stress among employees to address them before they escalate, she says.

According to SafeWork NSW, some of the most common stress symptoms to look out for include: 

• Physical: headaches, tiredness, slow reactions, shortness of breath.
• Mental: difficulty with decision-making, forgetfulness.
• Emotional: irritability, excess worrying, feeling of worthlessness, anxiety, defensiveness, anger, mood swings.
• Behavioural: diminished performance, withdrawal, impulsive behaviour.

Regular, meaningful check-ins with employees are the best way to catch these symptoms early, says de Carteret.

“​They don’t have to be long conversations – just 15 to 30 minutes every week – and then you’ll build a fluency around [that person], which allows you to recognise when someone is struggling.”

To get a well-rounded view of how the employee is feeling and the best ways to support them, you can ask questions such as:

1. Open-ended questions to encourage employees to share their feelings and thoughts in detail.

• How are you feeling at the moment?
• Can you tell me more about what’s been on your mind lately?
• What aspects of your work are you finding stressful?

2. Specific questions to pinpoint particular areas of concern or sources of stress.

• What specific tasks or situations are causing you stress?
• Can you think of any particular moments or events that caused you stress? 
• What was it about that event you found stressful?

3. Supportive questions to show empathy and willingness to help.

• How can I better support you in managing your workload?
• What can we do to make your work environment more comfortable?
• What resources or support do you think would help you manage your stress?

“[These conversations] open up a pathway for the employee to talk about when things are not going right, when they need help, when they’re struggling or when they need time off,” says de Carteret.

When symptoms of stress are identified, interventions should happen promptly to avoid the issue snowballing. Based on employers’ responsibilities under the new psychosocial safety code of practice, WorkSafe Victoria has developed a five-step guide for managers to conduct these short-term interventions: 

1. Make contact. Arrange a confidential meeting time and location and consider what you want to discuss and achieve.

2. Explore the issues. Ask open-ended questions and listen attentively. It’s helpful to state the behaviours you have observed and your concern, and discuss potential factors driving the stress, which could be internal or external.

3. Develop options and offer support. Work together with the employee to explore potential workplace adjustments that could be made to support them, taking into account operational demands. If the employee’s direct manager is the stress source, ensure alternative support is available. Inform them of available resources both in and outside the workplace.

4. Agree on action. Decide on specific steps and agree on follow-up actions and review times.

5. Stay in touch. Follow up regularly, ensuring clear outcomes and agreed follow-up frequency.

Frameworks like this can offer structure to these conversations for managers who might not feel confident initiating them, says de Carteret.

“We need to give them tools to support them in the science of those conversations,” she says. “Because if we just leave it all up to art, some people do it well, and some people don’t – that’s just human nature.”

Medium-term strategy: Empower managers to address workplace stress

Given that managers have a disproportionate impact on employees’ experiences at work, medium-term strategies to address workplace stress should focus on supporting and empowering middle management.

Positive management practices are more than half the battle in mitigating workplace stress; according to Gallup’s findings, those who work in companies with bad management practices are nearly 60 per cent more likely to be stressed than people working in environments with good management practices. 

“We don’t want to villainise managers because they’ve got the toughest job at the moment. When they’re feeling overwhelmed and they’re not supported by their direct manager, then it’s hard for them to cascade [that support] down. They revert back into survival mode, which is the opposite of a growth mindset.

“So [HR should] focus on supporting that manager population first because when they’re engaged, connected and energised, then they will energise, connect and support their teams.”

Beyond providing managers with mental health support of their own, HR can also equip managers to address employees’ needs by providing training in areas like coaching, trauma-informed practice and mental health first aid.

Gain the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct workplace processes in a trauma-informed manner with AHRI’s Trauma Informed HR short course.

Given that managers tend to experience more stress than their direct reports, de Carteret stresses the importance of framing this training the right way so it doesn’t feel like an additional burden on their time or energy.

“They have to believe that it’s going to be an enabler for them,” she says. “They have to see the connection between [reducing stress] and delivering performance and profit. That way, it’s less about giving them more to do and more about giving them skills to be more effective.”

“[HR should] focus on supporting that manager population first because when they’re engaged, connected and energised, then they will energise, connect and support their teams.” – Claire de Carteret, Managing Director, APAC at Gallup.

Long-term strategy: Create a culture of recognition and development

Effectively mitigating stress in the long-term requires a sustainable approach that goes beyond immediate interventions and manager training. 

No matter how effectively managers can respond to stress in the moment, these measures are only a band-aid without long-term cultural change.

One of the most effective ways to mitigate stress in the long term is by creating a robust and meaningful reward and recognition program, says de Carteret.

“Everyone just wants to be acknowledged for their contribution. If you don’t feel like someone’s seeing what you’re doing or acknowledging and appreciating it, it can have such a big impact,” she says.

“[In our research], we see a big gap between how managers rate themselves in terms of recognising their teams and the way their direct reports rate them recognising the teams. It’s a bit of a blind spot for managers.”

It’s in employers’ interests to close this gap, she says, since a lack of reward and recognition is one of the 14 psychosocial hazards put forward by SafeWork Australia as part of the new code of practice. 

Another important long-term stress management strategy is ensuring employees feel challenged in a healthy way.

Read HRM’s article on how to push employees out of their comfort zone (without pushing them too far).

“Something else we’ve seen in our research is that when people can use their strengths, they are three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life, and they’re six times more likely to be engaged,” says de Carteret. 

“So if people understand what their strengths are, and they can find a way to use them every day, then they’re energised through that.”

Leveraging recognition and opportunities for growth helps ensure that any pressure employees experience is temporary and productive rather than prolonged and draining. 

Driving these cultural shifts while ensuring that immediate support systems are in place is the key to alleviating workplace stress and, crucially, improving employees’ overall quality of life, says de Carteret.

“The workplace can be so fulfilling and developmental, and it should have a positive impact on people’s lives,” she says. “The only thing we do more than work is sleep, so we have to [make sure] it’s fulfilling.”

Improve your ability to recognise the signs and symptoms of mental health conditions and learn effective strategies to manage health and wellness in the workplace with AHRI’s Mental Health at Work short course.

The post A guide to responding to workplace stress in the short, medium and long term appeared first on HRM online.

Conversations about wellbeing and burnout risks of those working in caring professions often centre around the healthcare industry, which is notorious for high levels of employee burnout.

Teachers are another cohort that comes to mind. The long hours, emotionally taxing work and concern for students’ personal wellbeing and success place high levels of stress on educators, which often results in high turnover rates in this profession too.

It’s less common for people to think of HR as an industry prone to burnout due to the specific nature of their work, but we are just as at risk as both teachers and healthcare professionals.

This isn’t just my sense. Research shows us that HR professionals are feeling the pressure of work at the moment. Gartner found that 71 per cent of survey respondents report burnout levels in HR being more challenging than pre-pandemic, and 45 per cent say they now feel it’s more difficult to handle the conflicting demands thrown their way each day.

It’s a tale as old as time: HR practitioners are too busy looking after others to take time to look after themselves. During the pandemic, we heard the adage “Put on your oxygen mask first before helping others” so often that it became somewhat of a cliche. We hear that advice far less often now, but it’s just as important now, if not more, as many of our wellbeing challenges are masked under busyness or perceived passion.

Why is HR’s wellbeing on the line?

No one wants to talk about the pandemic anymore; we want to be future-focussed instead of dwelling on the challenges we faced in the past. While I understand this desire, it’s important that we don’t move on too quickly.

In 2020, the World Health Organisation predicted the long tail of the mental health impacts of the pandemic, which has since been backed up by local research here in Australia.

I’ve seen this first-hand. Many of the HR clients I coach are very much still feeling the impacts of the pandemic – some without even realising. This is because HR has been at the forefront of pandemic disruption. 

Many HR practitioners are suffering from ‘liaison role strain’, which occurs when you’re constantly acting as the intermediary and executing on tough decisions. They’re the people leading the redundancy conversations, having the performance management meetings and trying to solve staffing challenges. 

Compounding all this is the fact that the people drawn to HR are generally deeply caring, highly empathetic individuals. This is fantastic and necessary, but it can also mean the challenging aspects of their work can cut deep and stay with them for a long period of time.

