Employee surveys, also known as pulse or culture surveys, can often serve as an early warning system for employers. They reveal work health and safety risks that an employer may not otherwise know about before it’s too late. 

Conducted anonymously, and often by an external organisation, these surveys can uncover a range of issues, from physical safety hazards due to inadequate equipment, to intangible hazards like the psychological impact of high workloads or systemic discrimination and bullying.

While a physical safety hazard that is called out in survey results, such as lack of PPE or dangerous plants or equipment, may be quickly and easily mitigated, psychosocial safety hazards can be harder to address. 

This article offers a practical guide for employers on what to do when employee pulse or culture surveys results indicate psychosocial work health and safety risks in their workplace.  

Australian employer obligations around psychosocial risks

Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of employees is a critical priority for employers. The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth) (WHS Act) and various state and territory laws lay down a robust framework requiring employers (broadly defined in the legislation as “person(s) conducting a business or undertaking”) to ensure a safe working environment for their employees. 

Employers are required to eliminate risks to the health and safety of workers as far as is reasonably practicable. If elimination is not reasonably practicable, employers must minimise those risks as far as is reasonably practicable. 

“Health” is defined as both physical and psychological health, meaning that as part of its primary duty, an employer must manage risks to a worker’s psychological health as far as is reasonably practicable. Some states and territories also now have regulations expressly requiring psychosocial hazards be eliminated or minimised. 

Psychosocial hazards refer to aspects of work and workplace situations that may give rise to a risk of physiological harm caused by the associated stress response. For example: 

• bullying, sexual harassment, and poor workplace relationships 
• high or low job demand and low on-the-job support 
• low job clarity or control, or lack of recognition and reward 
• poor systems of organisational change management, and organisational justice (where policies/decisions are applied unfairly or unequally)
• poor environmental conditions, and remote or isolated work. 

Employers also have obligations under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) and the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) to prevent the psychosocial hazards of sexual harassment and bullying from occurring. Employers can also be vicariously or accessorily liable for sexual harassment and bullying occurring. 

Assessing employee surveys to identify hazards 

Employers must scrutinise survey results for indicators of psychosocial risks. 

Some surveys will directly – but anonymously – allow employees to report disrespectful or toxic behaviour, bullying or sexual harassment. Depending on the structure of the survey, this can be through free-text responses, or targeted agree/disagree statements such as, “I have not experienced bullying or harassment at work” or, “I have witnessed or been subject to conduct of a sexual nature in the workplace”. 

Answers which indicate that the workplace is not free of bullying or harassment will put an employer on notice of a possible hazard that it must address.  

Other indicators of latent, unaddressed psychosocial hazards can be identified via poor scores in response to questions such as: 

• “I am confident I can report issues to my manager, and they will take them seriously.” (May possibly indicate poor organisational justice and possible unreported behavioural, bullying or harassment issues.)
• “I understand how decisions are made about my role and my career progression.” (May possibly indicate low job control, clarity or lack of reward and recognition.) 
• “I think the organisation holds people accountable for their unsatisfactory behaviour and actions.” (May possibly indicate unreported behaviour, bullying or harassment issues.) 
• “My manager allows and encourages me to make decisions and take responsibility for my work.” (May indicate low job control, low job demand and poor workplace relationships.) 

Acting on findings from employee surveys

Results from employee surveys that indicate a psychosocial safety hazard mean that an employer is on notice of possible safety risks. It must then take steps to apply the WHS risk assessment framework. Once a risk is identified, it must be assessed and controlled with measures to mitigate the risk. 

To properly identify and assess the risk, it is particularly important to be able to drill down into department, division, location or manager-level results. Where an employer can do so, it can use the survey results to decide on next steps, and assess and control identified risks more effectively. 

If not, a follow-up survey may be the first step, with more targeted questions and increased ability to filter results and determine areas of the business where psychosocial hazards are an issue.

