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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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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• Psychosocial hazards are eroding employee mental health and wellbeing.
• Psychosocial safety is an organisational culture issue and not just about compliance.
• Organisations must assess cultural risk, hold leaders accountable and support managers.

Register FREE for a Gallup webinar where experts will deep dive into this topic which is reaching crisis point in Australian workplaces.

Australian workplaces are facing a serious mental health crisis. A growing number of employees are exposed to psychosocial hazards that increase their risk of developing work-related psychological injuries. 

Mental health conditions contributed an increasing proportion of work-related injuries and illnesses in Australia in 2021-22, accounting for 9 per cent of all serious work-related claims – a rise of nearly 37 per cent since 2017-18. Psychosocial hazards create a toxic workplace environment that erodes employee relationships and provokes harmful behaviours. 

The impact of this is devastating. Nearly half of Australia’s workforce experienced workplace bullying, harassment, or discrimination in 2023, according to an Australian Workers Union (AWU) study, resulting in a sharp rise in psychological injury claims. 

In addition to the damaging effect on employees, the cost to the Australian economy due to rising psychological and psychosocial injury claims is estimated to be as high as A$39.9 billion annually. Further, lost productivity due to mental health injury claims is more than four times that of all injury and disease claims: Safe Work Australia’s 2024 Psychological health and safety in the workplace report found that the median time lost due to mental health conditions was 34.2 working weeks per serious claim, compared with 8.0 weeks per serious claim for all injuries and diseases.

Of course, toxic workplaces that engender psychosocial hazards exist everywhere, not just in Australia. More than one in five employees globally — 23 per cent — have experienced some form of violence or harassment at work, according to a 2022 ILO-Lloyd’s Register Foundation-Gallup survey.

Psychosocial hazards are facets of the workplace that potentially cause psychological injury and undermine employee mental health. Sadly, these hazards are often part of the day-to-day employee experience and include things such as lack of role clarity, unrealistic job demands, poor manager support, harmful colleague relationships, inadequate reward and recognition or a poor physical environment.

Leaders urgently need to deal with this mounting crisis. They and their organisations have both a duty of care and a vested interest to ensure their workplaces promote psychosocial safety and enhance the engagement and wellbeing of employees. In addition to suppressing harassment and other abusive behaviour, their organisations will benefit from improved employee retention and better collaboration, innovation and productivity. 

Four ways leaders can contribute to psychosocially safe workplaces

Governments in Australia and other countries are acting to get in front of this issue by implementing workplace policies aimed at ensuring psychosocial safety in much the same way as physical health and safety. 

“Under model work health and safety laws, psychosocial hazards and risks are treated the same as physical hazards and risks,” says Marie Boland, CEO of Safe Work Australia, a government agency that has published its Code of Practice to help identify areas of risk that undermine psychosocial safety in the workplace.

But this is not just a compliance issue: It’s also an organisational culture issue. A healthy culture is essential for both psychosocial safety and performance. 

So, what should leaders do?

1. Assess cultural risk

Culture is arguably an organisation’s most valuable asset, and one that is not easily replicated by competitors. Organisations should manage culture like they do other assets by regularly assessing its value, managing risk and ensuring it delivers a satisfactory return. Regularly assessing critical dimensions of an organisation’s culture such as ethics, diversity and inclusion, trust in leadership and wellbeing will reveal areas of cultural strength, as well as highlighting factors that may be early warning signs of psychosocial risks in the workplace. 

Gallup’s research on culture has identified 10 thematic dimensions that can be measured and benchmarked, which promote workplace ethics and integrity, employee wellbeing and a culture of inclusion, and are predictive of performance outcomes. Scanning culture across these 10 Culture Asset Index dimensions brings into sharp focus a precise picture of an organisation’s cultural health, and pinpoints where and in which dimensions there are potential risks that need to be addressed.

2. Drive accountability for leaders

Leaders are the de facto owners of their organisation’s culture. Every action they take is watched closely by everyone in the organisation, so they must be role models of psychological safety and demonstrate desired behaviours to managers and front-line employees. They should constantly ask themselves: Are our employees better off psychologically as a result of working here? If not, how can I be a role model for the organisation to ensure they are? Leaders should understand how their own strengths and style are perceived by their teams as they develop, engage and inspire performance.  

Leaders’ words and actions carry great significance for the people in their organisation and should clearly illustrate how they live and promote culture and values. For example, if a core value is “ethics and integrity”, leaders need to demonstrate ethical behaviour and integrity in every action and decision they make. They also need to hold themselves and others accountable for adhering to the organisation’s values and upholding psychological safety in the workplace. 

3. Equip and support managers

Front-line managers are essential to team engagement, performance and wellbeing. They also play a huge role in establishing an environment of trust and mutual respect within their teams. 

Employees need to feel their manager takes an interest in and cares about them – both as a member of the team and as a person. Managers can demonstrate this to their reports by having frequent, ongoing conversations with them about their individual concerns and ambitions. For some managers this comes naturally, but many need training, tools and support to transition from boss to coach. 

One practical step that organisations can take is to assist front-line managers to have weekly meaningful conversations with each member of their team. These can start with three simple questions: How are you going? How’s your work going? What support do you need? 

When managers take the time to connect regularly by having a one-to-one conversation with everyone on their team, it demonstrates they care and helps establish an environment of mutual trust — an essential element of psychosocial safety. By asking these questions, managers invite team members to share concerns about aspects of their day-to-day experience that are important to them such as workload, goal clarity, colleague relationships, or materials and equipment. This reinforces trust between managers and employees and allows managers to discover potential psychosocial hazards.

4. Create a culture of psychosocial safety — and performance

It’s hard to overstate the impact of culture on psychosocial health and safety, and why it’s essential that organisations assess their culture to identify and mitigate risk factors. But the good news is that a culture of psychosocial safety also benefits organisations through higher employee engagement. 

“Proactively managing psychosocial hazards at work not only protects workers,” says Boland. “It also benefits businesses by improving organisational performance and productivity.”

