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

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

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

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

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

Short-term strategy: Intervene with the right questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Medium-term strategy: Empower managers to address workplace stress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three dimensions of burnout

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

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

1. Exhaustion

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

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

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

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

2. Cynicism

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

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

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

3. Reduced professional efficacy

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

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

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

Enjoying this article? Help HRM create useful resources to enhance your HR practice by completing our reader survey. Share your thoughts for the chance to win one of five $100 shopping vouchers.

Combating burnout through sustainable work practices

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

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

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

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

See the full framework below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post How to combat the three dimensions of burnout appeared first on HRM online.

If you’ve ever felt physically exhausted but mentally alert, or socially drained yet creatively active, you’ll know that your body requires more than one type of rest. 

In fact, according to research by Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith, author, physician and work-life integration researcher, there are as many as seven categories of rest that humans need to engage with on a regular basis in order to function effectively in both their personal and professional lives.

Read HRM’s article on the types of rest HR needs to know about featuring commentary from Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith.

Understanding these different types of rest can empower employers to develop comprehensive strategies for stress management and building resilience.

The below infographic, created with insights from Dalton-Smith’s research, breaks down these categories and offers tips to ensure you and your employees are getting the breathing space you need to sustain motivation and wellbeing.

Improve your ability to support employee mental health and wellbeing in the workplace with AHRI’s short course.

The post Infographic: The 7 types of rest you and your employees need 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.

Ricky Nowak, communications and executive leadership expert, interviews a man who has to deal with that very issue, Michael Wasley, the CEO of Very Special Kids.

He recommends focusing on the role you play in supporting the family, and especially the outcomes you are trying to achieve. “As emotional as it will be for you, the result you get for that family is paramount and that will help you cope.” Wasley also opens up about some of the specific challenges of his workforce, including preparing families for the very real chance that their child will die.

He believes that it’s a sense of community that really helps everybody pull through. “We gel together, from hospice nurses to family support counsellors to fundraising staff, to provide that support to families.”

(Read our article about HR prioritising stress management.)

Nowak points out that even though most organisations will never have to face anything as high-stakes and dire as what Very Special Kids deal with regularly, every workplace has its share of stress and emotional turmoil – it’s an unavoidable fact of life.

Wasley agrees and suggests “having open conversations and not hiding feelings and anxieties is really healthy”. Referencing previous roles he’s filled in other organisations he’s noticed ” a tendency to suppress emotions and feelings, you almost want to come across with a bit of bravado.” But breaking that down will actually help people relieve some of their stress.

Watch the video for more information.

The post How to keep perspective in high stress environments appeared first on HRM online.

It is almost certain that workplace mental health problems are costing your organisation and your industry as a whole. Untreated mental health conditions cost Australian workplaces an estimated $10.9 billion per year, including $4.7 billion in absenteeism, $6.1 billion in presenteeism and $146 million in compensation claims, according to beyondblue’s State of Workplace Mental Health in Australia report from 2014. And these numbers fail to take into account more insidious costs such as the potential damage to corporate culture.

Professor Andrew Noblet from Deakin Business School has been studying organisational behaviour and employee wellbeing for over 20 years. His research suggests that effective workplace mental health management combines three strategies. Employers must first be ready with interventions to address individual mental health problems, regardless of the cause. They must also have in place strategies to better prepare the organisation as a whole. These include both mental health literacy programs that improve people’s ability to recognise the symptoms of depression and anxiety in the workplace and stress prevention programs focused on reducing work-related risk factors.

Stigma of mental health issues

Workplace interventions to directly deal with individual mental health problems as and when they arise seems like the most straightforward solution to adopt. Surely it’s enough to outsource to a counselling service and make employees aware of the resource?

Unfortunately, the answer is not so simple. Clinical psychologist, Dr Jay Spence explains. “One in five Australian workers suffer from a mental health condition each year, yet only one in 20 access the employee counselling service,” he says. People tend to downplay their stress and worry about the time off and possible stigma attached to seeking “therapy”, so many workplace mental health problems go untreated.

New technologies are offering employers more options when it comes to providing individual mental health interventions. Online health startup, Uprise, which is headed by Spence, offers a system that combines online and in-app training with a mental health coach via phone or videochat. The system capitalises on growing evidence that online treatments perform consistently with face-to-face therapies. The hope is that the ability to login at a time and place that suits the employee will overcome concerns about time and social stigma.