Otherwise, depending on the scope and nature of the issue, and the extent to which results can be filtered to narrow in on where a problem may exist, we recommend the following identification and assessment measures: 

• HR meets with line managers or supervisors in an identified division or work group to discuss the survey results. HR representatives should be prepared to ask managers specific questions and may need to have hard conversations with managers about why the results are poor. These meetings should be followed up to ensure that managers are taking necessary action as required. 
• Additional monitoring by HR of an identified division or team, including arranging catch ups with members of the team to discuss wellbeing and experiences. 
• Engage experts to conduct wellbeing interviews with members of a team with poor survey results, to gather more specific information about concerns in that team.  
• Engage experts to conduct a culture review investigation by interviewing people throughout the organisation or selected teams to gather information about culture, leadership, organisational justice and misconduct management. 
• Review the practical impact of organisational policies and practices such as performance review processes, grievance handling procedures, remuneration and recognition.  
• Establish employee culture consultation committees or working groups to provide and collate information about psychosocial risks across business units and to provide specific and real-time feedback about how to address issues.   
• Review and promote the organisation’s grievance procedures and reporting mechanisms, including giving assurances about encouraging a “speak up” culture and having a no-tolerance approach to victimisation. 
• Introduce “contact officers” or “go-to” people for workers to report issues outside of the human resources and leadership teams. 
• Roll out training for line managers and supervisors on topics such as leadership, respectful behaviour, psychosocial safety, workload and capacity management and handling complaints. 

Understanding legal professional privilege 

When investigations, culture reviews, wellbeing interviews or other information gathering is conducted, we recommend seeking legal advice and, if possible, having external counsel conduct or engage culture reviews. This will ensure, as far as possible, that any findings about current psychosocial hazards in the workplace are covered by legal professional privilege* and legal risks can be mitigated confidentiality and effectively. 

In our experience, employers that take these steps following any concerning pulse survey results will be demonstrating compliance with their work health and safety duties. By acting on the early warning signs contained in survey results, employers can more effectively mitigate the risks associated with psychosocial hazards. The practical benefit of this, as well as being legally compliant, is a healthier, safer and more productive workforce, with higher retention rates and a reputation as a great place to work. 

*Legal professional privilege protects confidential communications and confidential documents between a lawyer and the client where they have been made for the dominant purpose of the lawyer providing legal advice or professional legal services to the client (or for use in current or anticipated litigation).

Aaron Goonrey is a Partner and leads the Australian and APAC Employment & Rewards practice at Pinsent Masons. Emma Lutwyche is a Special Counsel and Yuliya Chis is an Associate at Pinsent Masons. The advice in this article is general in nature and does not constitute formal legal advice.

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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.

With productivity pressures growing, many global leaders are investing huge amounts of time and resources on cutting-edge tools to enhance their efficiency, from generative AI to virtual and augmented reality. 

With that said, for leaders to make the most of the opportunities presented by these new tools, they first need to turn their attention to the wellbeing and efficacy of the employees using them, said Dr John Chan, Managing Director at Infinite Potential, during an address at AHRI’s recent NSW State Conference.

“[As leaders], we can’t do all the great things that we want to do and help people unleash their potential if the environment they’re working in is not healthy or sustainable,” he says.

“Look within – look at the policies, the processes, what you’re doing. If you can improve that, you’ll instantly improve [employees’]  activity and quality of life.”

Chan recently co-authored a global report on the state of workplace burnout, which found that almost two in five employees (38 per cent) currently report experiencing burnout – a similar level to last year, and a 27 per cent increase since 2020.

Significantly, the report also uncovered a gap between how managers perceive their people’s wellbeing and how employees themselves reported on their wellbeing.

The report, which surveyed over 2000 participants across 43 countries, found that almost seven in 10 managers (68 per cent) say employees’ wellbeing is the same or better compared to 12 months ago. Meanwhile, 45 per cent of employees said their wellbeing is worse in the same period. 

“There are two reasons that we’re seeing this,” says Chan. “One is that managers are much more likely to be burned out themselves, so they don’t have time to actually [address it]. The other one is about education and training. 

“[Many] managers weren’t trained to look for burnout or stress. They weren’t trained to know how to mitigate these kinds of things. They were promoted because they’re really good at what they do… but they don’t have these abilities.

“If we’re going to put the onus of taking care of people’s wellbeing on managers, we need to make sure they know what to do and have the tools to do that.”