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Since the introduction of new employer responsibilities to foster psychosocial safety at work, the concept of workplace wellbeing has taken on new dimensions.

Employers and their people are increasingly aware that workplace mental health initiatives cannot be confined to once-a-year workshops; instead, they must be woven into every aspect of organisational strategy, from change management to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) – and that needs to start from the top.

In response to greater emphasis placed on managing psychosocial risks in the workplace, some organisations have opened the doors of the C-Suite to a new role: the Chief Mental Health Officer (CMHO).

One such organisation is Australia Post (AusPost). Last year, the company appointed its inaugural CMHO, Simon Brown-Greaves, who has since facilitated a wide range of wellbeing frameworks to support the diverse needs of AusPost’s 60,000+ employees.

“I was very fortunate to come in when the team had [already] done a huge amount of work on the mental health strategy,” says Brown-Greaves. “I was really pleased to see so many initiatives around the business. I [also] could not have asked for a better and more supportive leadership group.”

Brown-Greaves will be speaking at AHRI’s upcoming Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Conference on 31 October about the mechanics of a top-down mental health strategy and its intersections with diversity and inclusion.

Enhancing psychosocial safety from the top down 

While few employers would dispute the importance of workplace mental health in driving success, research suggests wellbeing may still be too far down on most leaders’ to-do lists; according to a report from Job Access, mental health inaction is costing Australian businesses almost $11 billion per year.

“We know there are high levels of psychological distress in the community, especially in young people and particular population groups,” says Ruth Vine, Australia’s first Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Mental Health, who will be speaking alongside Brown-Greaves at AHRI’s DEI conference.

“We also know the impacts of COVID-19 are still being felt, and workplaces have changed for many. Understanding and responding to these issues is critical.”

Navigating organisational transformation in the aftermath of the pandemic has been one of the central objectives of Australia Post’s mental health strategy in the past few years. After serious disruption to its workforce triggered by COVID-19, bushfires and floods, AusPost saw an opportunity to implement a holistic risk management strategy to support its frontline staff. 

“It’s all about providing meaningful work for people, however they identify and [whatever] their inclusion needs are.” – Simon Brown-Greaves, Chief Mental Health Officer at Australia Post

The initiative launched to address this challenge, the WorkEsteem program, involved the establishment of a people and culture psychological health and safety working group, bringing individuals together from HR, wellbeing and OH&S teams – a strategy recognising the value of an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to psychosocial safety. 

These teams worked collaboratively to identify lead workplace indicators that might predict psychosocial risks. They then followed a staged approach to manage these risks through proactive and reactive surveying, action plan development and evaluation mechanisms.

“This program is a very evidence-based approach to helping local areas understand what their requirements are and what they need to do to make themselves as psychologically safe as they can possibly be,” says Brown-Greaves.

The success of the program ultimately led to Australia Post receiving the Workplace Mental Health Award at last year’s AHRI Awards. The program is still in place today, and the response from those involved has been overwhelmingly positive, he says.

“People just relish the opportunity to stop, reflect, analyse and really think about what they need to do collectively to improve the quality of workplace relationships and get on top of things that might be having a negative impact on the wellbeing of the team.”

The intersection of mental health and DEI

When it comes to psychological safety, Brown-Greaves points out mental health initiatives have many of the same objectives as DEI strategies.

“It’s all about providing meaningful work for people, however they identify and [whatever] their inclusion needs are. And that dovetails beautifully into the idea that inclusive workplaces, where people feel confident to express their views and be themselves, tend to be psychologically safe workplaces.”

Because of this, it’s crucial for organisations to consider their mental health strategies in the context of their DEI strategies, and vice versa.

“We have a mental health council at Australia Post which consists of internal and external key stakeholders, and our diversity and inclusion team are part of that mental health council, which means we’re in each other’s pockets on a day-to-day basis,” he says.

One of the benefits of entwining DEI and mental health is the possibility of merging employee data sets for a more well-rounded perspective on issues facing the workforce.

“Integrating all of those data sets into an overarching performance metric is really important. We also do a quite substantial engagement and opinion [survey] on a regular basis… We ask specific questions about people’s sense of inclusion, participation and engagement. 

“That informs where our gaps might be, or where we’ve got parts of the business that need different levels of attention or support when it comes to issues around both mental health and diversity and inclusion.

“If we, for example, had a downturn in a workplace in terms of their feelings of psychological safety, or their feelings of inclusion, you can be reasonably sure that will be correlated with other needs or other issues that will need attention.”

Dr Vine has also noted a trend towards organisations taking a more holistic approach like this to mental health.

“In general, I think there is recognition of the value add of including a range of views and perspectives into the workplace at all levels,” she says. 

She suggests organisations break down the various facets of DEI before they consider their correlation to mental health.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion are all important considerations. My advice would be to consider them separately. They each encompass different aspects of our expectations of workplaces and indeed of our broader expectations of the society in which we live.”

For instance, a workforce comprising individuals from different ethnic backgrounds, age groups and genders (diversity) can be a driver of high psychological safety, but this might not be the case if certain employees are facing obstacles in career advancement and fair compensation (equity) or feel excluded or unheard in decision-making processes (inclusion). 

By analysing these distinct areas, employers can more easily identify pain points that could be hindering employees’ sense of psychological safety.

According to Brown-Greaves, the outcomes of both mental health and DEI initiatives are often dictated by the extent to which employees can relate to them.

“The key to success is [getting] the engagement of the broader workforce and, secondly, making sure the focus is on real jobs, meaningful work, and treating and enabling people to be part of the team,” he says.

“We’ve got so many workplaces where our team members are so proud of both the brand and the work they do, and the way in which they’re inclusive of people who may struggle to find meaningful work in other environments. We have a great deal of pride around the business in enabling that.”

There’s still time to register for AHRI’s virtual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion conference on 31 October and hear from Simon Brown-Greaves, Ruth Vine and more. Register today.

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Whether directly or indirectly, mental health is an issue that affects us all. 