This compassion fatigue can leave HR emotionally depleted, exhausted and, essentially, running on empty. We don’t want HR practitioners to feel like they’re constantly riding an emotional rollercoaster every day and, potentially, having to leave the profession to recover.

Organisations simply cannot run effectively without a replenished and energised HR function; we need strategic people leaders at the helm now more than ever. 

Breaking patterns

In my experience working with HR, it’s often only when things get really bad that they’ll start putting themselves first. It doesn’t have to be like this.

The first step in breaking the pattern is to identify the signs of burnout. They typically look like:

• Constant exhaustion that can’t be fixed by a good night’s sleep
• Negative feelings, such as cynicism and disengagement
• Physical and cognitive symptoms such as brain fog, forgetting things or migraines, etc.

Once you’ve reached the depths of burnout, you need to get really intentional about pulling yourself out of it. A one-off holiday won’t be enough – the burnout is usually waiting for you when you get back (along with a mountain of emails). 

Instead, you need to practise consistent daily wellbeing practices to keep burnout or compassion fatigue at bay. Some strategies I share with clients include:

1. Build in transition/buffer time 

After emotionally taxing situations, such as a difficult conversation with an employee, it’s important that you don’t jump straight into the next task. Your mind needs time to digest and reset. This might look like debriefing with a colleague or taking a walk around the block.

Action point: Add a 15-20-minute buffer to your calendar after any meeting you predict could be challenging/emotional. This way you won’t get sucked into back-to-back meetings without taking the time to process your emotions and reset/calm your nervous system.

“Many HR practitioners are suffering from ‘liaison role strain’, which occurs when you’re constantly acting as the intermediary and executing on tough decisions.”

2. Learn the power of respectfully saying ‘no’

The average worker is constantly inundated with things that demand their attention – Teams or Slack pings, requests from colleagues, a never-ending stream of emails that require time and energy to provide comprehensive responses to. 

For HR practitioners, these distractions can feel even more overwhelming, as they’re often coming from both the leadership team and employees. That’s why it’s critical to learn how (and when) to decline a meeting or request from colleagues.

Action point: When declining a request, keep it simple. We often feel the need to over-explain our reasoning, but when we provide that much detail, we give people a negotiation point.

I take clients through a checklist to help them figure out what’s worth saying ‘no’ to, which includes asking yourself:

• Is this something I want to do?
• What will I have to give up by doing it? 
• What might I gain by doing it? 
• How will I feel if I do it? 

When we don’t ask ourselves all of these questions, we rush to saying ‘yes’ because maybe the answer to the first question is, ‘Yes, this is something I want to do’, but we haven’t considered that by doing it we’ll need to work into the evening and, as a result, miss out on having dinner with our family or cancelling plans to go to the gym, for example.

3. Be clear with your boundaries and expectations of others

As well as knowing when (and how) to say no, strategic HR practitioners learn how to put guardrails around their ‘yeses’.

I used to work with someone who was so good at doing this. She was constantly asked to contribute to or advise on projects. When people asked her to be involved, she’d reply saying, ‘Absolutely, I’d love to. I have one hour free in two weeks’ time.’ Because she was so brilliant and people valued her contributions, they were often happy to wait for her.

Action point: Drive shared accountability by always being clear about what you can and can’t do, and what you’ll need others to do.

For example, I used to take on a lot of extra work because I’d always say ‘yes’ to helping people. They’d then take days to get the information to me. While I may have had time in my diary on the day I’d agreed to help, by the time I was delivered with the information, I was deep in the delivery of other work. I told myself I had to honour my commitment, so would often overwork as a result.

Now, instead, I always say something like, “Yes, but I only have time to contribute tomorrow afternoon so I will need the materials by then, otherwise it will need to wait until next week.”

4. Practise small acts of kindness

While we want to avoid getting roped into large, complex tasks that will chew up too much of our valuable time, doing small, simple things that help out others can do wonders for our wellbeing.

Action point: Think of some five-minute tasks you could incorporate into your day that might enhance someone’s day, such as calling out a colleague’s great work to the company, sharing or commenting on content shared by your HR peers in your LinkedIn network or giving helpful feedback on something they’ve worked on. 

Build your own resilience plan

The wellbeing challenges faced by HR practitioners are often quite unique and therefore require a specific approach. This is why I’ve partnered with AHRI to facilitate a short course all about supporting HR to build resilience and protect their wellbeing.

In this short course, I draw on various evidence-based frameworks, such as the ‘5 ways to wellbeing’, to help HR practitioners design prevention and recovery plans that are specific to their needs.

By the end of the 3-hour course, participants will have created their own bespoke resilience plan that outlines their non-negotiables, wellbeing priorities and boundaries (because we often don’t know what our boundaries are until someone crosses them).

HR practitioners dedicate so much time to thinking about how to build these plans for other people, but it’s critical they give themselves permission to do the same for themselves.

Emma Chapple is a wellbeing specialist and coach, and the Principal and Founder of Live Wellbeing. She is also the facilitator of AHRI’s new course Renewing Resilience: Addressing burnout in HR practitioners. Sign up today for useful strategies to avoid burnout and to create your own personalised resilience plan.

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Managing workplace psychosocial risks such as stress, harassment and low job control has long been a priority in most organisations, with the recent introduction of a new Code of Practice to manage psychosocial hazards at work only intensifying the spotlight on these issues.

However, the breakneck speed of technological advancement, combined with changes to our ways of working, means today’s leaders are also encountering psychosocial hazards that never crossed their predecessors’ desks.

Mass digitisation and remote work also carry the potential to exacerbate familiar hazards by creating new avenues for inappropriate or harmful behaviour at work, requiring even more vigilance from employers to manage these risks. 

HRM spoke with two experts to uncover some of the new and pressing challenges organisations are facing when it comes to managing psychosocial safety, and the steps HR, managers and leaders can take to keep these risks in check.

1. Workplace technology-facilitated sexual harassment

Workplace technology-facilitated sexual harassment (WTFSH) is becoming more and more prevalent in Australian workplaces, according to a recent report by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS).

Concerningly, the report’s findings show that one in seven Australians admit to using technology to engage in workplace sexual harassment, including inappropriate messages, calls, emails or social media communications. This behaviour was more commonly perpetrated by men (24 per cent) than women (seven per cent).

Given that these findings are based only on employees who admitted to harassing others at work, the actual number of people who could have engaged in this behaviour is likely to be even higher, says Alex Newman, Associate Dean Faculty and Professor of Management at Melbourne Business School. 

What’s more, this form of harassment can be extremely difficult to monitor.

“There are a lot of privacy concerns around monitoring [employees’ activity],” he says. “Some organisations do it, but I think a lot of organisations are scared to because of privacy issues, so there is a huge potential for [WTFSH] to occur.”

Tech-enabled harassment is just as likely to occur outside the workplace as inside it, he says, and he has noted an increase in harassment via social networking sites in recent years. 

Given how difficult this behaviour can be to monitor, Newman suggests that employers’ best tool to manage and prevent this behaviour is appropriate training.

“For some people, because they’ve been brought up in this digital world, that separation between personal and work lives isn’t always that clear,” he says. “That’s why training where inappropriate behaviour is outlined in detail is really important.

“[Employers] also need to make it easier to report digital sexual harassment – there need to be mechanisms where people are able to report it without fearing the consequences.”

From a legal perspective, HR should ensure policies and codes of conduct are properly updated to account for the risk of tech-enabled harassment.

“There should be proportional, consistent responses to people who engage in inappropriate behaviours,” says Newman.

Creating an environment where WTFSH is less likely to occur in the first place requires leaders to drive a deeper cultural shift, he says.

“As a leader, role modeling the kinds of behaviours you expect from people working for you is really important… It’s about creating an inclusive culture that is respectful to all people. 

“I think fostering diversity in leadership is the key to having more inclusiveness and respect. Unless we get people who are from diverse backgrounds into leadership positions, things don’t change.”

 “As a leader, role modeling the kinds of behaviours you expect from people working for you is really important.” – Alex Newman, Associate Dean Faculty and Professor of Management at Melbourne Business School

2. Digital overload

Particularly since the proliferation of remote and hybrid working, the volume of digital tools and communications employees need to navigate on a daily basis often leads to a feeling of being overwhelmed with technology.