“Look at the way a job is structured or designed, and [ask yourself], ‘Can one person actually do that job within the time allocated? Are they getting paid enough that they can live and not [worry about] the rent?’”  – Dr John Chan, Managing Director at Infinite Potential

Three dimensions of burnout

Part of supporting managers to address burnout is helping them understand what it looks like, says Chan. Many see burnout as simply a synonym of ‘feeling tired’, but the condition is a multifaceted one that must be understood in its entirety in order to be managed effectively, he says. 

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), burnout is “a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” and is characterised by three dimensions: 

1. Exhaustion

Exhaustion can take a number of forms, including physical, mental and emotional depletion. 

Levels of exhaustion often correlate to the volume of an employee’s workload, but can also be exacerbated by factors such as low job control, which can drain employees’ sense of involvement and engagement with their work.

“Exhaustion is the one we all know, and a lot of the time people think burnout stops here,” says Chan. “But if you’re exhausted but love what you’re doing and you’re [achieving] goals, you’re not [necessarily] burned out.”

Rather, burnout is the combination of exhaustion with the other two dimensions, he explains.

2. Cynicism

Employees experiencing burnout often develop a cynical outlook, mentally distancing themselves from their work and their colleagues and approaching tasks with negativity or even callousness.

“When you see people starting to hate their job, hate the people that work with and hate everything about their role…that’s a lot more problematic than the exhaustion piece when we’re trying to fix the situation,” says Chan. 

“Once someone grows that cynicism, it’s a really difficult road [to come back from].”

3. Reduced professional efficacy

This dimension of burnout could involve increases in mistakes and feelings of incompetence, which are often not grounded in truth, says Chan. 

“You might be very capable, but because of burnout, and because of the pressures that you’ve been put under or the culture you’re under, you’re starting to make mistakes and you’re starting to doubt your capabilities,” he says. 

Given that employees experiencing this symptom tend to take longer to complete tasks, it can create a vicious cycle of playing catch-up and lead to a “burnout spiral”, he adds.

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Combating burnout through sustainable work practices

Managing the dimensions of burnout explained above requires transparency and open communication from leaders to ensure employees don’t begin to self-blame, which only exacerbates the issue, says Chan.

“Burnout is not the fault of the individual. It’s not something that they have or haven’t done that has called them to burnout. It’s not that they aren’t good at prioritising. It is chronic workplace stress, and so it’s the structure and culture within the organisation that’s creating this environment.”

Based on Infinite Potential’s research, Chan’s team has devised a five-part framework for creating a sustainable workplace – i.e., a workplace where burnout is less likely to occur. 

The five foundations of a sustainable workplace include personal growth through training and career development, protection from harm and strong connections among teams. 

See the full framework below:

One of the most important aspects of this sustainable workplace model is people-centred structures, says Chan. 

“This has so much to do with an employee’s wellbeing. Look at the way a job is structured or designed, and [ask yourself], ‘Can one person actually do that job within the time allocated? Are they getting paid enough that they can live and not [worry about] the rent?’ [Thinking about] all of these structural things will do much more for wellbeing than other initiatives,” he says. 

While providing career development opportunities to employees whose workloads we are trying to reduce might seem counterintuitive, Chan stresses that these opportunities are essential to give employees a sense of purpose and thus mitigate burnout. 

“They still want to grow. They want to do less work, but to keep growing professionally and as a person. So don’t think that if we want to improve people’s wellbeing, it’s all about just taking stuff away from them,” he says. 

Instead, it’s about providing opportunities for meaningful work and reducing the volume of stress-inducing tasks.

To effectively apply this structure, Chan says employers need to be willing to trial and test sustainable work strategies that work for them. 

“No one knows the right answer. There is not going to be one right way [to approach] the future of work. It’s going to be different within organisations and within teams, and it’s going to change. So be open to experimentation.

“If you’re engaging with people on how you should try something, and [telling them], ‘This is an experiment and it might not go well,’ people really buy into that. So don’t be afraid to try it.”

Learn to design a wellbeing strategy tailored to your organisation’s unique needs with AHRI’s Implementing Wellbeing Initiatives short course.

