Four steps to reduce psychosocial risks in the workplace

With the mental health of Australian workers in decline, claims for psychological injuries now exceed those for physical injuries at work.

In fact, Safe Work Australia data reveals that serious workers compensation claims for mental health conditions increased by almost 40% in 2021–2022. Mental health conditions accounted for 9% of all serious claims (while other work-related injuries illnesses accounted for 7% of all claims). The median compensation for claims relating to mental health conditions is $58,615 — almost four times the median amount paid across all claims. In addition, it’s estimated that mental ill-health costs Australian businesses up to $39 billion in lost productivity.

Dave Burroughs, principal psychologist and founder of Australian Psychological Services and Chief Mental Health Officer for Westpac Group, has over 15 years of expertise in the psychological health and safety field. He will be taking to the stage at the upcoming Workplace Health & Safety Show in Sydney this October, in a seminar session that will elaborate on psychosocial risk factors and highlight actionable strategies to manage these effectively.

According to Burroughs, there are four key actions that organisations should take.

1. Understand what’s driving major psychosocial hazards in your workplace

Across most industries that Burroughs works with, work overload seems to be a common theme. In addition, customer/public-facing roles report increasing exposure to occupational violence and aggression (OVA).

“I am seeing lot of tokenistic solutions for work overload, such as ‘micro breaks’, email signatures about flexible working or recommendations to just get better at prioritisation. This is a real shame, as none of this addresses the real risk drivers,” Burroughs said.

To understand these complex drivers, one needs to investigate the type of work being done, the amount of job control and support provided, and the way in which the work is scoped, designed and rewarded. “Looking at this from a psychosocial risk and job redesign perspective is key, as the answer is rarely about hiring more people,” Burroughs said.

Similarly, organisations need to be deliberate in understanding causes and triggers of OVA. “While the cost of living and community stress levels certainly have an impact, factors such as customer experience issues, work design, whether staff have the right capability levels to de-escalate situations, and the influence of leadership behaviour and organisational responses all contribute to risk outcomes.”

It is crucial that organisations apply a systems-based approach that enables early intervention and prevention, rather than adopting incident response mechanisms. “Simply parachuting in the employee assistance program (EAP) when an incident occurs is definitely the wrong approach in this context,” Burroughs said.

2. Implement the right systems and approaches

Noting that a systems-based approach to mental wellbeing is one that few organisations have fully engaged with yet, Burroughs advises organisations to look beyond the marketing. “It’s increasingly recognised that a lot of the most popular mental health programs have very limited efficacy, and in some instances may actually have an adverse impact on mental health and psychosocial risk issues in the workplace,” he said.

To avoid this outcome, companies need to check the foundational elements of their approach. “How integrated is your psychological health and safety across WHS, HR, injury management, recruitment, employee relations, etc? How good are your psychosocial risk management processes? How much attention are you paying to job design and redesign? Do you have the right escalation pathways for staff who are vulnerable, but also for problematic work? Do your leaders understand the critical role they play in a mentally healthy workplace and in psychosocial risk mitigation? Start by answering these questions,” he said.

3. Removing barriers to wellbeing

Commenting on the impact of psychosocial factors on employee productivity and absenteeism, Burroughs reiterated that the organisational barriers to wellbeing are the same barriers that will undermine morale, engagement and performance. “Focusing on job design and incremental improvements can have a huge impact,” he said.

Rather than putting down tools or enduring organisational disruption, this is about ongoing work design improvements and enhancing leadership capability. However, Burroughs is adamant that this is not about turning leaders or managers into amateur psychologists, counsellors or psychosocial risk experts. “Rather, it’s about equipping them with the type of leadership knowledge and capabilities, and the support and escalation pathways, to enable them to maximise their influence on people’s overall experience of work.”

4. Pivot to meet regulatory requirements

Speaking to the regulatory environment, Burroughs stressed that organisations should have a clear understanding of the regulatory requirements across their respective state/territory or national regulator. “They need to understand that psychosocial risk management is not new, it has been around for decades. But it is new-ish to most organisations and very new to most providers now proclaiming expertise in this domain,” he said.

To achieve improved regulatory compliance, he advocates for careful review of organisational psychosocial health and safety infrastructure against a psychological health and safety (PH&S) framework, as well as an assessment of possible integration and simplification to enable a ‘building block’ approach.

Also crucial is that an organisation has the mechanisms in place to monitor organisational psychosocial health, deep dive and assess risk where required, and develop effective controls with robust mechanisms for psychosocial risk reporting.

Tackling complex matters

Burroughs will be among the line-up of experts who will be presenting at the Workplace Wellbeing Summit (one of three dedicated summits featured at this year’s Workplace Health & Safety Show). These sessions will explore how to manage psychosocial risks, navigate challenging conversations and support the workforce. The Workplace Wellbeing Summit agenda is available at https://whsshow.com.au/sydney-2024-agenda/sydney-workplace-wellbeing-summit.

Image credit: iStock.com/eakgrunge. Stock image used is for illustrative purposes only.