According to a recent study by OpenText, 80 per cent of Australian workers experience ‘information overload’, driven by factors such as having too many messages and apps to check each day, which is up from 60 per cent in 2020. Over a quarter (27 per cent) reported having to access 11 or more accounts, resources, tools and apps every day.

“If you’re on the computer the whole time, constantly trying to read people’s social cues when you can’t see a whole person, and maybe there’s a delay in the internet connection, it involves much more cognitive effort from the brain and it can make you very fatigued,” says Caroline Knight, senior lecturer in management at the University of Queensland Business School. 

“The risk is that there’s no cutoff period, so you end up just always being on. And, now we’ve got the new bill coming through around the right to disconnect, it’s super important [to address this]. But at the same time, it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”

Given that many employees now work on flexible schedules, enforcing strict work and communication hours might alleviate digital overload for some, but might create more stress for others, she explains. Just as employees who work a traditional 9-5 day should not feel pressured to respond out of hours, employees on flexible schedules should not be pressured to be online outside of their chosen hours.

What’s more, her research has demonstrated that excessively monitoring employees’ digital activity can lead to increased stress overall. 

As a result, helping employees manage digital overload means empowering them with the tools and autonomy to create their own balance, she says.

“There needs to be a cultural shift in organisations so they’re not expecting people to respond [at all hours]. For example, we often see people have in their email signatures things like, ‘My work hours might be different from yours, so don’t feel obliged to respond now.’

“I think people still need the flexibility to be able to work when it’s best for them, but not to feel forced to always be ‘on’ because that will just lead to burnout and fatigue.”

According to Newman, hybrid working and the return to work create an opportunity for employees to reconfigure their schedules to ensure some time is spent away from the digital realm.

“Your days in the office could be the time where you [limit] technology use – that’s when the meetings occur and you engage [with colleagues],” he says.

“Certain organisations also have a touch point every day where the team gets together and they discuss things and then agree not to email until the next day when they can touch base again.”

Rather than monitoring employees’ activity to manage digital overload, he suggests using employee pulse surveys to guide policy and interventions.

“Ask the employees whether they’re feeling stressed or overloaded, and ask for their solutions about how we can reduce the amount of traffic.”

“In the hybrid [and remote] workplace, the relational aspects of work can get eroded. There’s research showing that relationships stagnate, and we don’t necessarily develop new ones.” – Caroline Knight, senior lecturer in management at the University of Queensland Business School

3. Increasing loneliness

The prevalence of digital communication tools means that, in some ways, we have never been more connected. However, a recent report shows that almost a third of Australians are experiencing loneliness. 

The research, conducted by mental health network Ending Loneliness Together, found that Australians who feel lonely are 4.6 times as likely to have depression, 4.1 times as likely to have social anxiety and twice as likely to have chronic diseases. Loneliness has even been linked to premature death. 

“In the hybrid [and remote] workplace, the relational aspects of work can get eroded,” says Knight.

“There’s research showing that relationships stagnate, and we don’t necessarily develop new ones. It can mean that you don’t have the general chit-chat – it’s more about just getting a task done. It’s that disconnection and isolation which then leads to that feeling of loneliness.”

Many people also find it easier to reach out about work and mental health struggles in a face-to-face setting, she adds, and lack of exposure to colleagues can make employees feel that they are the only ones experiencing difficulties. 

To help overcome this, Knight suggests a number of ways employers can facilitate greater connections among employees in dispersed locations.

“One thing you can do is create peer buddy systems so people feel there’s someone they can reach out to. Or, you could have an agreement where individuals organise themselves into groups and connect when they’re working from home. 

“Anecdotally, I also know a couple of colleagues who work closely together, and sometimes they’ll just have Zoom on while they work.”

In a hybrid setup, ensuring employees get the most out of their face time with colleagues on the days they are on-site can help mitigate loneliness on the days they work remotely. Enhancing workplace design can be an effective tool to facilitate this, says Knight.

“I’ve recently been working with an organisation in Brisbane that has made its organisation much more open-plan. It’s got lots of collaborative spaces, and everything is like glass, so you can see everybody, and you can just go up and talk to people. And it’s very much meant to say, ‘This is where we connect.’”

While strategies to manage loneliness will vary greatly by industry and individual, she stresses the universal importance of a supportive, trusting environment in preventing loneliness, isolation and stress among employees.

“It’s those small little check-ins – just saying, ‘How are you?’ – that really add up to make a massive difference.”

Improve your ability to recognise the signs and symptoms of mental health conditions and learn effective strategies to manage health and wellness in the workplace with AHRI’s short course.

The post 3 new workplace psychosocial risks HR should be aware of appeared first on HRM online.

Middle managers are working in increasingly hybrid workforces, often geographically dispersed and requiring more flexibility than ever before. Amid a cost-of-living crisis, social and political challenges, and the long-tail mental health impacts of the pandemic, employees are coming to work seeking support for personal issues from their managers.

Middle managers are also expected to do more with less, such as boosting productivity in organisations battling employee shortages and wellbeing issues. It’s a lot to contend with on top of making it through their own workloads.  

The unrelenting pressure of working in middle management led Paul Farina towards unhealthy over-working habits. He spent a decade in the cosmetics and retail sectors in Australia and the UK, managing teams and clients across various time zones. 

Working around the clock was common. 

He would barely get home from a long day in the office when his boss would call, asking for a debrief from the day. Rather than speak up and admit it was too much, Farina handled the pressure by working harder and longer, and turned to alcohol to cope with the stress.

“When you’re in middle management, you’ve always got a boss needing monthly and quarterly budgets to be hit, projects to be met by deadline and things to be completed within budget, and all that pressure gets funnelled down to you,” he says. 

“I needed to take those directives and deliver on them while simultaneously plugging gaps and vacancies, all the while toeing the company line even when things were less than perfect in the field.” 

This dynamic meant he was constantly looking for ways to appease others, often taking work off his team and doing it himself. 

“There’s an emotional side to working in middle management as well, which comes from this feeling of being emotionally isolated and not being able to share that with anyone. 

“You feel like you’re being held hostage by your staff as well because you don’t want to lose them, which leads to isolation. If I didn’t have a couple of buddies in the trenches with me that I could trust, I would have been in a lot of trouble. We’ve all got to pay the mortgage, and, at the time, I wasn’t in a situation to just up and quit.”  

Eventually, Farina did quit, navigating his way into a role where he now counsels others in middle management. Looking back, he admits he didn’t have the education or strategic thinking to deal with the pressure. 

“I had nothing in my toolkit at the time. I should have been more assertive, and I should have held senior staff coming at me with constant demands to account. I should have learned to say ‘no’.

“I don’t recall saying ‘no’ to anything or anyone, which means I was constantly appeasing staff and external stakeholders.”

He believes the pressure on middle managers was amplified during the pandemic years. 

“Budgets are down and organisational hierarchies have become even flatter. Middle managers are carrying a lot of that load. 

“When you get under the hood, most organisations have a lot fewer people in them than you might assume.”

Middle managers are feeling the strain on their mental health

The complex work of middle management is all taking a toll on this cohort’s mental health. Not surprisingly, more than half of middle managers (53 per cent) are feeling stressed or burned out and 46 per cent are experiencing anxiety, according to the Indeed 2023 Workplace Wellbeing Report. 

Middle managers also feel neglected and lack essential leadership, communication and people management skills, found research by the Australian Institute of Management and Monash University. 

It indicated that middle managers are therefore significantly underperforming despite their key role in corporate ranks. But this doesn’t necessarily reflect a lack of capability. 

Many haven’t been adequately trained to deal with these added pressures, or don’t have the bandwidth to respond appropriately to the competing pressures put upon them. 

“We need to acknowledge that individual contributors promoted to middle management don’t come automatically equipped with the management skills needed to thrive in their role.” – Kade Brown, Workforce Solutions Director, RMIT Online

Reducing friction points for managers

Bolstering middle managers’ capabilities needs to be a key priority for organisations. 