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HR is an incredibly rewarding profession, tackling some of the most pressing workplace challenges, from navigating and addressing mental health concerns to meeting the high expectations of leaders and employees.

These responsibilities place HR at the core of our organisations, navigating the increasing complexities of today’s ever-evolving business landscape. However, they can also take a toll on HR practitioners’ mental health.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Adam Fraser, peak performance researcher and workplace wellbeing expert, to explore how HR practitioners can care for their own mental health and wellbeing as they tackle complex workplace challenges head on (which can sometimes lead to emotional stress and vicarious trauma). 

In this episode, you’ll learn how Dr Fraser’s research on vicarious trauma in the education sector can be applied to HR practice, along with some valuable, research-backed tips to help manage your mental health. 

Jump to the section that interests you most:

• 6:48 minutes: Dr Fraser shares his research into vicarious trauma among educators.
• 15:20 minutes: The importance of creating debrief spaces for HR.
• 18:35 minutes: How can HR clock that they have vicarious trauma?
• 24:17 minutes: What are the impacts of having resilience levels that are too high?
• 26:55 minutes: The importance of creating a third space.
• 38:06 minutes: Dr Fraser responds to a complex scenario about an HR leader who has been faced with mass layoffs and restructuring and explains how they can manage the vicarious trauma that might arise from this.

Extra resources

For more conversations to inspire HR, listen to season one of Let’s Take This Offline here.

If you’d like further resources to help put Dr Fraser’s insights into action, check out the links below:

• Article: 4 tips to identify and mitigate burnout in HR practitioners
• Article: What is trauma-informed HR and why is it important?
• Short course: Renewing Resilience: Addressing burnout in HR practitioners
• Short course: Trauma-informed HR
• Short course: Implementing Wellbeing Initiatives
• Event: Sign up to AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in Melbourne on 20-22 August to hear more from Dr Adam Fraser.

View the podcast transcript here.

If you need immediate and urgent mental health support, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit their website to start an online chat or text thread.

Subscribe to AHRI’s podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge.

The post Podcast: Supporting HR to manage their own mental health at work appeared first on HRM online.

Over the past week, there have been numerous media reports about the mishandling of sexual harassment and toxic workplace complaints and investigations, alleged cover-ups of senior executive misconduct and unsatisfactory complaint handling within organisations.

This might seem relatively surprising given changing community and business standards, not to mention the recent legislative reforms that place a positive duty on businesses to eliminate, as far as possible, various unlawful behaviours relating to sexual conduct in the workplace or in connection to work. 

If you speak to business leaders, seasoned HR professionals and people managers, they will usually respond by declaring that their organisation has addressed the positive duty and has robust systems for handling sexual harassment and toxic workplace behaviour.

However, this response may be analogous to when some employers previously proclaimed they did not have issues with underpayments of employee wages, only to find out some time later that they had been underpaying employees over many years, albeit, in many cases, unintentionally. 

So, what’s missing? Why does it seem organisations are still getting it wrong?

The Australian Human Rights Commission published guidelines in August 2023 that included practical examples of what employers should proactively be doing to comply with their positive duty to eliminate unlawful sexual behaviour in the workplace. The 112-page guideline makes it clear that it’s simply not enough for organisations to undergo a box-ticking exercise.

The guidelines comprehensively indicate that companies with strong culture and governance can effectively prevent and respond to workplace misconduct by:

• Having clear complaint handling procedures that are well-known within the organisation, so employees feel safe to report unsatisfactory workplace behaviour at an early stage.
• Creating support mechanisms for workers to feel safe and assisted by the organisation in raising issues about unsatisfactory workplace behaviour. For example, this could look like internal support through nominating workers or asking for volunteers to act as contact officers, and creating peer support networks and ensuring they’re trained in receiving disclosures of relevant unlawful conduct and harm. Organisations could also engage external specialist support through work-funded Employee Assistance Programs.   
• Ensuring investigations into allegations of unsatisfactory workplace conduct are undertaken in a fair and consistent manner to provide workers with confidence that their organisation is committed to creating a safe and inclusive work environment.

