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.

The post How to respond when employee surveys reveal work health and safety risks appeared first on HRM online.

Recently a friend showed me an email he had received from an HR representative at the organisation he worked for. In multi-coloured Comic Sans font, the email announced HR were conducting pulse surveys and would use the data to measure how employees were coping in these difficult times. 

Though he was showing me this to laugh at the gaudy use of rainbow font (he probably didn’t know comic sans is sometimes preferred by some neurodiverse employees), I asked if he completed the pulse survey. He unequivocally told me he had not, and had no intention of doing so. 

“They put out those surveys to look good. They don’t actually achieve anything”. 

My friend isn’t alone in feeling this way. In fact, Rob Scott, principal HR Strategy & Innovation at Deloitte and member of AHRI’s HR Technology Advisory Board, says it’s the uphill battle many HR professionals are facing as they try to get feedback from staff. 

Rob Scott will be discussing digitalisation at AHRI’s SHIFT20 virtual conference this October. Click here to find out more about this unmissable event.

“There is definitely a bit of survey fatigue at the moment. While most companies used to hope for 20 per cent engagement with a survey, we’re seeing those numbers drop considerably,” says Scott.

Employees are constantly being asked to complete questionnaires at work and in their private lives so it’s not surprising they’re a bit over it. Scott suggests HR professionals take the time to nail down why they’re putting out a survey in the first place, which will make the process smoother and more efficient. 

Start by asking “why?”

“Surveying for the sake of surveying without a very specific problem you’re trying to solve should be avoided,” says Scott.

When deciding to put out a survey, Scott suggests following these steps so that you come out the other side with actionable information. 

Step 1: Identify the problem or potential problem.

Step 2: Determine what information you need.

Step 3: Analyse the information.

Step 4: Decide on a solution.

Scott says all surveys should start with a problem statement, although the survey itself could be part of determining the full extent of the problem.

Let’s say your workplace provides free fruit for staff but lately, the staff have stopped eating the fruit. You’re unsure if this is because staff don’t like the fruit provided or because there is a problem with the quality of the fruit. You’ve identified the problem as “staff aren’t eating fruit” but still need to determine the parameters of the issue. This is what you’re looking for with your survey.

Once you have your problem, you need to consider what information will actually help. 

“I see some surveys that are 50 or 60 questions long and this is because they’re trying to cover everything in one go. You should really narrow down the areas you want answers to right now, and come back to the rest another time,” says Scott.

Keeping the survey short is likely to encourage engagement as employees don’t feel like they’re giving up a valuable chunk of their time to complete your survey. On top of that, the shorter the survey the less data you’ll need to analyse, the quicker you can put the results out and actually act on the data.  

Scott says properly analysing the data will help with future surveys as staff will feel heard. But reading data can be tricky so it’s vital you acknowledge when you need additional help.   

Getting outside help

It’s not uncommon for HR professionals to wear many hats, sometimes they’re payroll, recruiters and project managers all in one. Sometimes they also need to be data scientists. If you’re struggling in that particular area, Scott points out you might have others in your organisation that have statistical knowledge you can use to get the best out of your results. 

“All HR professionals should have access to data scientist or analyst skills. That doesn’t mean they need to bring on an actual data scientist,” he says.

“It’s worth trying to leverage others in your organisation that might already have that skill set. So try talking to finance because they might have analytic knowledge.”

Even so, there are occasions where bringing in a dedicated data scientist can help. 

“One thing data scientists can help with, which I don’t think many people realise, is to determine whether your interventions can actually help,” he says, adding that it is something many organisations miss.

“So HR might come up with a solution or activities to solve the problem without necessarily testing whether their solutions can actually fix the issue.”

Data scientists can create models which test potential solutions using data. They’re not clairvoyants, but the modelling is based on probability so uses statistics to decide the likely outcome. This could save your organisation from instituting new procedures that don’t properly address the issue. 

“I would say to organisations: if you have a data scientist work with them not just to find the problem but also resolve it,” Scott says.

Looking to improve your analytics skills? Join AHRI’s ‘Getting Started with Workforce Analytics’ online forum.

The post Collecting survey data from employees? First, ask why appeared first on HRM online.

Almost 65 per cent of the 813 members who responded to the poll believe the act has increased costs either greatly (24 per cent) or a little (40 per cent).

Overall, respondents were in favour of changing the act, with 16 per cent preferring no change, 41 per cent preferring incremental change and 36 per cent preferring a fundamental rewriting of the act.

The survey was completed as part of an AHRI submission to the Productivity Commission on how HR professionals experience the Fair Work Act operating in Australian workplaces.

The commission seeks to review an array of topics from unemployment and job creation to equitable pay, compliance and independent contracting.

It therefore requested submissions as part of a public inquiry to examine the performance of the act and to identify areas for improvement. Submissions closed on Friday, with 60 submissions now available to view on the Workplace Relations Framework site.

The diverse submissions touch on an array of topics in order to assess the capacity of the framework to adapt in the long term to issues arising from changes in the global economy.

Long, unpredictable and non-standard hours were the top concern of the Australian National University’s National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, as a major impediment to time for healthy eating, physical activity and sufficient sleep. It urged the commission to consider the long term consequences that working hours will have on the greater community, in particular in terms of eroding health and impeding care arrangements.

The Australian Dairy Farmers raised concerns around employing new workers due to a lack of flexibility in workplace relations framework, where the three-hour minimum engagement clause is longer than necessary for morning milking.

The review will ultimately make recommendations about how the laws can be improved to maximize outcomes for employers, employees and the economy.

The full AHRI submission is available on the AHRI website.

The post AHRI members weigh in on Fair Work Act appeared first on HRM online.