Effective middle managers are able to reduce friction points at work, accelerate action and help an organisation work towards its goals. 

The challenge of balancing the fiscal needs of a business, managing cost and maximising profits means there is a huge under-investment in leadership capabilities, says Lorraine Farah FCPHR, Director of Leaning Forward. 

She wants to see organisations drag middle managers out of the weeds of work where they are often overworked and under-resourced.  

“Senior leaders underestimate the impact their [managers] have throughout their organisation,” she says. “The shadow they cast by the behaviours they demonstrate impacts not only engagement, but, importantly, all aspects of delivery of the business outcomes.”

Coupled with this, managers and leaders often deprioritise development and training in their already over-committed roles and seem unwilling to find time to upskill, she says. 

As well as time constraints, she lists three main issues holding middle managers back from utilising their full potential:

• A lack of commitment from leaders to prioritise managers’ development as a core capability.
• Structurally, the span of control of middle managers often sees them stretched too thin. They have too many direct reports, combined with complex processes, leaving them burnt out just trying to get the job done. 
• Managers aren’t usually rewarded for being a good manager. It may be acknowledged, yet it’s not always encouraged nor rewarded in a way that delivering on business results is. Managers will focus on what is measured and rewarded, and make choices on which work to prioritise when pressed for time. 

Farah wants to see commitment at an executive level to consistent, non-negotiable leadership development for middle managers. 

For example, providing access to leadership development topics right in the moments they need it most – such as how to conduct performance reviews, manage conflict, create space for innovation, seek and provide feedback, etc., in addition to established leadership programs.

This just-in-time training approach helps keep learning highly relevant for middle managers, so they are able to bake it into their workflow rather than viewing their upskilling as separate to their work or as an addition to their to-do list.

Research from McKinsey & Company shows that companies that invest in their human capital yield more consistent earnings through times of crisis. In fact, organisations with effective middle managers in the top quartile produced up to 21 times greater total shareholder returns than others in lower quartiles, according to 11 measured management practices used to define an organisation’s health.  

“The correlation between trust and the relationship between employees and their direct manager is strong and leads to better outcomes,” says Farah. 

How technological development will impact middle managers

While the role of middle managers will continue to evolve with technological advances, it’s unlikely the layer will disappear entirely, says executive coach Smita Das Jain.  

However, the specific responsibilities of middle managers will evolve alongside the adoption of technology as routine tasks and administrative duties are automated.

“Organisations [should] stop and take stock, and adopt technology to automate many of the tasks middle managers perform, such as training, employee performance, generating reports and making decisions,” says Jain. 

This frees up time for middle managers to focus on higher-level strategic planning and decision-making, she says. 

Rethinking traditional managerial roles

As organisations shift and become more complex, middle managers may become more vital than ever, says Murat Tarakci, Professor of Innovation Strategy at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

He cites findings that attribute 22 to 30 per cent gains in productivity and innovation to effective middle management. In a separate academic paper he recently published, he illustrates the challenges middle managers face by quoting one middle manager at phone company Nokia admitting: “We knew the iPhone was coming out about a year in advance. We had pretty good specifications for it. The CEO forwarded the email to his subordinates, writing ‘Please take action on this’. Yet, middle managers folded, and opted to sugar-coat the stalled process, causing Nokia to lose the competitive battle for smartphones.” 

“Middle managers are constantly coping with, adapting to, or even resisting contradictory demands and pressures,” says Tarakci in his paper.

“As new technologies emerge, rivals flood one’s turf and customer preferences reposition… these shifts require rapid and effective organisational responses to adapt to an ever-changing environment,” says Tarakci.  

While changes in the business landscape often necessitate extra support for middle managers, the simple elements of work can also create friction points. For example, an excessive number of direct reports can overwhelm managers, hindering their ability to provide adequate coaching and guidance, says Kade Brown, Workforce Solutions Director at RMIT Online.      

“Conversely, too few direct reports may indicate inefficiencies or questionable promotions, leading to underutilisation of managerial talent,” he says. 

Empowering managers to focus on the right tasks is critical, he says. This involves identifying and streamlining low-value bureaucratic activities, leveraging automation and outsourcing where applicable. 

“By reducing administrative burdens, middle managers can allocate more time and energy towards fostering a supportive environment, nurturing talent and addressing the needs of their teams,” says Brown. 

“We need to acknowledge that individual contributors promoted to middle management don’t come automatically equipped with the management skills needed to thrive in their role. They require intentional and targeted upskilling in three key areas: business acumen, structured problem-solving and people leadership.”     

As such, middle manager upskilling initiatives shouldn’t focus just on theory, but on embedded practice and behaviour change. 

“It’s imperative to design or procure upskilling solutions that enable managers to integrate new skills seamlessly into their current world of work,” says Brown. 

This strategic realignment enables managers to focus on driving impact and promoting a culture of engagement and growth within the organisation. 

“The pace of change, disruption and transformation in the world of work isn’t going to decelerate any time soon,” says Brown.

To alleviate the cognitive load on middle managers, the best thing we can do is to equip them with the tools and skills they need to cope with this new reality. 

This article was first published in the April/May 2024 edition of HRM Magazine.

Want to learn more about effective leadership and management? Sign up for AHRI’s short course to understand your leadership style and learn how to create key performance indicators.

The post How can organisations better support middle managers? appeared first on HRM online.

Warning: This article contains content that may be distressing to some readers. For those who need immediate support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Australians are reeling after two attacks in Sydney’s southern and eastern suburbs last week, which have claimed the lives of six people and injured several others.

“Our thoughts and condolences are with the families, friends and colleagues of the victims,” says AHRI’s CEO, Sarah McCann Bartlett. 

Dr Zena Burgess, CEO of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and organisational psychologist says the effects of the attacks may be far-reaching.

“For the friends and families of the victims and those who bore witness to the attacks, the mental health impacts could stick with them for life.”

“We also need to consider the impacts these tragedies could have on the broader community. Many people will be distressed by these events and will talk about them in the workplace. They might speculate about motives or share concerns regarding further attacks,” says Dr Burgess.

“It’s possible we could see increases in emotional distress, such as anger, sorrow, fear and confusion. And, for some people, old trauma could possibly be reactivated.”

This is why, following any traumatic event, it’s important for employers to have robust processes in place to reduce distress and respond to those whose trauma may be triggered.

Supporting employees following traumatic events 

Most organisations will incorporate a response to a dangerous or traumatic event in the workplace into their crisis management or business continuity plan. This should guide them during and immediately after the event.

However, these plans sometimes omit support for employees who may be affected by an incident that occurred outside the workplace. In this instance, it’s advisable to assess who in your organisation might be impacted.

“It’s very important that the reality [of the situation] is acknowledged and the way people feel is heard,” says Dr Cathy Kezelman AM, medical practitioner and President and Executive Director at Blue Knot Foundation, an organisation that supports people to recover from complex trauma.

“Employees’ response to situations like this will also be dependent on their own lived experiences, including whether they have prior histories of trauma. So there’s a holistic response to consider as well as an individual response.”

This trauma can be cumulative, she adds, noting that the past few years have exposed people to an array of distressing situations.

“On top of [the recent attacks], we have a community that has been shaken by things like COVID and the current global [geopolitical] situation. There’s a sense of this pervasive threat throughout the entire community, so each thing that happens needs to be understood in that context.”

“When you’ve experienced repeated trauma, or repeated traumatic stress, that response is often heightened. So people will tend to be hyper vigilant, easily startled, anxious or sometimes they’ll shut down.” – Dr Cathy Kezelman AM, President and Executive Director, Blue Knot Foundation.

Following an organisation’s immediate response, the employer would then decide whether a company-wide message outlining where employees can go for support would be useful, including details such as how to contact their employee assistance provider (EAP). It’s also important to assess who may need more intensive mental health support and help connect them with a mental health expert.

When discussing at a team level, HR professionals should encourage managers to talk to their teams with empathy and factual information. 

“We don’t want to sugarcoat any of the details or minimise any of the distress people are experiencing, but we also don’t want to perpetuate any misinformation or stereotypes that might be circulating in the news or on social media,” says Dr Burgess.