It’s estimated that over two in five Australians aged 16-85, or 8.6 million people, experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life, with one in five (or 4.2 million) having experienced a mental disorder in the last 12 months. Mental ill-health costs the Australian economy tens of billions every year.

Each year, R U OK? Day reminds us that a conversation can change a life, and every day is the right day to check in on your peers, colleagues and loved ones who might be struggling with their mental health. 

With the introduction of a new Code of Practice to manage psychosocial risks at work earlier this year, it’s all the more crucial that mental health ranks highly on leaders’ priority lists. High levels of psychosocial safety at work make it easier for employees to speak up and ask for help when they need it, and to check in on others who don’t seem themselves.

If you’re looking for ways to boost the psychosocial safety of your workplace, use the infographic below to guide you through common hazards, management strategies and tips to assess your people’s safety.

How to design a psychologically safe workplace

Download the infographic here.

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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In the last six months, psychosocial safety has transformed from a relatively obscure concept to one of leaders’ top workplace priorities. 

The introduction of a new Code of Practice to manage psychosocial hazards earlier this year has prompted many organisations to reconsider their responsibilities when it comes to workforce wellbeing. 

This newfound focus on employees’ mental health could not have come soon enough. In a recent report by the Leaders Lab in collaboration with AHRI, almost two in three workers (64 per cent) reported feeling burned out at work, and fewer than one in five reported high levels of psychological safety at work. 

“[The new legislation] is about acknowledging that many of our jobs have multiple hazards in them, and [thinking about] how we are going to navigate these with more care for ourselves and each other as we go about our roles at work,” said Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab and the Leaders Lab, in her address at AHRI’s 2023 National Convention and Exhibition last month.

According to the Leaders Lab’s research, some of the most common psychosocial hazards experienced by employees include harassment, poor supervisor support, unachievable job demands and inadequate reward and recognition. 

Interestingly, the top source of psychosocial risk cited by survey respondents was a lack of role clarity. This could indicate that employees are in need of clearer and more frequent communication from managers, but are hesitant to reach out and ask for it.

This is a tricky issue to address, said McQuaid, given that we are not naturally inclined to be vulnerable and share our struggles and concerns with others for fear of blame or judgement.

“We spend all of our day in that state of heightened anxiety about what other people are thinking about us,” she said. “What did they say about us? How are they judging us? How is that impacting our job security, our career prospects?

“The idea that we might be a little vulnerable, a little embarrassed, a little out of our comfort zone or perhaps being judged by somebody else actually lights up the same parts in our brain as though [we had fallen] off a scooter and fractured our elbow. It’s painful.”

In order to effectively identify and address the psychosocial hazards that employees are experiencing, leaders have a responsibility to cultivate an environment where hazards are collaboratively recognised and handled. This requires helping your people shift from a blame culture to a culture of curiosity.

Shifting away from blame culture

In our fast-paced, hyperconnected world, the workplace has become more than just a physical space where we perform tasks; it’s a complex ecosystem of social interactions, expectations and, unfortunately, judgements. 

“Our brains are natural judging machines, especially when it comes to our social interactions, to try to keep us safe and avoid pain. So we tend to rush to mind-read each other, and we leap to conclusions about what people are thinking, feeling and doing rather than slowing down and asking questions,” said McQuaid.

As a result of this, faced with the reality of the mental health hazards facing their employees, leaders might instinctively look for a scapegoat to ‘blame’ for their presence. 

However, McQuaid stresses that there should be no shame or finger-pointing in flagging and managing these hazards, since the fact that they exist is not necessarily a sign of intent or negligence on the part of the employer. What’s more, all employees, including leaders and HR, are subject to these psychosocial risks. Therefore, managing them needs to be an open and collaborative process to be successful.

To aid this process, McQuaid and her team have leveraged their research to identify four management behaviours that can lead to blame culture, and the changes they can make to promote psychosocial safety:

This visual was adapted from Michelle McQuaid’s NCE presentation on the Leaders Lab research. View the full report here.

“As leaders, I think we have to lead the way and show that vulnerability is going to be valued and appreciated,” she said.

Cultivating shared accountability

With their new responsibilities to manage psychosocial safety coinciding with a slew of other legal reforms and changes to the way we work, it’s no surprise that our time-poor leaders are grappling with mental health issues of their own.

According to the report, 69 per cent of leaders reported feeling burned out, compared to 54 per cent of team members. What’s more, 91 per cent of these leaders reported they had been feeling burned out for some time or longer.

“Our brains are natural judging machines, especially when it comes to our social interactions, to try to keep us safe and avoid pain.” – Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab and the Leaders Lab

This makes it all the more crucial to ensure that psychosocial safety is looked at through an organisation-wide lens.

“There is a systems lens and a collective responsibility,” says McQuaid. “While the code is clear that ultimately the organisation is going to be considered [accountable for] doing everything reasonably practicable, at the end of the day we all want to go to work, do good work with good people and go home feeling [good]. So, psychological safety needs to happen at a ‘me’, ‘we’ and ‘us’ level.”

The ‘me, we, us’ framework was devised by Dr. Aaron Jarden, Associate Professor at Melbourne University. The framework breaks down the micro- and macro-interventions needed across the organisation to support wellbeing, as follows:

1. The ‘me’ level. 

The ‘me’ level focuses on the individual employees and the things they can do at a personal level to improve their wellbeing.

These tend to require little, if any, resources from their organisation. For example, it might include conducting self-care activities outside of work. 

“When we feel safe within ourselves, we’re much more likely to also feel safe with others,” said McQuaid.

2. The ‘we’ level.

This level centres around the relationships between people in the workplace. It might be an employee’s relationship with their manager, their team or others they interact with on a regular basis. 

By fostering high-quality connections within these relationships, HR can create a culture where employees feel safe to come forward to express concerns or ask for support. Strengthening these connections can also mitigate against ‘blame culture’ by creating a sense of shared responsibility to guard psychosocial safety.

3. The ‘us’ level. 

The ‘us’ level refers to a whole-of-organisation approach. This may involve doing a wellbeing or culture audit and committing resources to establish organisation-wide mental health initiatives. 