Below, we provide an overview of what boards, senior managers, HR, legal and risk professionals should be doing at a minimum and offer best-practice tips in relation to complaint handling and investigations to ensure the safety of their workers.  

This should help employers and HR avoid any reputational damage that their organisations may face when these issues are not managed to the high standards now expected by both workers, the government and the broader community. 

Best-practice complaint handling    

While best practice will look different in different businesses, depending on organisation size, operations (e.g. remote or international), HR and employee relations capacity, etc., employers should generally be implementing the following best-practice steps to ensure complaints are handled appropriately:

1. Consult with workers about existing and proposed complaint handling measures within the organisation.    

As persons conducting a business or undertaking, employers must, so far as reasonably practicable, consult with workers (which includes employees, contractors, volunteers and anyone else who carries out work for the business) who are or are likely to be directly affected by a health and safety matter.

Inevitably, many complaints about unsatisfactory workplace behaviour relate to safety matters, including psychosocial hazards.  

In engaging and consulting with workers about complaint handling measures and mechanisms, organisations are able to obtain real and practical knowledge and experience to make improved and informed decisions about how to handle complaints in a safe manner.

2. Implement a workplace policy that sets out the organisation’s complaint handling procedure

The policy should set out in clear, concise and plain language for workers to understand:

1. The who, what, where, why and how of making a complaint or raising a concern (including various options based on the level and rank of the person being complained about and the information required).   
2. That the process will be undertaken as confidentially as possible, explaining that information may need to be disclosed on a need-to-know basis.   
3. That their complaints or concerns will be taken seriously.   
4. What immediate action will be taken by the organisation after a complaint or concern is raised, including expected time frames.   
5. Options available to the worker to ensure their safety and wellbeing (e.g. if required, temporary adjustments to reporting lines, access to leave, etc.).   
6. Informal and formal options available to resolve the complaint where appropriate.   
7. An outline of possible consequences if misconduct in breach of an organisation’s policy or law is found to have occurred    
8. Where workers can provide feedback about the policy.

3. Implement a bystander policy

This policy should set out the organisation’s expectations for workers to report any inappropriate conduct witnessed as a bystander.

4. Regular and continuous communication

Organisations should regularly communicate the existence of relevant policies and procedures to employees and where they are located.

This should not be an exercise limited to the induction and starter packs for new workers, but part of a wider HR strategy to ensure workers are embedded with knowledge about the organisation’s expectations and the rules that govern the workplace.

5. Access to information

The complaint handling policy and procedures should be easily accessible and publicised to all workers (for example, located on the organisation’s intranet, on staff notice boards and provided as part of the welcome pack for new workers). The regular communication, mentioned above, should capture this point.

6. Appropriate training

Provide tailored training to all workers, and separate training specifically designed for managers and those who have people management responsibilities, to ensure they:

1. Understand the obligations they have in the complaint handling procedure.  
2. Equip them with the knowledge and information to discharge their obligations    
3. Know how to respond and/or escalate the matter appropriately, by testing them on the training content.

The training for everyone may be conducted by way of an interactive learning module or workshop that simulates different scenarios and guides decision-making depending on the type and severity of the allegations, and tests employees on the content covered.

Organisations may also like to consider offering mental health first aid training to equip front-line managers with recognising and responding to workers experiencing a mental health crisis arising from workplace conduct experienced or witnessed by workers.

“Communication is key throughout the investigation process to limit prolonged uncertainty and anxiety for all parties involved.”

Best-practice investigations    

Once a complaint or concern has been reported, and the organisation is aware of an issue, appropriate action must be taken by the organisation within a reasonable timeframe, and taking into account its available resources.

This is because there is a potential hazard that the organisation has been made aware of and needs to address promptly. Failing to act swiftly is the equivalent of leaving hazards such as a puddle in the middle of a shopfront, or a loose screw in a piece of machinery, meaning it often becomes too late to act.    

Appropriate action may take the form of a factual investigation to determine whether the allegations are more likely to have occurred than not, on the balance of probabilities, and should involve at least the following steps:

1. Undertake a risk assessment and determine whether any workplace adjustments are required to protect the safety of the complainant, and ensure confidentiality      

Depending on the nature of the allegations and proximity of working relationship between the complainant and the alleged perpetrator, workplace adjustments may need to be made to ensure everyone’s safety while the investigation is being undertaken.