ReachOut Australia, a leading online mental health organisation for young people, has recently launched two new apps that enable young people to independently manage anxiety and stress. ReachOut Breathe uses simple visuals to reduce the physical symptoms of stress and anxiety by slowing down the heart rate. ReachOut WorryTime helps users control anxiety by scheduling worry so that it is confined to a specific time of day.

These offerings herald the development of technologies that are less costly for employers, both in terms of upfront investment and employee downtime, while offering employees greater privacy and control in managing their mental health.

Mental health literacy

Most people will encounter mental illness in their workplace over the course of their career.

A successful mental health literacy program equips managers and peers to recognise the symptoms of depression and anxiety and reduces the stigma associated with mental health concerns. It can provide a more supportive environment for staff members under strain, helps other staff to better deal with the mental health concerns of their direct reports and peers and may well encourage help-seeking and early intervention to minimise impacts on both the individual and the organisation.

Noblet has been involved in mental health literacy interventions, primarily in policing, and has discovered the benefits extend well beyond increased recognition. “What we find is that these programs open up lines of communication around what is contributing to stress. It creates an environment where people are more prepared to talk about what is helping and hindering their mental health.”

Mentor training is emerging as an effective tool for improving mental health literacy.

(For a story on how mentoring can transform a career, read our article.)

SuperFit Mates is a program run by workplace psychology specialists Communicorp on behalf of SuperFriend. The peer-support mentoring program is designed to build a cadre of workplace mentors trained to recognise and respond to mental health issues. The program started in 2015, and has so far delivered to just under a dozen large organisations.

“The program creates a front line of people who can intervene, provide peer support and resources and follow up to help people move forward,” says communicorp director and partner, Dr Laura Kirby.

SuperFit Mates is specifically designed to lift mental health literacy. However, any mentoring program can be adapted to improve such literacy.

The Australian Veterinary Association’s 2015/16 mentoring program, designed by mentoring specialists Art of Mentoring was primarily established to help new veterinary graduates to transition into work. The association was acutely aware of the mental health issues that may arise as a result of isolation and unexpected workplace issues, a concern supported by the unusually high rate of suicide in the profession.

“The mentor training program was adapted to provide mentors with the tools to recognise possible mental health issues,” says Melissa Richardson, director of Art of Mentoring. “While the program had the broad industry objective of supporting new graduates, it was also able to build mental health literacy skills among a group of experienced vets.”

With mentoring programs increasingly prevalent in Australian organisations, there is an opportunity for HR departments to adapt these programs to increase the ability of managers and peers to recognise and deal with depression and anxiety.

Stress prevention programs

Workforce mental health is affected by a wide variety of factors, many of which have nothing to do with the employer. However, research has attributed 13.2 per cent of depression in men and 17.2 per cent of depression in women directly to job strain. So, in many cases, the employer has direct control over mental health outcomes.

It is here that objectives merge with plain old good management. “It’s important that we don’t segregate specific mental health programs from more mainstream, work-based strategies that can have a positive influence on the satisfaction and wellbeing of employees,” says Noblet.

Mentoring programs are one mainstream tool that, while designed to meet unrelated objectives, can work in the background to help staff to deal more effectively with stress.

The secret ingredient within any effective mentoring program is support. Spence, who is an expert in post-traumatic stress disorder, explains, “One of the things we know about stress is that the size of the trauma doesn’t matter. The factor most likely to impact the level of stress a person feels is the amount
of support that person perceives they have.”

In other words, how supported a person feels can make a crucial difference in whether stressful workplace situations escalate into mental health problems.

Art of Mentoring has run over 100 formal mentoring programs primarily in large industry associations and major corporations, places with increasingly demanding and competitive working environments. “Regardless of the primary objective of the mentoring program, one thing that is reported consistently is increased self confidence,” says Richardson. “We know from social psych literature that self confidence and self efficacy make people better equipped to cope with stressful situations.”

For many HR departments the idea that mentoring programs can help inoculate an organisation against poor mental health outcomes may not result in a change in strategy. These organisations may already have mentoring programs in place to achieve a wide variety of developmental objectives. But it is worthwhile to be aware that these programs may also be having a more generalised effect on the organisation’s overall sense of wellbeing.