Leaders should remember that, although there are measures that individuals and teams can take to support their wellbeing, the buck stops with them when it comes to tackling psychosocial hazards. Simply encouraging employees to practice self-care is not enough to satisfy legal requirements and the emotional needs of the workforce. Instead, they should focus on creating a process where employees feel safe to help the organisation help them.

“Psychological safety is simply that shared belief that it’s safe to speak out, to take risks, to learn alongside each other,” said McQuaid.

“It’s our willingness to be candid and vulnerable with each other and the belief that that is going to be valued, respected and reciprocated, rather than punished.”

Want to upskill your entire team in Mental Health First Aid? AHRI’s short course is designed to equip your team with these critical skills.

The post How HR can elevate psychosocial safety by shifting away from ‘blame culture’ appeared first on HRM online.

This week’s AHRI National Convention and Exhibition (NCE) was packed with inspiring speakers, thought-provoking discussions and actionable insights. 

On day one, speakers explored the various ways that HR and leaders are redesigning work for the better. Day two saw a deep-dive into the meaning of modern leadership, with experts sharing innovative and disruptive ways to lead, as well as insights into using AI in the workplace, disruptive HR practices and more.

The final day of the Convention was dedicated to the public sector, but plenty of the valuable insights shared held relevance for attendees from the private and not-for-profit sectors as well.

Here are four highlights from the day.

1. Why employers need to foster a digital-first mindset

“Don’t just do digital, be digital.”

This is a mantra that HR needs to carry into the future of work, says David Guazzarotto, Pacific Leader of Digital HR and Technology Advisory at Mercer Workforce Solutions.

Currently, research estimates that by 2025, 85 million jobs will be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines. What’s more, 50 per cent of employees will require reskilling before 2025.

Guazzarotto’s NCE address on fostering a digital-first mindset underscored the necessity of a comprehensive and unified digital strategy. An approach like this can arm our workforces with agility and resilience while equipping them with the tools they need to thrive in the age of digital disruption.

Organisations are putting the full force of investment behind the rush to adopt these tools, he says; around $11.5bn is spent annually on HR technology, according to research. 

However, despite the hefty investments poured into these tools, only 15 per cent of the 700 technologies studied in the same research met their objectives. What’s more, only 11 per cent were found to have improved the employee experience. 

“Despite the opportunities technology presents, we are still seeing high levels of dissatisfaction with it. But is technology really the issue?” 

Rather than the tech itself, Guazzarotto says that employee sentiment is driven by how HR designs, implements and adapts these tools.

“Nothing will change unless we change,” he says.

“Don’t just do digital, be digital.” – David Guazzarotto, Pacific Leader of Digital HR and Technology Advisory at Mercer Workforce Solutions

In order to create a digital-first culture where employees feel empowered by technology rather than threatened by it, Guazzarotto recommends driving four shifts in HR’s mindset towards these tools. 

To foster a digital-first mindset, HR needs to go: 

1. From executing tasks and being reactive to being a strategic partner at for the business.
2. From letting customers navigate complex processes and contact points to designing intuitive and positive user experiences.
3. From being buried in administrative work and creating unstandardised reports to leveraging technology and making data-driven decisions.
4. From operating in a strict hierarchical structure in a traditional work model to role modelling new and more agile ways of working.

Guazzarotto says implementing these shifts will allowsHR to put people back at the heart of their digital strategy, making work easier and better by intentionally designing frictionless experiences with technology. 

2. How to make your employer brand work harder

Have you ever tried to attract talent for a role by telling people they’ll have the chance to have a ‘strong purpose’ and ‘make a difference’? Mark Puncher, CEO of Employer Branding Australia, wants you to take a different approach.

“Purpose isn’t enough. It’s about how they contribute to make a difference,” he says. 

It’s about deeply understanding what your people love about their work and communicating that value proposition to potential candidates.

He demonstrates this by telling the story of a disability support worker who was asked why she was in this field of work. At first, she gave the stock-standard and expected answer, ‘To make a difference’, but then, when prompted to elaborate, she got to the heart of it.

“We asked her, ‘What does a good day look like for you?’ And this disability support worker, who is on pretty rubbish pay in a very, very hard job paused and said, ‘Well, last Tuesday my client learned how to use a fork for the first time.’ And this was a goal they’d been working on together for two years.”

These are the types of stories you need to tell as part of your talent attraction strategy, says Puncher.

As he was addressing a crowd of predominantly public sector workers, a sector that often attracts people who feel they have a calling to serve their community, Puncher noted that it can be difficult to move beyond the ‘purpose and value’ messaging when trying to attract talent. So he encouraged them to think about it in a slightly different manner.

“The key to a public sector value proposition is to ask the question, ‘Why is it public in the first place?’ There’s a reason why what you do isn’t governed by a corporate [entity]. If you want to compete with corporates, start getting [talent] excited about the reason why you are public.”

He also suggested avoiding the approaches that all your competitors are taking.

“Get rid of all the stock imagery – show your real employees, that’s much more effective. Get rid of all the nonsense. And stop saying you’re a values-driven organisation. Most organisations are. 

“It’s like when organisations say, ‘We welcome applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’. All of us really need, and could benefit from, the lived experience and perspectives of First Nations people.

“When you say, ‘We are an equal opportunities employer’. Do you know what that means? Our lawyers told us to write this. Change your job ads…  just say what you really mean.”

3. Hone your strategies to manage psychosocial risk

Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work is not just a Code of Practice; it’s the right thing to do, said Greg Vines, CEO of Comcare, during an NCE deep-dive on psychosocial risk.

Vines spoke alongside Dr Michelle McQuaid, author and founder of The Wellbeing Lab, and Kathryn Dent CAHRI, Partner at HWL Ebsworth Lawyers, about employers’ new and evolving obligations concerning psychosocial safety.

A new Code of Practice, which was introduced in July 2023, requires employers to proactively manage risks to their employees’ wellbeing, positioning it as a core directive.

