Leaders breakfast hones in on workplace psychological safety

Psychological safety was the focus of a mental health breakfast hosted by icare and R U OK?.

The Senior Leaders Workplace Mental Health Breakfast was part of the launch of the Australian Workplace Psychological Safety Survey, which showed that 36% of employees aged 25–34 were concerned about mistakes at work being held against them.

The event brought together more than 200 CEOs and senior leaders from Australian corporations, the public sector and NGOs to understand and define ‘Why Mental Health Should Be at the Top of Every CEO’s Agenda’.

“A key takeout from the study was the positive impact of creating workplaces where leaders strive for a more inclusive, caring and resilient culture,” said R U OK? board member and workplace mental wellness expert Graeme Cowan.

“This requires senior leaders to build a common methodology to measure and monitor peer-to-peer support and wellbeing in the workplace — something that R U OK? is keen to help facilitate.”

R U OK? also unveiled a new video showing why a range of Australian CEOs regard employee mental resilience as equally important to business growth. The video features vox pops with icare CEO Vivek Bhatia, former Jetstar CEO David Hall, Carnival Australia Executive Chair Ann Sherry, AIA Insurance CEO Damien Mu, WorkSafe Victoria CEO Clare Amies and R U OK?’s Graeme Cowan.

“A caring culture is good for business. The universal factor which determines whether people feel engaged at work is whether they feel their manager cares about them as a person and their wellbeing,” Cowan said.

“People are our most valuable asset. To that end, every leader in our community has a responsibility to make psychological wellbeing a significant goal and ensure they have a workforce which is healthy, engaged and productive,” said icare CEO Vivek Bhatia.

Organisations who attended the event were from icare (Insurance & Care NSW), Ernst & Young, PwC Australia, Lendlease, Capgemini, CBA, Westpac, NAB, ING, AIA Insurance, EML, QBE, the Black Dog Institute, Virgin, Bayer, Core Logic, Altius Group, BridgeClimb and the NSW Mental Health Commission.

Image courtesy of R U OK?