AUTHOR

Tim Pittaway is a Partner in our Risk Advisory team, specialising in ESG, climate change and sustainability services
Tim Pittaway
Partner

Work-related psychological injuries have become a major concern in Australian workplaces. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the negative impacts of stress, psychologically unsafe work cultures, lack of role clarity and poor work/life boundaries on individual employees and highlighted the associated costs for businesses of injury claims and reputational damage.

To help clients understand and fulfil their obligations under WorkSafe Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work legislation, the RSM Risk Advisory Services team is partnering with people and culture consultancy Peak Performance International to conduct Mental Health Reviews. The review process evaluates the policies, processes and systems in place to detect and respond to employee mental health risks, the strengths of current practices and improvement opportunities.

It also highlights current best practice workplace mental health and wellbeing (MH&WB) frameworks and principles that are emerging, latest statistics on workplace MH&WB in Australia, current governing legislation and foundational knowledge and facts including legal responsibilities and psychosocial risks and hazards.

BEST PRACTICE STRATEGY

Addressing immediate risk and complying with occupational health law and regulations is essential for all organisations. For those wanting to improve, the characteristics of best practice Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategies are:

  1. Profiling organisational health risk and demographics

  2. Establishing MH&WB Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for leaders and organisation performance

  3. Designing a ‘branded’ employee MH&WB program for targeted, recognisable and coordinated delivery across the workforce

  4. Evaluating effectiveness against established people, culture and health and safety measures including employee participation rates and feedback

  5. Measurement of impact and return on investment

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Linley Watson, CEO of Peak Performance International and a behavioural subject matter expert for RSM, works with Tim Pittaway, Partner of the Risk Advisory division at RSM. For more information on the RCI survey, visit www.peakperformance.com.au.

This article was originally published on 2 April 2022 at https://www.peakperformance.com.au/post/supporting-employers-to-create-mentally-healthy-workplaces.