According to McQuaid, this directive can be distilled into three essential steps:

1. Identifying and assessing hazards by developing a comprehensive understanding of the potential wellbeing risks facing your workforce.
2. Implementing controls by translating insights into practical actions to mitigate psychosocial risks.
3. Reviewing controls. A cyclical process of evaluation and adjustment ensures the ongoing effectiveness of the measures.

On the ground, leaders must be vigilant in spotting immediate threats, engaging in secure dialogues with their teams and adapting their strategies based on the specific needs of the organisation, she says. 

Instead of being fixated on procedural steps and compliance, Vines advocates for a holistic strategy that places emphasis on openness and transparency. This will enable employers to meet their legal obligations without losing the human element in a sea of policies and procedures.

“It very much comes down to the culture of workplaces, and [creating] a culture that promotes good psychosocial health,” he says.

“The key is to create an environment where staff themselves can come forward, because the best way of avoiding these risks is for them to put their hand up and say, ‘This isn’t right for me.’ Then you can take affirmative action.”

From a legal perspective, this is a more effective, efficient and human process than waiting for employees to engage a Safe Work officer because a breach has occurred, but they don’t feel safe to raise it, says Dent.

“The more people speak up about it, the more it becomes an acceptable practice,” she says.

In order to successfully adopt this approach, the panellists put forward the ‘LEAD framework’, ​​a four-step model designed to facilitate effective psychosocial risk management:

L: Build literacy. Having a shared language and understanding around psychosocial safety can help enable open conversations about the risks.

E: Invest in evaluation. Gather timely, actionable insights to support learning and the evolution of your strategy.

A: Boost activation. Share evidence-based tools to help enact behavioural change.

D: Sustain determination. Generate the social support you need to sustain energy and motivation.

By adopting this framework and acknowledging the intricacy and subjectivity of psychosocial safety, leaders can create an environment that safeguards their people’s wellbeing while upholding their legal and ethical obligations.

4. What’s on the horizon for talent and wages?

The economy is in a slow period. Employees’ incomes have not kept pace with the prices of goods and services, and real wages aren’t increasing to compensate, said David Rumbens, Partner at Deloitte Access Economics.

“We haven’t actually seen an interest rate hiking cycle as sharp as this one in an entire generation – both as quickly as they’ve happened and for the amount of rises there have been.

“This is a business cycle challenge. We’ve got some challenges in the economy that are more structural, but this is a cyclical challenge. And in some respects, we’ve seen it before. Prices go up, interest rates are used to reduce price pressure and that flattens the economy.”

With many are feeling the impacts of this sluggish economy, the question on everyone’s lips was: ‘Will we experience a recession?’

“Probably not, is the short answer. But it is still quite painful for many in the community. And we’ve effectively had a recession in certain industries, such as the retail sector, over the past few months,” he said.

However, according to Rumbens, the good news is that inflation levels have peaked, and he predicts that we will have real wage growth again from mid-2024.

“That’s a little bit because wages are going up, but it’s mostly because prices have come down,” he says. “It’s an unusual economic downturn. Normally, we would see the economy slow, unemployment go up by a significant margin and for it to become harder for people to get jobs.”

While Rumbens notes that it’s one of the key objectives in public policy to achieve full employment in a downturn, that’s not necessarily reflective of a strong labour market in other respects.

He cites Deloitte research, which shows the top concerns for chief financial officers over the next twelve months. Securing and retaining talent came out as the top concern by far (71 per cent), followed by inflation (51 per cent) and Australia’s economic slowdown (47 per cent).

“When we ran a survey in January this year, the message [from CFOs] was, ‘The economy looks terrible, but our business is okay.’ When we ran the same survey last month, they said, ‘The economy looks bad, but now it’s starting to hurt us.’ And cost-control measures were introduced.

“But even in an environment of near-recession and with all this community pain, the number one risk for private sector CFOs is still securing and retaining key talent.”

Speaking on a talent acquisition panel on day two of AHRI’s Convention, Michael Bradfield, Director of Talent Acquisition – Global Tech, Digital and DNA at adidas, raised this very issue.

“[Global mobility] should be towards the top of employers’ strategies – specifically for this geography,” said Bradfield.

“We haven’t actually seen an interest rate hiking cycle as sharp as this one in an entire generation.” – David Rumbens, Partner at Deloitte Access Economics

When Bradfield previously spoke with HRM, he said, “We’ve lost a lot of really good knowledge out of this country and we’re left with a residual base at the moment. This is leaving a lot of organisations pretty short on what they can get. This means they’re not operating to their full potential.”

The answer to this, he says, is to create comprehensive global mobility strategies to bring critical skills into the Australian market. However, his fellow panellist, Hayley Lock MAHRI, Partner at KPMG, says in order for this to work, Australia needs to position itself more strategically at a policy level to attract more talent from overseas.

“I think we’ve lost a bit of ground internationally in terms of destination of choice when people are looking at relocating their lives at the moment. There seems to be a much stronger interest in a permanent style of relocation and things like permanent residency are highly valued.

“The beaches aren’t enough anymore. We really need something more behind that and we need an immigration system that is going to support that.”

She says there are some positive government changes happening in terms of making it easier for skilled migrants to arrive in Australia via inter-company transfers, focusing on international students and increasing pathways to permanent residency, but more needs to be done.

What delegates had to say

And that’s a wrap on the final day of AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition 2023. We will be sharing more content over the coming weeks, but for now, listen to some of the insightful comments from some of this year’s delegates.

The post Rethinking talent attraction and crafting employer brands that resonate appeared first on HRM online.

Despite its laid-back reputation, Australia is currently one of the most stressed-out countries in the world.

According to a recent report by global analytics firm Gallup, 48 per cent of Australians reported high levels of stress at work in 2022, making them the second most stressed workers globally (alongside New Zealand).

A concrete strategy to tackle workplace stress is no longer a nice-to-have. Following the introduction of a new Code of Practice for managing workplace psychosocial hazards earlier this year, employers now have a positive duty to address the risk of stress and other mental health issues at work.

