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

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

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

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

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

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

How managers influence psychosocial safety

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Managers are also struggling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HR’s role in empowering middle managers 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Current trends in reporting wellbeing at work

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 ways to measure wellbeing at work 

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

1. Consider both tangible and intangible factors

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

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

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

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

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

2. Tackle hazards with both reactive and preventive strategies

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Gather the right information in the right way

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

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

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

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

4. Balance consistency with individuality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

The post The role of diversity, equity and inclusion in psychosocial safety appeared first on HRM online.

New research has revealed concerning statistics about mental health in the workplace.

Seven in 10 Australians wouldn’t tell their employer about their mental health condition, according to the study, which was conducted by Way Ahead, the Mental Health Association NSW. It surveyed 2000 people from across Australia – half with experience of mental health issues and half without. 

Alarmingly, only seven per cent said that workplaces always provided a safe environment for employees to ask for help. Further, 64 per cent said they would hide a mental health challenge for fear of discrimination and 38 per cent reported having been treated unfairly after disclosing a condition. 

Dr Zena Burgess, CEO, Australian Psychological Society, says these statistics are “cause for alarm”.

“We all have mental health challenges. It’s something that constantly ebbs and flows. So, if people feel it’s something they need to mask at work, not only does that have personal implications for them, but it also leads to bottom-line impacts and could mar your company’s productivity agenda,” says Dr Burgess.

The report also found that 15 per cent of people had never sought help from an employer and 18 per cent had waited three years before doing so.  

Creating a psychologically safe environment where people feel they can disclose their mental health challenges is not only the right thing to do in order to support your teams, it’s also vital in meeting your psychosocial safety obligations as an employer.

So what are some common mistakes that employers are making? And how can HR help them to do better?

Creating the wrong environment

Employers’ mistakes usually fall into two categories, says Dr Amanda Ferguson, organisational psychologist and host of the Psych for Life podcast.

The first is creating an environment conducive to poor mental health, where workers feel unheard, overloaded and unsafe to speak up. This may exacerbate existing mental health challenges, or even provoke them.

“Many workplaces have a culture of burn and churn,” says Dr Ferguson. “Employers seem to think, ‘We’ll just replace our employees once they’re worn out.’”

Not all overloading of workers is intentional. For example, an employer might offer extra responsibilities, thinking it would be a great opportunity for someone without realising they’re overwhelming the employee.

Or, the employer might not supply the right resources, says Dr Ferguson.

 “The company might be saying, ‘We’re giving you all the tea and coffee you can drink,’ but the staff are saying, ‘We need a better accounting system, or more ergonomic chairs.’” 

“Too often I see managers hide behind HR thereby letting down the organisation and their employees, and missing an opportunity for development and learning themselves.” – Dr  Zena Burgess, CEO, Australian Psychological Society

The problem is compounded when employees don’t feel safe to speak up – whether they’re overloaded, or simply want to exercise a right, such as getting time in lieu for having worked overtime, Dr Ferguson adds.

In some cases, this lack of safety may be the direct result of condemnation, such as a manager speaking negatively about an employee who refuses extra responsibilities. 

In others, it may be a perception based on a manager’s conduct. 

“The boss might be telling their team, ‘Yes, of course, you can leave on time,’ but not modelling that behaviour,” says Dr Ferguson. 

Failing to respond appropriately to mental health issues

The second mistake employers make is failing to act appropriately when issues arise. 

One of the most common is insufficient training of managers, says Dr Ferguson. Consequently, managers might be, at best, ill-equipped to detect and respond to mental health issues, and, at worst, critical of staff experiencing challenges. 

“Team leaders and managers themselves need to upskill to have personally confronting conversations about mental health,” says Dr Burgess. “It’s not the sole role of HR, but HR can be the coaches. Too often I see managers hide behind HR thereby letting down the organisation and their employees, and missing an opportunity for development and learning themselves.”

Dr Ferguson says other mistakes include failing to see mental health as an aspect of diversity, and promoting resilience without providing enough resources to “join the dots”, such as showing how their job matters.

“Workers need resources, not just endlessly being told to ‘be resilient’,” says Dr Ferguson. 

“Resilience requires self-regulation, for example, understanding, ‘I need my time in lieu’; social competence, as in, ‘I’m socially competent enough to tell my boss this is what I need’; and psychological safety, which enables an employee to speak up.” 

Coaching employers to respond differently

The first step is “owning that there’s a culture problem,” says Dr Ferguson. 

“Change must be top-down and bottom-up.”

After that, companies should prioritise training managers to take a “nuanced” approach, which means treating each employee according to their unique needs as much as possible. A good place to start could be developing a personal situation plan (read more about that here).

Managers should learn to detect issues early, have preventative conversations, and give employees the time and resources required to recover. 

“For example, in a high-risk workplace, a good manager would be proactive, preventative and psychosocially aware enough to say to an employee, ‘It looks like you’re burning out. Do you need some time off?’

“Rather than leaving the employee to speak up or merely asking, ‘Is there a problem?’, they’d  be sending a message to the whole organisation that we know burn out is dangerous, so we’re acting on it, and there’s no stigma.”

What about the EAP?

Making a referral to the company’s employee assistance program (EAP) is a good first step.

“But that can’t be where employers stop,” says Dr Burgess.

“I would encourage leaders to think about different ways they can model vulnerability, to demonstrate to their people that they’re willing to walk the talk when it comes to prioritising and de-stigmatising mental health at work. “

“This might look like hosting wellbeing sessions where leaders open up about what they do to proactively look after their mental health or ensuring that ‘mental health days’ are normalised by including it as a key feature in employment materials, such as onboarding documents, job advertisements and as an agenda item in one-on-one meetings with managers.

It’s also important that employees seek professional medical help, when needed. 

“I would always recommend the guidance of a trained psychologist for complex mental health matters,” says Dr Burgess.

“All of these measures can go a long way in helping an employee to feel safe and comfortable to disclose mental rough patches with their employer.”

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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