When addressing your teams, consider the following:

• Create space for dialogue and grief – While some traumatic incidents might call for a company meeting or an all-company email, you may also need to allow for deeper discussions to take place.Employees may benefit from peer-to-peer debriefs or one-on-one conversations with their managers to unpack their fears, concerns and complex feelings.
• Don’t try and fix things – “Ask people: ‘What do you need right now’ and then just see what that reveals,” says Dr Kezelman. “Don’t jump in and say, ‘Do X,Y,Z’ or ‘That happened to me too,’ and take over the story. Just be there in an accepting, compassionate and empathetic way. Don’t try and solve it; don’t prod people. Just gently encourage people to get support and offer the support you have available in your organisation.”
• Promote self-care behaviours – In the aftermath of a traumatic event, it’s important to prioritise recuperating behaviours for any employees who are directly impacted. Create opportunities to bring teams together and create moments of authentic connection. Showing employees that they’re not alone and creating a sense of unity within your organisation can help to build resilience.
• Understand your limits – In the initial wake of a tragedy, ensuring employees have access to mental health resources and safe spaces to discuss their feelings is an important first step, but sometimes longer-term support is required.
  
  “The impacts of a traumatic event often don’t surface in people for weeks, months or sometimes even years,” says Dr Burgess. “If you discover this, consider [referring employees to] a mental health expert who can design a long-term support plan.”

Signs to look out for

Following a traumatic event, Dr Kezelman says employers should be on the lookout for out-of-character behaviour in employees which could signal that they are experiencing trauma or distress.

“People who’ve experienced trauma have a biological survival response – fight, flight and freeze. When you’ve experienced repeated trauma, or repeated traumatic stress, that response is often heightened. So people will tend to be hyper vigilant, easily startled, anxious or sometimes they’ll shut down.

“They might usually be a very conscientious worker who turns up on time and is reasonable in their interactions, but then they might become reactive or aggressive. It’s not that they’re behaving badly, it’s that their behaviour is telling us something.”

Dr Burgess says some changes to look out for include:

• A sudden drop in quality of work
• Becoming withdrawn from social situations 
• Sudden fatigue or low energy
• Difficulty making decisions
• Becoming uncharacteristically agitated or upset at work
• Changes to their appearance (e.g. looking dishevelled) 

“An increase in any of these behaviours could signal mental ill-health, so it’s important that managers are given the tools and resources they need to help identify risk areas.” 

Take a trauma-informed approach to HR

In the coming weeks and months, taking a trauma-informed approach to HR will be important, says Dr Burgess.

“A trauma-informed approach requires managers, leaders and HR professionals to remain aware of the many factors that could trigger an emotionally distressing situation for an employee, such as exposing them to distressing imagery or news, perpetuating stereotypes about mental ill-health or forcing them to come into the office if they’re feeling distressed about being out in public.

“It’s about doing everything within your control to minimise potential harm.”  

Dr Kezelman adds that employers need to understand that trauma will more than likely “overwhelm people’s capacity to cope”.

“Being trauma-informed also means being open, receptive and understanding that trauma is about feeling unsafe. So, [employers] can think about how to build a sense of psychical and emotional safety at work.

“Also, often people who’ve been traumatised have also been disempowered, so think about how  you work with people rather than impose things on them. How are people given choice in what happens to them?”

In a bigger-picture sense, it’s also important to make sure your culture is set up to enable a trauma-informed approach, she says.

“Is it a culture where people feel safe to say things like, ‘This is what I need’ or ‘I feel unsafe or scared?’ Or is it a culture where there might be fear of showing vulnerability or weakness?

“It’s all very good to sprout certain [values] and principles, but how do you marry that with the system of work? What is the culture of transparency? How well does the organisation communicate? How trustworthy is the organisation? Is feedback accepted well? And is it realised?'”

These are all important questions to consider because you can have all the right policies, but if what’s written in them isn’t lived out, you’re not operating in a trauma-informed way, she says.

AHRI members can log into AHRI:ASSIST to get a guideline on developing a trauma-informed HR Practice. You will find this resource in the health, safety and wellbeing resource page.

Ongoing mental health support

HR professionals can’t be expected to be mental health experts. It’s important to bring in the right expert support if employees are struggling in the wake of a traumatic event.

“Avoid putting pressure on leaders, HR and middle managers to ‘solve’ people’s distress around this tragedy,” says Dr Burgess. “For many, the impacts will be complex. As workplace leaders, your responsibility is to direct employees to adequate professional support.”

McCann Bartlett adds that it’s important for HR to take care of themselves.

“HR professionals are often lent on for support, but remember to take care of your own mental health too. Consider giving yourself a break from consuming distressing news content, for example, and lean on your HR community for support.”

AHRI has a range of free resources available to its members via AHRI:ASSIST. Log into your member portal for the following resources:

• Managing Grief and Loss in the workplace
• Having effective wellbeing conversations

The post How to support employees following a traumatic event appeared first on HRM online.

New research has revealed that managers have more influence on employee mental health (69 per cent) than doctors (51 per cent) or therapists (41 per cent), and the same level of impact as their spouses and partners. 

The report, recently published by UKG, also found one in three employees say their manager fails to recognise the impact they have on their team’s wellbeing, and the majority (68 per cent) say they would like their manager to do more to support their mental health. 

Since last year’s introduction of a new Code of Practice to manage psychosocial hazards at work, HR has placed a renewed focus on employee mental health as a critical point of compliance. While it’s important for HR professionals themselves to understand psychosocial safety guidelines, these findings are an important reminder that, in many instances, mental health management hinges on the behaviour and capabilities of middle managers.

“In the past, we’ve thought about the skills to have conversations, particularly conversations about mental health, as the ‘soft’ stuff,” says Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab and the Leaders Lab.

“Well, now these skills are legal requirements, and, unfortunately, most managers don’t have them.”

As a result, supporting and upskilling managers in addressing psychosocial hazards will be HR’s most valuable tool in managing them, she says.

How managers influence psychosocial safety

According to McQuaid, there are three main areas where managers can have a significant impact on employees’ sense of psychosocial safety. 

“​​The big one is: Do I feel safe with my manager?”

“We’ve seen in the Great Place to Work research for the past few years that trust is the number-one factor that makes for a great place to work. And that’s about transparency, honesty and vulnerability. These are all such important skills.”

The second area where manager behaviours are prone to creating psychosocial hazards is change management, she says. 

“Generally, when it comes to change, managers under-communicate by a factor of seven to what their employees need. So I always say to managers, ‘When you think you’ve communicated it clearly, keep going.’”

Ensuring employees are hearing about big changes directly from their managers rather than other channels such as office gossip will encourage trust in managers and the organisation. Even if managers aren’t able to share certain information with employees, it’s still important to be upfront about this and acknowledge employees’ concerns.

“The third and final one, I would say, is appreciation and validation,” says McQuaid. “We all share the same deep psychological need to be respected, valued and appreciated. And so we’ll often see inadequate reward and recognition as one of the most frequently reported psychosocial safety risks. 

“Sometimes it’s about fair pay for fair work, but it’s often not – it’s about [people saying], ‘I just don’t feel appreciated or valued in my job, and I’m not getting career development opportunities, training and support to keep learning and growing.’ So the other tool managers have is gratitude. It’s one of the most powerful business tools we have, and it costs us nothing.”

“Generally, when it comes to change, managers under-communicate by a factor of seven to what their employees need.” – Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab and the Leaders Lab

Managers are also struggling

As HR works to upskill managers in psychosocial safety, it’s important to recognise that managers are struggling with psychological burdens of their own.

In fact, UKG’s research revealed managers are more stressed than their team members (42 per cent versus 40 per cent), and one in four say they “often” or “always” feel burned out.

Perhaps more concerningly, 57 per cent of managers say they wish someone had warned them not to take their current job, and 46 per cent say it’s likely they’ll quit their job within the next 12 months because they’re experiencing too much work-related stress.

“We’ve seen in our studies over the years that managers are highly contagious, and that if a leader has high levels of wellbeing, typically, you see high levels of wellbeing ripple across the teams [and vice versa],” says McQuaid.