Stress is not only one of the most significant risks to employee mental health, but also one of the most costly to employers.

According to Safe Work Australia, mental stress is the most common reason for serious workplace injury claims related to mental health, resulting in over 11,000 claims from 2020-21 alone.

When considering the best strategy to manage workplace stress, it’s important to remember that not all stress is created equal. Research shows that there are both healthy and unhealthy forms of stress.

‘Bad stress’, or distress, is what most of us picture when we think about feeling stressed. It tends to occur when we are in overwhelming or anxiety-inducing situations that feel out of our control. Bad stress tends to be a long-term issue, and can be severely detrimental to energy levels, engagement and overall wellbeing.

‘Good stress’, or eustress, is a positive form of short-term stress that we experience when we feel motivated and enthusiastic about something. This type of stress is not only useful but critical in helping us deal with challenging situations, says Dr Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab and upcoming speaker at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August.

“Without good stress, we don’t learn and we don’t grow,” she says.

“Good stress is our body’s way of letting us know that something that matters to us is on the line, and it needs a bit more of our attention and energy and effort to get the outcome that we want. It makes us feel uncomfortable and anxious so we pay attention to what is happening.”

By understanding the causes and effects of good and bad stress, HR can effectively manage risks to wellbeing without compromising motivation and productivity.

Good versus bad stress

To determine whether the stress we are experiencing is healthy or unhealthy, it’s important to understand how our bodies naturally respond to stressors, says McQuaid.

“The cortisol hormone [associated with the ‘fight-or-flight’ response] gets aroused with stress,” she says. “When stress is unhealthy, it tends to be the accumulation of too much cortisol over too long a period of time, and too much cortisol impairs our memory and tends to cause us to want to isolate ourselves from others.

“But cortisol is not the only hormone that gets triggered when we have a stress response. There’s a whole cocktail of hormones, and some of them are very healthy.”

One of these positive hormones is adrenaline, she explains. When our adrenaline levels go up, our heart rate increases and we feel more alert and energised. This can help us approach work in a more productive and detail-oriented way.

“Good stress is our body’s way of letting us know that something that matters to us is on the line.” – Dr Michelle McQuaid, Founder, The Wellbeing Lab

Another hormone triggered as part of our stress response is dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), which McQuaid describes as ‘like Miracle Gro for our wellbeing’. Studies have shown that DHEA acts to moderate the stress response, and that a person’s DHEA-cortisol ratio correlates to their tolerance for stress. 

“Oxytocin [the hormone associated with love, empathy and trust] can also be stimulated through our stress response,” says McQuaid. “That’s when we feel like we’re going to look after each other through a hard time and get to the other side of it as a team.”

Whether this hormonal reaction to stress feels positive or negative often comes down to whether or not we feel in control of our situation, she says.

“When we feel able to respond to [a situation] in a way that turns it into a challenge, a learning opportunity or an opportunity to ask for help from others and create connections, then that stress is more likely to lead to good outcomes for our growth and development.

“When that stress feels overwhelming for us and we feel it’s out of our control and we can’t have an impact on it, it isolates us and cuts us off from other people. That’s when stress is likely to become unhealthy.”

How can employers encourage a culture of good stress?

The fact that healthy stress can be a force for good at work does not mean that employers should go out of their way to pile up their employees with challenging work to drive better productivity and innovation, says McQuaid. Instead, the key to a culture of good stress is ensuring that the stress comes from a meaningful place.

“Meaningful stress means meaningful learning and growth,” she says.

“[We need to ask], ‘What are the things that are actually helping us learn and grow towards our shared goals? As a team, what are we trying to figure out together?’ That way, the stress and anxiety that might come with that actually feels like it has a higher purpose.”

Read HRM’s article ‘How to push employees (without pushing them too far)’.

In order to ensure that there is a meaningful purpose behind stress, she suggests a number of proactive strategies employers can use:

1. Set learning targets as well as performance targets.

“If we’re going to have that learning culture in an organisation, we need to set learning goals. Performance goals can often feel really stressful, because some of it’s in our control, and sometimes it’s not. Whereas learning goals tend to reflect the effort. 

“We’re not suggesting for a moment that we get rid of all performance goals. But when we have learning goals, those are the things that tend to feel within our control.”

2. Normalise stress and struggle.

“Stress and struggle are a part of learning and growth. [Talking about] what’s working well right now, what we are learning and what we can build on helps lower our stress and builds our confidence, because it normalises the fact that we all struggle as part of learning and growth. And we don’t need to be ashamed of it.” 

3. Reflect on past experiences and challenges.

“[Managers] should be helping teams think about where we’ve been stressed or struggled in the past, how we got through that and whether we could use the same strategy now. 

“It’s also important to ask, ‘Why was it worth it?’ Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a stressful moment, and you think, ‘This isn’t worth it,’ remembering that you’ve gotten through hard things before and what you gained from that can also help make that stress meaningful.”

Our stress response is determined by two factors, says McQuaid: our internal mindset and our external circumstances. Employers can take steps to help coach their employees in stress management to help them reframe their attitude, but the onus cannot be put solely on the employee to manage their stress levels.

“To a large extent, yes, our stress response is within our control,” she says.

“However, if we are in a work situation where we have a boss yelling at us or we’re being harassed or we’ve got unachievable job demands – any of those psychosocial risks that workplaces need to be mindful of – then just because I have a healthy stress response, that doesn’t mean that the stress of those circumstances should be discounted, and that organisations should wipe their hands of it.”

Don’t miss out on hearing from Dr Michelle McQuaid on managing psychosocial risks, promoting employee wellbeing and more at this year’s AHRI National Convention and Exhibition in August. Book your spot today.

The post How can HR encourage ‘good stress’ and limit ‘bad stress’? appeared first on HRM online.

A recent report on the level of psychosocial safety in Australian workplaces has indicated an urgent need for action to address high levels of burnout among leaders and their people.

Almost two thirds of Australian workers (63.6 per cent) are feeling burned out, and nearly nine in 10 say they have been feeling that way for an extended period of time, according to a new report from the Wellbeing Lab.

