Safe Work Australia has published a new national guide on work-related psychological health and safety in the Australian workplace.
Entitled Work-related Psychological Health and Safety — A Systematic Approach to Meeting Your Duties, the new guide is expected to assist employers and workers to build a psychologically healthy and safe workplace by identifying, assessing and controlling risks to workers’ mental health.
Special Adviser to Safe Work Australia, Peta Miller said that while work-related psychological injury was expensive, the factors that cause harm are known and taking preventative action works.
“Poor psychological safety costs Australian organisations $6 billion per annum in lost productivity,” Dr Miller said.
“This is primarily because psychological injuries typically require three times more time off work than other injuries.”
She said that in addition, workplaces with poor psychological working conditions accrue 43 per cent more sick days per month.
Dr Miller said work-related psychological injury could be caused by excessive time pressures, unreasonable deadlines and poorly managed organisational change.
“Interpersonal conflict, harassment and bullying, and exposure to occupational violence are also critical causes of work-related injury,” she said.
“Most importantly, you can prevent workers becoming ill by taking preventative action and by intervening early.”
Dr Miller said identifying the hazards to good mental health, assessing how severe the risks were, and taking steps to eliminate and control the risks were essential steps to building a healthy and safe workplace.
“You can prevent your workers becoming ill or sustaining a psychological injury by responding to early warning signs and incidents — an increase in unplanned absence, uncharacteristic behaviour and workplace conflict are all clues that things aren’t quite right,” she said.
“Most importantly, workers will offer the most valuable insights — they know what causes them harm and will have ideas about how to most effectively address the dangers to their mental health.”
Safe Work Australia’s new 43-page guide can be accessed at this PS News link.