“Middle managers are like the meat in the sandwich. They are pushed from above on KPIs and strategy, and there is push-up from their teams saying they can’t keep up… They’re stuck in the middle and they’re exhausted.”

The economic challenges of the past few years have put pressure on managers in many organisations to ‘do more with less’, and the scarcity of resources means they’re simply not set up for success, she says. 

To help address this, it’s important that any training in psychosocial safety focuses as much on the wellbeing of managers as on their reports – otherwise, the new requirements might be perceived by managers as another arduous task to add to their to-do lists.

According to McQuaid, this largely comes down to creating a culture of shared accountability, where managers feel comfortable flagging psychosocial hazards without fear of being blamed for them. 

“Every team has psychosocial hazards,” she says. “When human beings do complex work together, there will be hazards. That in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is when those hazards become high-risk because of frequency, impact and duration. 

“The way a good manager does their job is to report early where they have issues and not let those risks fester, so they can talk about it quickly and [address] it as far as is reasonably practicable, which is what they’re required to do. But that takes a big leap of faith for managers.”

The psychosocial hazards Code of Practice is new to all of us, and managers need to be given permission to view it as an exercise in learning and growth in order for it to be effective.

“Unfortunately, we know lots of workplaces are still led by fear and anxiety at the top. But this has to be led in a very different way,” says McQuaid.

“There are so many studies that show that when we incite change from a basis of fear, we get short-term compliance. And then we need to keep using sticks of punishment and carrots of reward to get people to comply with it. But you don’t get safety from compliance – you get safety from an ongoing commitment that we are all going to show up and not just be safe, but care for each other, even when the work is difficult.”

“I really think this legislation gives HR an amazing opportunity to redefine its role.” – Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab and the Leaders Lab

HR’s role in empowering middle managers 

To ensure managers have the tools to manage employees’ psychosocial safety as well as their own, it’s crucial that they feel comfortable approaching HR for support. 

HR can act as an intermediary between managers and the C-Suite, as well as providing a safe sounding board for managers to flag concerns.

“If managers don’t feel safe with HR, these issues fester in the background,” says McQuaid. 

The best thing HR can do to nurture this dynamic of trust and transparency is to become middle management’s champion across the organisation, she says.

“If managers know that HR is their champion, not only will they be more likely to talk to HR about what’s going on and ask for support when they need it, but it also creates this opportunity to train and coach a generation of leaders who can deal with their own dirty work instead of dumping it on the doorstep of HR all the time.

“I really think this legislation gives HR an amazing opportunity to redefine its role.”

Improve your ability to recognise the signs and symptoms of mental health conditions and learn effective strategies to manage health and wellness in the workplace with AHRI’s short course.

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The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath transformed the modern workplace into a complex, hybrid environment. “Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible (BANI)” is how renowned anthropologist Jamais Cascio describes it.

Consequently, burnout is a bigger risk than ever. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, published in October last year, found that 47 per cent of Australian employees experienced daily stress and only 23 per cent considered themselves as thriving. Very few industries or sectors are immune to this.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO), with more than 20,000 employees, is one of the biggest federal government agencies. It is also one of the busiest.      

Work requirements mean employees need to be at the top of their game. They must be well-equipped to manage high workloads, undertake complex problem solving and meet competing deadlines.The ATO’s Mental Health Strategy team, in addition to recognising the challenges raised by the pandemic, also saw the opportunity to pilot optimal ways of working.                                                                                                                                             

“Our approach is recognising that investment in our people is central to our business,” says Alison Stott, Deputy Commissioner, ATO People.

“Our people have such an important role to undertake in the community that we want to support them to feel their best, so they can give their best to Australia.”

A powerful, five-pillared strategy

To do this, the Mental Health Strategy team started work on a new pilot program under its existing Mental Health ‘Thriving Minds’ strategy, which puts mental health at the front and centre of HR at the ATO. The Thriving Minds strategy is underpinned by five pillars:

• Promoting mental health     
• Strengthening capability     
• Enhancing tools and technology     
• Building supporting workspaces      
• Supporting better work practices     

“Our approach is that mental health is everyone’s responsibility,” says Stott. “We wanted to equip our staff, managers, senior leaders and HR teams to have the confidence and capability to look after their own mental health and manage mental health in the workplace.”      

By 2021, two urgent, concrete and mental-health focused goals had become clear for the ATO. The first was supporting employees as they returned to the office following the pandemic. 

“The award also recognises all the staff, managers and leaders who really committed their time and effort during the pilots, and I was really proud that this was recognised beyond the ATO.”  – Alison Stott, Deputy Commissioner, ATO People.

The second was addressing the psychosocial risks that can contribute to burnout and fatigue, particularly job demands and having sufficient support in the workplace.      

“We wanted to make sure that our staff could create space in their day to perform at their best and deliver in their roles,” says Stott.

Six simple yet impactful initiatives 

To determine how to achieve these goals, the HR team dived into research on best-practice ways to combat psychosocial risks. 

The team prepared an approach drawing on the Job-Demand-Support model which shows that an employee’s level of psychosocial risk arises from the balance (or imbalance) between the demands of a role, and that employee’s protective resources. 

For example, demands might include leadership, volumes of work and leave. Protective resources might include leadership, hybrid work and flexibility. 

Drawing on the model, the team developed an innovative series of pilots named “Thrive@Work”. The aim was not merely to improve the workplace but to transform it, by enhancing employees’ engagement, productivity and wellbeing. 

The pilot programs were a success – and formed the basis of the ATO winning AHRI’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy Award 2023. 

The pilots delivered six simple yet highly effective initiatives. The first four, which addressed demands, were: 

– Facilitating more opportunities for deep work; 

– Making meetings more effective; 

– Improving email etiquette; and 

– Encouraging regular check-ins with managers about mental health.                                                                                     

“Deep work involves [the whole team] blocking out two hours of uninterrupted time to focus attention on completing complex tasks – as individuals or with other people,” says Stott. “There are no meetings, no phone calls, no chats.” 

 This is to help with deep thinking space focused on improved productivity and positive impact on mental health.                                                     

When it comes to meetings, the goal is to improve their utility.      

“We’ve all been to meetings that are unstructured, that go for a really long time, that have us wondering, ‘What are we here for?’” says Stott.

“We wanted to improve their effectiveness, so that we maintain focus by really putting some structure around them, and having agreed outcomes.” 

Read HRM’s article on Amazon’s silent meeting practice.

The third initiative, email etiquette, prioritises two areas: timing and audience.

“We wanted to reduce email traffic and noise, which is a distraction, and to address the impact of ‘always-on’ culture,” says Stott. 

An example could be teams agreeing when emails might be sent to limit constant distraction or avoid out-of-hours communication , to avoid copying people into messages who did not need to read them, and to consider other ways of connecting. 

“It’s really about thinking about how we engage with people – if you’re emailing back and forth, and trying to understand something, what might that do to someone’s focus, productivity or mental health? Could it be quicker just to ring and have a conversation?”

Regular one-on-one check-ins between managers and team members provided employees with opportunities to discuss their mental health, thereby helping to ensure that concerns were identified early.           

The other two initiatives provided employees with protective factors. 

The first was giving employees more control over flexibility, by encouraging them to use the options available to them relating to work hours, location and daily structure. 

The second was encouraging teams to build better relationships by connecting socially and taking a break from talking about work.   

Significant results – in just six weeks

The pilots saw 4000 employees from 12 areas of the business take part in at least one initiative, which ran for between six weeks and two months between 2022 and 2023.

Each was led by a local executive team and began with a skill-based webinar. In addition, managers received toolkits, access to drop-in sessions and ongoing “nudge” communications. 

Read HRM’s article on ‘nudge theory’.

Rather than dictating how managers should execute the initiatives, the HR team supported them to customise them to suit their teams’ needs.

“Because the work undertaken by the ATO varies across law, accounting, service delivery and many other areas, it was critical that our HR specialists partnered with business leaders to customise these initiatives were implemented across different operating environments. It’s about taking the principles and tailoring them to where you work,” she says.

To measure the pilots’ effectiveness, Stott and her team conducted before and after surveys.