For example, temporarily changing reporting lines, directing one of the parties to work from home or, in serious matters, suspending the alleged perpetrator from work until further notice.

2. Determine whether the investigation will be undertaken internally or by an external/independent party, and select an appropriate investigator

Subject to the seriousness of the allegations, it may be appropriate to conduct the investigation internally, by way of desktop review, etc; or seek legal advice; and/or engage an external third party to conduct the investigation.

Whatever way the matter is to be investigated, the investigator must be impartial, which means the investigator should not have any conflict of interest (either actual or perceived) – such as a former manager or close colleague – with the parties involved in the complaint; and should ideally be trained with undertaking investigations.

3. Communicate next steps clearly      

Communicate appropriately, and as applicable to all relevant parties, that a complaint has been made, who will be undertaking the investigation, what the investigation process will involve – including estimated timeframes – and what some of the potential outcomes could involve. 

This may also involve strategic communications with relevant teams to ensure confidentiality is maintained and the organisation’s commitment to a safe and inclusive workplace environment is highlighted. 

Communication is key throughout the investigation process to limit prolonged uncertainty and anxiety for all parties involved.

It provides assurance to complainants that their complaint is being treated seriously and managed appropriately, and keeps alleged perpetrators abreast of when findings are expected to be made.

4. Review the organisation’s policies and procedures with respect to complaint handling and investigations      

If the organisation has committed to a policy or procedure in relation to how complaint handling and investigations will be undertaken, these must be complied with, as all employees will expect that the process they have been notified about will be followed.

5. Conduct fair and objective interviews with the complainant, all relevant witnesses, and the alleged perpetrator

Give all parties the benefit of the doubt. Everyone involved should be treated in a fair and uniform way. Questions should be prepared in advance so interviewees will be able to tell their side of the story fully. Leading questions such as, “You knew what you were doing was wrong, didn’t you?”, should be avoided as theymmay lead to a biased response.

Where additional witnesses are identified during interviews, care must be taken to determine whether or not they should be spoken to, to ensure all available evidence is collected before any factual findings are made.

6. Record keeping

Keep a clear and comprehensive record of all steps taken, including keeping all interview transcripts, notes and evidence collected.

7. Investigation report

In many instances, the investigator should prepare a report at the conclusion of their enquiries. The report must contain the findings of fact and, if asked by the organisation, make recommendations and/or a determination.

If the investigation has been conducted in order for the organisation to obtain legal advice, the report should only be provided to the ultimate decision-maker(s) and not to any other parties.

8. Findings

The organisation should, after receiving the investigator’s findings, communicate those findings and any decision appropriately to all the parties involved.

The ultimate decision maker should ensure the final decision is proportionate to the findings made. Where adverse findings and outcomes are proposed, the organisation should provide the alleged perpetrator with the opportunity to respond before a final decision is made.

 This ensures the alleged perpetrator is given a procedurally fair process to provide any additional information that may not have been disclosed and could therefore impact the findings and outcome proposed.

What should HR do next? 

It’s clear that workers and the wider community are increasingly placing a higher standard on businesses and organisations to provide a safe and inclusive work environment. 

Accordingly, it’s more important than ever that organisations review their governance structure to ensure they have an effective ‘prevention and response plan’.

Such plans should include adequate complaint handling systems and ensuring workplace investigations are conducted correctly.

 As has been seen recently, failure to do so has far-reaching consequences, not only in damaging the organisation’s reputation with the public, but internally damaging workplace culture and creating a loss of trust in leadership, which will take significant time and resources to repair, if they are, indeed, repairable at all. 

Aaron Goonrey is a Partner and leads the Australian Employment & Rewards practice at Pinsent Masons and Jessica Park is an Associate at Pinsent Masons. The advice in this article is general in nature and does not constitute formal legal advice.

Need help brushing up on HR laws and compliance? AHRI’s short course will give you an understanding of the key elements of legislation, regulation and practices HR needs to be across.

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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.

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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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