“The fact that [burnout] is still sitting at that rate tells us that this is more than just the global pandemic and lockdowns.  This new normal of work [and it’s] really challenging for many of us. There’s cumulative exhaustion, which I think most of us can relate to,” says Dr Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab.

These high levels of burnout are particularly concerning in light of employers’ new legal responsibilities around psychosocial hazards.

“So much of the [workplace] psychosocial safety responsibility is landing on the shoulders of leaders right now. So, how do we make sure that asking leaders to take on another [responsibility] is not the straw that breaks the camel’s back?” – Dr Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab

As part of a new Code of Practice that took effect in April this year, employers now have stronger obligations to manage their employees’ psychosocial safety at work. The Code mandates a systematic approach to managing ‘psychosocial hazards’, defined as aspects of work design, work itself and interactions between employees which can impact their mental health and emotional wellbeing (such as bullying or exclusionary behaviours).  

Interestingly, leaders reported experiencing higher levels of burnout than their teams. Nearly seven in 10 leaders (68.8 per cent) said they were feeling burnt out, compared with 58.4 per cent of their team members.

“It is worth noting that leaders in particular are really feeling it right now… I think it’s interesting because so much of the [workplace] psychosocial safety responsibility is landing on the shoulders of leaders right now. So how do we make sure that asking leaders to take on another [responsibility] is not the straw that breaks the camel’s back?”

The relationship between burnout and psychosocial safety

When researchers asked employees about the workplace hazards that caused them to feel burned out, the overarching theme in their responses was a sense of uncertainty about their role and high job demands.

“Burnout tends to be a reflection of an imbalance between the job demands being asked of us, and the job resources we have to execute those things,” says McQuaid.

“We often think of it like a seesaw – you might have a little bit of imbalance for a while. But, if that equation is too out of whack for too long, that tends to be what creates extra stress and puts us at risk of burnout.”

The report found that the top three causes of burnout were as follows:

1. Lack of role clarity 

Of the respondents who reported feeling burned out, a staggering 95.3 per cent said a lack of clarity was the hazard most frequently causing them stress.

“‘Lack of role clarity’ is suggesting that many workers are not quite sure about their role and responsibilities or what’s expected of them, and that’s causing confusion and frustration and extra stress for people,” says McQuaid.

“So much has changed about our roles over the last few years post-pandemic. There’s a lot of uncertainty. So I think a really low-hanging piece of fruit to help reduce burnout right now in workplaces is making sure we have clarity – that we’re revisiting the responsibilities and expectations of people regularly.”

Read HRM’s article on the three types of burnout that employers need to be aware of.

2. Poor change management 

With all the upheaval to our ways of working in recent times, it’s perhaps unsurprising that over three quarters (79 per cent) of respondents said their psychosocial safety was impacted by inadequate change management.

“[This] often creates a sense of anxiety and feelings of insecurity either in their role or in their job period,” says McQuaid.

“Part of that is the shift to hybrid work and how we’re all doing with that. But also, we just don’t tend to communicate well or execute with reasonable consistency when it comes to change management in our workplaces.”

Need help navigating workplace change? AHRI’s short course will arm you with the skills to understand change management at an individual, team and organisational level.

3. Inadequate reward and recognition

This was identified as a significant stressor for 75 per cent of respondents.

“This isn’t just about being paid enough. It tends to be more about not feeling valued or recognised for the work that they’re doing,” says McQuaid.

“More gratitude in our workplaces can go a hell of a long way. When we’re not feeling valued and recognised, it tends to leave us feeling demotivated, underappreciated or that we’re unimportant. And of course, we all just want to be respected and valued.”

Other causes of stress and burnout mentioned by respondents included a lack of support from supervisors, and the lack of boundaries and human interaction associated with remote work. Unrealistic job demands, which McQuaid’s team anticipated would be one of the most common drivers of burnout, came in at seventh on the list.

“It’s still at 64.2 per cent – they’re not saying it’s not a problem at all,” she says. “But, actually, there are more important things above it that workplaces can address without a whole lot of effort or money required to do them. But [we need] that awareness of what is causing burnout symptoms in our people.”

A top-down approach to psychosocial safety

As well as taking steps to tackle burnout head-on, McQuaid suggests taking a holistic approach that centres around psychosocial safety. Doing so will not only ensure that employers are compliant with their new obligations around managing psychosocial hazards, but will also help to prevent burnout arising in the first place.

“If we feel psychologically safe at work, we are more willing to speak up quickly if we are experiencing psychosocial risks,” she says. 

“Let’s say we’ve got unachievable job demands. If I feel psychologically safe with my boss, I’m more likely to speak up and say, ‘I can’t get all that done this week. Can you help me prioritise?’ or ‘The last month has been really hard. We either need more people or we need to rebalance my workload and responsibilities.’ 

“When we don’t feel psychologically safe, we don’t have those conversations. We tend to sit on them and take on more and more of those unachievable job demands, for example, until we find ourselves burnt out.”

The Wellbeing Lab’s research has consistently found that when psychosocial safety in the workplace is high, every single one of the psychosocial stressors they assessed was reduced, including burnout.

While the importance of fostering psychosocial safety should be impressed upon leaders, McQuaid warns organisations against assuming that their leaders will be able to manage their new responsibilities without receiving support themselves. 

“If we feel psychologically safe at work, we are more willing to speak up quickly if we are experiencing psychosocial risks.”  – Dr Michelle McQuaid, Founder of the Wellbeing Lab

With leaders reporting significantly higher levels of stress than their people, it’s all the more important that employers’ strategies to manage these hazards start at the top.

“Leaders are highly contagious when it comes to mental health and wellbeing in workplaces,” says McQuaid.

“If leaders are less burnt out themselves, it’s less likely their team will be too, because leaders are more present and available to their team members and listening to them and finding better ways to support them as they go about their jobs. This is why starting with leaders is so important.”

The best way for leaders to learn how to have more psychologically safe conversations with their teams is to practice having them themselves, she says.