In just six weeks, participants reported significant wellbeing and business-related improvements including:     

• An average decrease in feelings of burn out of 15 per cent;
• A 21 per cent reduction in work demands;
• A 21 per cent reduction in mental load; and 
• A 13 per cent reduction in fatigue. 

At the same time, 34 per cent of participants reported their productivity increased, and 45 per cent reported an increased ability to focus. 

Following these impressive results, the initiatives became a permanent service offer of the ATO’s wellbeing team. Over 70 per cent of participants reported that they wanted to continue engaging in the initiatives. 

Importantly, there was a long tail on the benefits of this program. In a follow-up survey conducted six months later, nine of the 12 business areas reported continued positive improvements.      

How can HR professionals improve workplace wellbeing? 

For HR professionals seeking to develop wellbeing-focused strategies, Stott has three pieces of advice. 

First, it’s vital to have senior management on board. 

“Having senior leaders’ buy-in… has the most impact for real change in an organisation,” she says. 

“Our executive and senior leaders endorsed and drove these initiatives, showcasing to their teams how they bring them into their daily work.”      

This included promoting the pilots in town halls, leadership forums and team meetings. Further, leaders incorporated the initiatives into their routines, such as scheduling ‘deep work’ sessions and openly communicating their status to their teams.

Second, a strategy should always be underpinned by hard data – every step of the way. 

“Make sure you’re using HR data and insights to inform opportunities and measure impact,” she says. This included things like the before and after survey, qualitative insights and other sentiment or trend HR metrics about the health of the workforce.

Third, seemingly small and affordable initiatives can make a big difference. 

“Look for opportunities to do small things that have a big impact,” says Stott. 

“The pilots we’ve discussed could be done by organisations of any size. They’re quite simple, but really make an impact in improving people’s mental health.”

On discovering the ATO had won the AHRI award, Stott was proud – and not only of her team.

“I was proud of the team and the work they do,” she says. “But it wasn’t just our HR staff, who are fabulous – true professionals and really experienced.  

“The award also recognises all the staff, managers and leaders who really committed their time and effort during the pilots, and I was really proud that this was recognised beyond the ATO.” 

Visit the AHRI website to discover which other organisations took home an AHRI award, as well as the individual award and scholarship winners.

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While employees are increasingly willing to work from the office more often, a significant proportion feel their workplaces fall short in supporting collaboration and performance, a recent study has found.

The research, published by global technology company Cisco based on surveys of 7550 full-time employees and 1650 employers in the APAC region, found that 64 per cent of respondents believed their workspaces were not “fit for purpose” in enabling them to do their best work.

The top three areas employees felt were not optimal were: collaboration and meeting spaces, technology and infrastructure, and seating arrangements.

“The effect of our environment has been very much underappreciated in terms of the development of the office, and the effect it has is so significant,” says Libby Sander, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Bond University and a leading authority on the design of workplaces.

“What we need to be thinking about is: does this space support people to do their jobs?”

The impact of hybrid work on workplace design

According to the research, one of the main driving forces behind employees’ concerns about their working environments is, unsurprisingly, the rise of hybrid work.

While Cisco found that hybrid work has resulted in a 54 per cent increase in cost savings, a 59 per cent productivity spike and a 43 per cent boost to culture for Australian employers, it also introduced challenges regarding workplace design.

Now that many employees have the ability to do at least part of their jobs from their homes, their motives for in-office work tend to centre around collaboration and socialising. However, more than four in five employees (81 per cent) feel the layout and seating arrangements in their offices are not conducive to effective collaboration and brainstorming. 

“The [working] environment is like a physical cognitive scaffold for your brain – it picks up cues about what to do in that type of space, and supports that. So, different tasks are actually going to require different spaces.”  – Libby Sander, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Bond University

While many employers have been investing effort and resources into incentivising a return to office, some of these efforts are falling short of employees’ real needs, says Sander.

“I think the focus has been a lot more on those nice-to-have benefits rather than the spaces themselves.

“We’re seeing people saying that just having a gym at lunchtime or a fancy library sitting area is not enough to make [them] want to commute for two hours.”

Instead, she says, employers should focus on the fundamentals of their workplace design, such as acoustics, lighting, comfort and a variety of areas for different types of work.

“What my research has shown is that the [working] environment is like a physical cognitive scaffold for your brain – it picks up cues about what to do in that type of space, and supports that. So, different tasks are actually going to require different spaces.

“And my advice from the research is that we should be focusing on the psychological state that we need for each task, and then selecting a space to support that.”

For example, collaborative tasks are best-suited to take place in larger spaces with movable furniture, whiteboards and comfortable seating, while deep work will require workstations in a quiet environment with minimal visual distractions. 

Meanwhile, an office breakout area should be both comfortable and visually appealing in order to help employees recharge their batteries.

“A workplace can’t just be a big floor plate with a bunch of desks and a few meeting rooms and a cafe,” says Sander. “We should be thinking about it more like a city where there are different zones that provide different types of [environments], but also the ability to use them in different ways.”

Evolving the workplace for the modern worker

Cisco found that eight out of ten employers have or are in the process of redesigning their office to better cater to the modern-day employee. If your organisation is considering this, here are some important points to keep in mind.

When considering aspects of workplace design that could be improved, employers should take into account the impact of working environments on mental health as well as productivity. 

For instance, Sander’s research has found that natural materials, natural light and aesthetically appealing design all have a beneficial psychological impact. Acoustics are also particularly important, she says.

“People don’t get used to noise. And if they can’t focus and concentrate to do their job, they’re less likely to collaborate and more likely to get withdrawn or even hostile towards their colleagues.”

Employers can use methods such as soundproofing and office dividers to minimise distractions from noise, as well as providing designated quiet spaces and closed-off meeting areas so collaboration does not come at the expense of concentration.

It’s also important for staff to feel they have the space to move and think freely; employers can use an office space calculator to determine how much space they should be providing for zones such as meeting rooms, quiet spaces and common areas. 

Particularly for workplaces with limited space, employers can also consider a space rationalisation strategy, which involves assessing the current use of space, identifying inefficiencies or areas for improvement and implementing redesigns or technology solutions to optimise the existing space.

The provision of flexible and hybrid working options can also be a valuable tool to optimise working environments, says Sander.

“Autonomy, as we know, is a huge driver of satisfaction and commitment to the organisation. So the more autonomy we’re able to give people in their jobs, the more they’re likely to be satisfied. 

“Working from home gives people that autonomy, but it also gives them another very important aspect, which is the ability to adjust and personalise their space in a way that suits them.”

Need help evolving your organisation for a hybrid world? AHRI’s short course on managing a hybrid workforce is designed to equip you with the skills to create collaborative and future-ready teams.

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The Australian Disability Network (ADN) has recently announced a new pilot program in response to significant barriers faced by people living with disability in securing employment and progressing to senior roles.

The Career Pathways Pilot 2023-2025 was developed by ADN in collaboration with the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the Department of Social Services. Over the next two years, these entities will work with four of Australia’s leading employers to help them support employees with disability and develop their leadership potential. 

The rollout of the program will be co-designed with the employers as well as their employees with lived experience, and will involve a targeted needs analysis to understand the employment barriers that need to be broken down.

Barriers to employment

With Australian employers grappling with severe skills shortages, the underrepresentation of people living with disability in employment represents an opportunity that cannot be overlooked.

Per ABS data, the labour force participation rate for working-age people with disability is just 53 per cent, compared with 84 per cent among people without disability. According to the Australian Network on Disability, this gap grows wider at the senior and board-level ranks of an organisation. 

The BCA estimates that if Australia moved into the top eight OECD countries for employing people with disability, we could see an additional $50 billion added to Australia’s GDP by 2050.

According to Graeme Innes AM, lawyer, board director and former Disability Discrimination Commissioner, the main barrier people with disability tend to face in career progression is the unfounded assumptions often made about them by recruitment decision-makers.

“Middle managers are generally relatively risk-averse. So, in terms of making the decision about who to employ, they’re not going to employ the person with a disability because it’s perceived by them as a greater risk,” he says.

“The only way we’re going to change that is to have people with disabilities employed in organisations so we have the opportunity to demonstrate that those assumptions are [wrong].  That’s why programs such as this are really important.”