Responsibility for an organisation’s mental health is a heavy burden for today’s HR departments. As organisations become increasingly competitive and KPIs become ever more difficult to achieve, we have to expect stress levels to increase. The bad news is that simply providing an outsourced counselling service, while useful for some, is not providing the comprehensive solution this complex problem demands. The good news is that new technologies and known good management practices can provide some of the answers.

The post You need to know how to manage workplace mental health appeared first on HRM online.

As more organisations recognise the links between productivity and health, wellbeing is quickly emerging as one of the most urgent workplace imperatives of 2017.

Many are now subscribing to a new approach that doesn’t simply look at the issue from the perspective of risk, but as an essential part of a high-performing workforce.

Do workplace wellness programs work?

When an Australian study considered the combined effects of self-rated work performance and absenteeism data, they found that the healthiest employees are almost three times more effective than the least healthy. Where the healthiest employees worked approximately 143 effective hours per month, the least healthy worked only 49 effective hours. 

However a recent Comcare survey conducted by the Federal Government found that workplace health and wellbeing programs have the potential to significantly improve the health of employees.

It found strong evidence that multi-component interventions that address physical activity and nutrition are effective in increasing physical activity levels, promoting healthy eating and preventing obesity. It also found that interventions that use a comprehensive approach are effective in preventing and controlling job stress at an organisational level.

So, what are organisations doing to improve employee health?

You will have seen stories about the numerous businesses, but especially tech companies, which now provide kitchens stocked with healthy breakfast options, catered lunches and natural snacks such as fruit and nuts, to encourage staff to grab a muesli bar between meetings rather than a processed chocolate bar from the convenience store downstairs.

At the new corporate hub at Sydney’s Barangaroo, a newly opened ‘wellness centre’ created by Fitness First offers workers pilates, yoga, BARRE and relaxation classes, along with treadmills and ellipticals.

At PricewaterhouseCoopers and the new International Convention Centre in Sydney, silent contemplation rooms are also available to employees.

“More and more we are finding that members are looking for a wellbeing dimension to exercise, so our mind and body classes… help members to rebalance, de-stress and restore their body’s natural equilibrium,” says Andy Cosslett, Global CEO of Fitness First.

There’s also a burgeoning market for external programs to assist companies in overhauling unhealthy practices.

OzHelp Foundation, a national men’s mental health organisation recently launched an online health check up called Web Tune Up (WTU), which uses a series of questions to give participants up-to-date and personalised health information.

“With so much going on in an organisation, health and wellbeing issues can often be pushed to the wayside,” says OzHelp Foundation CEO Tony Holland. By providing employees with hard evidence, the program is geared to “give employers a real wake up call when it comes to their staff members’ health and wellbeing” and can be the difference between letting these issues continue or addressing them proactively.

Others such as the Happy Body At Work (HBAW) program developed by ABC Commercial aims to ‘start conversations within workplaces that de-stigmatise the disclosure of feelings of fatigue, low mood and anxiety.’

Is it really up to employers to make sure staff eat their 5 fruit and veg a day?

For many companies, however, it’s simply not feasible to outlay extra costs for employee health.

Sue Ellen Watts, founder of HR consulting firm wattsnext maintains that employee’s health and fitness is a personal responsibility. “As employers we are not our employees’ parents,” she says. “It is not up to us to make sure they eat well, get enough rest and stay fit.”

However she does believe that SMEs should make an effort to promote a “wellbeing-focused workplace.”

One success story comes from her workplace’s employee-developed program #projectfit, which involved each worker being given a Fitbit and challenged to reach a 10,000 steps-a-day goal. On a Slack channel called “Wellness,” employees share red-faced post-workout photos and celebrated weekly winners.

The approach taken means that people are engaged because they want to be, rather than feeling obliged, Watts says. It also turns a workplace fitness initiative into an engagement exercise, encouraging employees to connect through a common goal not directly related to day-to-day work.

So, what do you think?

Is it up to your organisation to make sure your people live healthy lifestyles?

Have you developed a wellness program? What were the results?

The post How the best companies approach wellbeing appeared first on HRM online.