“Leaders right now need a level of support that we’ve never seen before in workplaces. And getting that through peer relationships that have mixed dynamics and diversity, is a really important way to support leaders. Help them practice building those skills, help give them some accountability around that and make sure they are being heard.”

McQuaid offers some examples of such initiatives, including ‘leadership coaching triads’, where three leaders across a business meet on a fortnightly or monthly basis to check in with one another.  

“[We need to think about] what we are doing to equip our leaders to be more proactive, because, again, the best solution with psychosocial risks is to catch them early before they become bigger problems over time. 

“Especially when our goal is to try to reduce the level of burnout and support the mental health and wellbeing of our people, which is why the [new] legislation and Codes have been introduced.”

Michelle McQuaid will speak alongside other HR leaders, researchers and experts at AHRI’s 2023 annual National Convention & Exhibition. Don’t miss your chance to build connections, hear from globally recognised thought leaders and lead impactful change. Register now.

The post Leaders are bearing the brunt of workplace burnout, report finds appeared first on HRM online.

With poor mental health estimated to cost the Australian economy around $70 billion annually, and workers comp claims related to mental health expected to triple by 2030, employers are being encouraged to see the positives in the new Code of Practice relating to psychosocial hazards in the workplace.

The new Code may seem like yet another change for HR to manage, following the slew of new industrial relations requirements, but for Mirvac it’s a catalyst for ongoing positive change.

The company’s Group Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Manager – Strategy and Wellbeing, Amanda Clements, suggests that “it’s an incredible opportunity to work collaboratively to address and prevent harm and improve people’s wellbeing.”

While psychological health has always been a component of workplace regulation, Clements says that, historically, some employers focused on dealing with events such as bullying, harassment, or aggression towards an employee, if and when a concern was raised.

But that’s about to change. With the recent regulations and supporting Codes, there is also now an emphasis on employers to not only show positive intent and seek out where such risks might manifest in the workplace, but also expand the organisational awareness of all workplace factors that can be hazardous to people’s mental health. 

Common hazards include high job demands, low job control, poor support and lack of role clarity.

Read HRM’s article on the three types of burnout.

In response to these changes, and aligned with how Mirvac is responding, Clements says it’s imperative to continue to adopt a whole business approach.

“Leaders need to understand the potential impact of business decisions on employees and health and safety, and HR teams need to proactively support leaders and employees as they navigate these new paradigms,” she says.

A three-pronged approach

Mirvac has been preparing for the regulatory changes since the first Code of Practice in NSW came out in 2021. The Board was briefed by an external workplace psychologist, a wellbeing strategy was devised, and new resources were added to assist with implementation.

Clements says there are three elements underpinning Mirvac’s integrated strategy, based on the latest evidence on what creates a psychologically healthy and safe workplace:

1. Mitigate stressors: identify and reduce workplace risk factors, as well as provide support when people have compromised mental health. 
2. Build organisational resilience: equip leaders to create positive team climates and upskill functional teams such as HR and H&S to support the organisation. 
3. Promote thriving: Increase the protective factors such as belonging, growth and development opportunities. 

“Promote thriving is really interesting and there’s quite a bit of debate going on around that due to the legislation focusing on reducing harm,” she says. “It’s critical to understand that enhancing the protective factors can mitigate the effects of the risk factors, hence the importance of taking an integrated approach.      

“Companies have done a lot of things over time that might sound and look good but aren’t actually improving people’s mental health.” – Amanda Clements, Group Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Manager – Strategy and Wellbeing, Mirvac

“Mirvac was already doing a lot of good things in that space, building connections and driving greater purpose in our work, so we’ve got a really good link between the work people do and the actual impact of that in the world.” 

As an example, Clements points to Mirvac’s vision of reimagining urban life – not just building buildings but creating communities and focusing on social impact. For example, staff recently spent the day volunteering for local community groups and charities.

“In turn that has a positive impact on not only members of the community but our employees as well.” 

Opportunities to strengthen the strategy

Opportunities to enhance wellbeing further are built into an employee’s journey at Mirvac, from face-to-face onboarding sessions where the vision and support structures are explained, through to a range of programs aimed at various levels, job categories and teams. 

This includes a leadership program integrating foundational knowledge about psychological health and safety with the practicalities of what they can do to care for themselves and others.

Read HRM’s article on the importance of supporting leaders’ mental health.

There are also team-based workshops, facilitated by professional workplace psychologists, which aim to understand the highest risk each team is exposed to, and create an action plan to address it.

While the issues that arise are specific to each team, Clements hopes that key themes will emerge that can eventually be tackled at an organisational level.

“The teams are learning what protective factors are in place, or could be in place, to support them through work challenges. That includes leadership support and providing teams with the tools they need to redesign their work so it’s better for them,” she says.

Just as important as facilitating wellbeing programs is tracking their effectiveness. Mirvac takes a multi-dimensional approach. Qualitatively, it runs pilot programs and receives direct feedback from participants about whether they were able to make any improvements in their work as a result. 

“Quantitatively, there are many data sources that can be used to assess how we are doing. By way of an example, a pilot the team is running allows real-time tracking of risk levels in a team. This includes a monthly wellbeing check-in and an annual risk assessment,” says Clements.      

Seek expert advice

For companies that are newer to creating benchmarks to track the success of a wellbeing program, Clements says to assess your existing data to inform the areas to focus. Information such as engagement surveys and exit interviews can be assessed for insights and to pinpoint areas across the business where your energy is best spent addressing risks.

Companies ramping up their response to psychosocial hazards should also get expert advice, says Clements.     

“It’s important to partner with the right external workplace psychologists otherwise you could find yourself going down an unintended path. 

“Hand in hand with that is leveraging what the evidence says works, because companies have done a lot of things over time that might sound and look good but aren’t actually improving people’s mental health.”    

Clements and Mirvac’s Group General Manager Health, Safety & Environment, and Brian Long, will share their approach to addressing workplace risks to psychological health during an AHRI webinar on May 3. Sign up now!

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