“In business, we all know that what you don’t count doesn’t count. So, if we don’t set targets, then this will just become a ‘nice to have’.” – Graeme Innes AM, lawyer, board director and former Disability Discrimination Commissioner

Historically, he says, the thinking around disability employment has been overly simplistic.

“One thing that used to happen is, when we did a lot of non-digital photography, blind people were often employed in dark rooms – [the logic was], ‘Well, they won’t need to be able to see, so we’ll put them in the dark rooms.’ 

“I’ve also seen a lot of deaf people employed in noisy places because, ‘It won’t be a problem for them anyway.’ That’s very basic thinking and stereotyping. What you need to do as an employer is work out what the skill set is that you want, and then find the people who meet that skill set. And that’s exactly what we do for people without disabilities, so why is it going to be any different?”

The responsibility to instil this mindset in middle managers lies with leaders, he says.

“In anything where there’s change involved, the key driver to change is for CEOs and their direct reports to actually demonstrate that they’re serious about the change,” he says.

“A lot of it is achieved by the senior managers walking the talk by making an employment decision which relates to them, by employing a person with a disability. It’s a very clear indicator that you want that policy achieved.”

Aiding career progression for employees with disability

According to Innes, one of the key lessons employers can take from programs like this is the importance of setting clear and structured representation targets for employees with disability at various levels of an organisation. 

“In business, we all know that what you don’t count doesn’t count. So, if we don’t set targets, then this will just become a ‘nice to have’,” he says.

Here more from Graeme Innes about diversity targets in this HRM video.

Setting and achieving targets to boost disability employment and thereby allowing managers to see people with disability thriving in senior roles is the fastest and easiest way to debunk their assumptions about this cohort’s capabilities.

“[We should take] any chance we get to put people with disabilities in standard roles in the community, and not have us represented as heroes or victims – because that’s the way we are viewed at the moment. 

“The best advice I can give is, just do it – just employ a person with a disability. Next week or next month, say those small but very powerful words to a person with a disability, which are, ‘You start on Monday.’ We can talk about it for as long as we like, we can plan projects, we can work on analysis – you just need to do it.”

Need help taking steps to reduce bias and support inclusion in the workplace? AHRI’s short course will provide you with techniques to create a diverse and inclusive workplace.

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The outcomes of wellbeing and inclusion initiatives, such as improved morale and psychosocial safety, often seem like nebulous, intangible concepts that are difficult for HR to quantify. 

However, as HR practitioners adjust to new challenges to wellbeing at work and new responsibilities to address them, they would be wise to adopt the mantra of management guru Peter Drucker: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

“The measurement issue is a real challenge for all of us,” said Simon Brown-Greaves, Chief Mental Health Officer at Australia Post, during a panel session at AHRI’s virtual diversity, equity and inclusion conference last week. 

“We’ve got to focus on honing our measurements so we’re measuring the right things in the right way – so that people feel they’re able to provide meaningful feedback about the things we’re trying to support them with.”

Those who signed up for AHRI’s DEI event can watch this session on demand.

Current trends in reporting wellbeing at work

During the panel discussion, Jono Nicholas, Managing Director of The Wellbeing Outfit and Chief Mental Health Advisor for EY Oceania, highlighted a number of recent trends influencing the way we should be measuring and reporting on wellbeing at work.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, flexible work has increased the need for a more strategic approach to measuring wellbeing, he says, given that it is harder to gauge the overall mental health of employees who are working offsite. 

2023 has also been a busy year for industrial relations changes, many of which relate to mental health. One of the most significant updates in this space was the recent introduction of a Code of Practice to manage psychosocial hazards in the workplace. 

Formal legal frameworks like this are putting increasing pressure on employers to measure and report on the wellbeing of their people in a compliant manner. 

“This is particularly challenging if you run a national organisation, because the states aren’t necessarily all moving at the same speed,” says Nicholas.

Interestingly, he’s noted that organisations in blue-collar industries, who had OHS teams and infrastructure in place long before mental health codes of practice came into play, have adjusted better to their new responsibilities than employers of white-collar workforces. With this in mind, white-collar employers may well benefit from adopting measures used by the blue-collar industry, such as safety checks at the start of every meeting.

4 ways to measure wellbeing at work 

To aid organisations in overcoming the challenge of effectively measuring employee wellness and inclusion, the panellists offered a number of useful insights. 

1. Consider both tangible and intangible factors

Naturally, the easiest metrics to measure and assess in gathering wellness and inclusion data will be tangible factors such as employees’ ranking of their wellbeing provided via engagement surveys. 

However, according to Brown-Greaves, the best mental health and DEI strategies take a holistic approach, meaning some of their outcomes will manifest in indirect, less obvious ways.

“An example of an intangible indicator for us at Australian Post might be measuring our people’s pride in the brand and in the organisation that they work for,” he says. 

“Pride is correlated with meaning, which in turn is correlated with good mental health and diversity and inclusion outcomes.”

“A long, once-a-year survey that tries to do everything is not the way forward. That type of survey [sometimes] becomes a bit gamified, and we’re not really getting the data we need to make good, sound decisions about mental health and wellbeing.” – Simon Brown-Greaves, Chief Mental Health Officer, Australia Post

2. Tackle hazards with both reactive and preventive strategies

Particularly when reporting to leaders and executives on the levels of wellness and inclusion among the workforce, Brown-Greaves stresses the importance of balancing a reactive approach based on past and existing trends and a preventive approach based on projected trends.

“Thinking about indicators that are both current [lag] as well as indicators that might be predictive of where you’re trending [lead], and finding a blend of lagging and leading indicators is really quite important,” he says.

A dual reactive and preventive strategy is especially useful in handling distress, says Nicholas.

“Distress is often caused [either] by external factors or factors that are baked into the nature of the work,” he says. 

“[For example], in my work with KFC group, we continue to see that customer misbehaviour, or customer abuse, is very high across a range of industries – airline industries, customer service industries, quick-service restaurants – and that’s a factor built into the business [which] can cause a lot of distress.”

Instances like this require a preventive approach that aims to tackle the issue at hand – in this case, this might look like more detailed guidance on responding to customer abuse. Meanwhile, external factors that are outside the employer’s control can be dealt with only via a reactive strategy.

3. Gather the right information in the right way

While generic and infrequent surveys were once the extent of many organisations’ efforts to measure wellness and inclusion, our growing understanding of the multifaceted nature of these concepts calls for a more targeted approach.

Australia Post’s strategy centres around short, sharp and regular pulse surveys to gather feedback from specific groups about specific issues facing their teams, says Brown-Greaves.

“A long, once-a-year survey that tries to do everything is not the way forward. That type of survey [sometimes] becomes a bit gamified, and we’re not really getting the data we need to make good, sound decisions about mental health and wellbeing.

“[You need to] ask your people and ask them in a range of ways, so they’re able to share what they really think about how you’re going on diversity and inclusion.”

4. Balance consistency with individuality

Panellist Dr Ruth Vine, Australia’s first Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Mental Health, explored some of the recent and upcoming government initiatives to ensure a consistent approach to workplace mental health – most significantly, the National Workplace Initiative, an $11.5 million strategy to create an evidence-based framework for workplace mental health and direct employers and workers to find suitable initiatives and resources.

While the goal of the initiative is consistency, this does not mean the initiative is a one-size-fits-all approach, she says.

“It’s important that there are different resources for different groups of people. [For example], we know the health industry is one where there’s particularly high levels of psychological distress and psychological harm, so there have been some specific resources developed for that, one of those being the essential network developed by Black Dog [Institute].”

For the same reason, organisational wellness and inclusion strategies must also acknowledge the unique needs of different cohorts within workforces. 

This was a sentiment that came up again and again throughout the session; the newfound focus on psychosocial hazards has strengthened the link between diversity and inclusion and wellbeing, since psychosocial safety is a key objective in both these areas. 

By ensuring wellbeing is looked at through the lens of DEI, and vice versa, organisations can craft a well-rounded approach that allows wellness and inclusion to be accurately measured and strategically enhanced.

Want to measure your company’s inclusion level? AHRI’s Diversity and Inclusion Maturity Model is a great place to start. Benchmark your efforts and drive lasting change in your workplace.

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