Some good news first: Australian labour productivity is outstripping comparable developed nations. As of June 2016, the economy grew 3.3 per cent, and has bucked the global trend by weathering 25 years without suffering a recession. Before getting too carried away with national pride, brace yourself for the bad news. All this success has come on the back of an increasingly impoverished middle-class. Australians are experiencing a three-year decline in wage growth and significant projected declines in their disposable income, according to new research from the McKell Institute, a progressive think-tank.

This isn’t part of a global trend. In the US and Canada, middle-class incomes have risen since the GFC and are continuing to rise, whereas incomes in Australia are in reverse gear. The McKell report says the average Australian annual income has seen a 2.7 per cent reduction since 2012, and concludes that wage growth will stall in the coming years.

“Currently, the average weekly wage for an Australian is $1,145.70. However, this is expected to only grow in real terms to $1,243 per week by 2020. This growth is incredibly slow by Australian and international standards alike, and highlights the threat to the continuation of Australia’s middle-class standard of living,” says the report.

Labor leader Bill Shorten, commenting on the figures at the McKell Institute on Thursday, says: “We must begin by recognising existing insecurities and frustrations are not imagined, or insignificant. Millions of Australians are working harder and longer than they did a decade ago – but have less to go around each week.”

Rising levels of financial stress due to stagnant wage growth manifest most visibly in personal debt default, negotiated compromises with creditors and bankruptcy. 

Financial issues are the chief cause of stress and anxiety among Australians. The Stress and Wellbeing in Australia survey and the Australian Psychological Society both report increasing levels of stress and distress since 2011. It’s particularly evident among younger people who have been locked out of the property market and who are saddled with high levels of debt after completing a university degree.

These tensions and anxieties around financial insecurity naturally spill over into workplaces. While it’s helpful to be aware of the bigger context, what can human resources usefully do to alleviate workplace stress?

First of all, this is a health and safety issue and comes under the OHS Act. As such, employers are required to address workplace stress using a risk management framework.

Employee-focussed approaches such as counselling, relaxation training, time management skills and stress management training can help staff to develop greater resilience to deal with personal and professional anxiety.

Stress management programs usually teach people about the nature of stress and its effect on health while equipping them with skills to reduce symptoms such as sleep disturbances. They are also relatively inexpensive to implement. Mindfulness or meditation courses have also been shown – repeatedly – to have a positive effect on mood and anxiety.

There is still a great deal more that workplaces can do. A recent survey by MinterEllison shows that 56 per cent of respondents reported an increase in the number of mental health cases year-on-year, with the two most common issues being depression and anxiety. Despite this, a majority of participants said they don’t measure the impact of staff mental health issues in their organisation and 74 per cent lack formal and specific mental health policies or procedures.

Given that the Australian workforce is pulling its weight and driving economic prosperity, the demand for employers to start investing much more in the health and wellbeing of their employees grows ever louder.

The post Wage growth has been stagnant for years. Why? appeared first on HRM online.

The study How Leader and Follower Attachment Styles Are Mediated by Trust has uncovered a link between parenting styles and how people establish workplace relationships, particularly with their boss or manager.

Researcher Dr Peter Harms, an assistant professor at University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce, says he and his colleagues speculated that individuals might carry patterns of thinking learned as far back as infancy.

“It seems cliché, but, once again, we end up blaming mum for everything in life,” Harms laughs. “It really is about both parents, but because mothers are typically the primary caregivers of children, they usually have more influence.”

The findings, published in the journal Human Relations, focus on the various ‘attachment styles’ people with unreliable parents develop as a means of coping. The theory goes like this: Babies with reliable parents grow up to accept that other individuals are potential sources of assistance. Harms says these people are the least likely to be put in an emotional spin by a neglectful manager.

“Secure individuals have a long history of caring relationships, so they have other people who they can fall back on,” he explains.

Anxious and avoidant attachment

On the flip side, individuals with unreliable parents tend not to see parents as sources of support. These people are often categorised as having anxious or avoidant attachment, depending on the style they adopted to cope with distress.

“Avoidant people feel, ‘I don’t want to love you, and you don’t need to love me. So just leave me alone.’ You won’t find these people weeping over broken relationships,” Harms says. “On the other hand, anxiously attached people genuinely want to be loved, but they are nervous that the important people in their lives won’t return their affection.

“Essentially, we figured that bosses would matter less to individuals with secure or avoidant attachment styles,” Harms says.

Their findings showed that when anxious followers were paired with supportive leaders, they were perfectly fine. But when they were paired with distant, unsupportive leaders, the anxiously attached employees reported higher levels of stress and lower levels of performance.

“They felt threatened,” said Harms. “Their deep-seated anxieties leak out, and it starts to preoccupy them in an unhealthy way.”

In general, avoidant individuals reported lower levels of stress but also less willingness to establish close workplace relationships with co-workers. “Good boss, bad boss. Whatever. They just don’t care. They just want to do their job and go home,” Harms says.

The good news is that a supportive work environment will allow even someone with anxious attachment to thrive.

“We can make a difference even if people come into the workplace with insecurities,” Harms says. “Our research shows that a mother or father figure later in life can provide that needed support, even in the context of the workplace.”

What does this study mean for your workplace relationships?

The study poses some interesting questions for supervisors and managers in the workplace, and might shed some light on why some workplace relationships are more strained than others.

Based on previous studies with similar results, author and Associate Professor of Management David Burkus published some thoughts on how the findings can be applied in the workplace.

“If you are a supervisor, it’s important to understand that people react to stress at work differently, and not everyone will view your attempts to provide support as beneficial,” he writes.

“Your employees with a secure attachment style will accept your support, but they are less likely to need it because they probably have a very well developed and healthy support network, both at work and outside of work.

“Your employees with an anxious attachment style need your support more than others and will likely welcome it. Your employees with an avoidant attachment style will likely let you know they think they are just fine and neither need nor want your help.”

The post Workplace relationships on the rocks? This might be why appeared first on HRM online.

It certainly does. Lost productivity, due largely to absenteeism, is costing Australian business in the region of $11 billion every year, according to new data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

Worldwide, workforces in developed nations are succumbing to more stressful lives. In the UK, the Chief Medical Officer’s 2015 annual report asserted that, “More needs to be done to help people with mental illness stay in work, as since 2009, the number of working days lost to ‘stress, depression and anxiety’ have increased by 24 per cent and the number lost to serious mental illness has doubled.”

Meanwhile in the US, clinical depression has become one of the country’s most costly illnesses. Left untreated, depression is equal to heart disease or AIDS in its impact on the US economy, costing over $51 billion in absenteeism from work and lost productivity.

In Australia, Beyond Blue research suggests that three million Australians live with depression or anxiety, so the likelihood is there is someone struggling at work who you know.

Kathryn Page is a manager of Human Capital consulting at Deloitte Australia and a researcher at the University of Melbourne. Her research shows that organisational interventions to prevent stress and promote workplace mental health has a significant impact in keeping employees productive.

“For employees, the main struggles relate to coping with poor managerial and workplace practices, excessive workloads, little control over their work, demands to do more with less and interpersonal conflict,” she says.

While many Australian workplaces are taking positive steps to address the effects of stress and anxiety among employees, including hosting mental health programs and seminars, stigma is still a problem.

An Australian study from 2009 found that nearly one in four people felt depression was a sign of personal weakness and would not employ a person with depression. A third said they would not vote for a politician with depression and 42 per cent thought people with depression were unpredictable. One in five said if they had depression, they wouldn’t reveal it and nearly two in three people surveyed thought people with schizophrenia were unpredictable and a quarter felt that they were dangerous.

“Creating Mentally Healthy Workplaces” is one initiative aimed to counteract these negative impressions. It’s a report produced through business sector, government and mental health sector collaboration – the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance – and offers advice on how early intervention and promoting resilience at work can help promote recovery and reduce the effects of mental illness.

Investing in good mental health practices also makes economic sense. PwC research shows that for every dollar invested, improved mental health yields a return of $2.30. This isn’t just the case for large multinationals; small organisations have a high opportunity for return on investment with small companies in the mining sector, for example, receiving a $15 return in investment for every dollar spent

Signs are that the message is getting through to organisations that this is an issue that isn’t going away soon. And employees are taking matters into their hands if they find that work  is having a negative effect on their mental state. A recent Heads Up survey of 1000 workers showed that people would rather leave a job than stay and suffer in silence.  

The arguments are there for HR professionals: taking a proactive approach to mental health isn’t simply the right thing to do for your employees, it also makes good business sense.

The post Mental health a work in progress for workplaces appeared first on HRM online.