Work can be a protective factor for mental health but it can also contribute to potential harm. Feeling connected to workmates, having healthy relationships with leaders, feeling valued with some control over our work are major drivers for mental wellbeing.

One in five workers in Australia are likely to be affected by a mental illness during any given year. There are about 2.8 million working Australians who live with diagnosed mental illness, with some needing time off work to maintain their wellbeing. A further 440,000 working Australians are carers of someone with mental ill-health.

Mental health is different from mental illness. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as “a state of wellbeing in which every person realises their own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and are able to contribute to their community.”

Mental health is not a fixed state, it can be understood by considering a continuum. Like physical health, we fluctuate and can move up and down. At one end of the mental health continuum is optimal wellbeing and being mentally healthy, while mental distress is at the other end of the continuum. The workplace is a very influential environment when it comes to mental health, where a safe and healthy working environment supports mental health and good mental health enables people to work productively.¹ Ultimately the workplace environment can nudge people back and forth along the continuum.²

The mental health continuum

Costs of poor mental health on workplaces

$39 billion

The economic loss due to the effects of mental ill-health on participation, absenteeism and presenteeism.3 This doesn’t include staff turnover, temporary staff replacement or compensation, which would cause more financial pressure.

$10 billion

The cost of workplace absenteeism due to mental ill health each year.

$7 billion

The cost of presenteeism caused by mental ill-health. Presenteeism is where employees remain at work despite experiencing symptoms and are less productive.

3x more time off

Psychological injuries typically require three times more time off work than other injuries.

43% more sick days

Workplaces with poor psychological working conditions accrue 43% more sick days per month.

As with physical ill-health, the costs of mental ill-health can go beyond just the person involved, it can also affect their colleagues’ productivity.

Source: Productivity Commission Inquiry report - mental health, 2020, report no. 95.

Benefits of a mentally healthy workplace

There is a growing focus on the role workplaces can play to maintain workers mental health. Workplaces that take action to prevent and address work-related stress, support general health and wellbeing, and invest in programs to create mentally healthy workplaces can reap rewards through:

• Improved communication, higher job satisfaction, and a positive work environment
• Decreased staff turnover, illness and absenteeism
• Reduced accidents and incidents
• Improved employee and customer loyalty
• Lower absenteeism
• Increased productivity
• Reduced compensation claims⁴
• A return on investment of $2.30 for every $1.00 invested.

Source: thriveatwork.org.au

Mental health and legislation

It is important for every workplace to understand that they are required to manage risks from hazards, including psychological health and safety risks. The Work Health and Safety Act 2012 (SA) states that persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) have a duty to ensure the health and safety of workers at the workplace, with health being defined as both physical and psychological health.

Workplace stressors can range from bullying, unreasonable workloads, inflexible work scheduling, to an inability to influence job-related decisions. Racial prejudice, racial discrimination and xenophobia are also stressors as 20% of Australians experience racism every year.⁵

In general, stressors can be intertwined and can be from those in the social and physical environment and/or the systems of work or management. These can all impact on employee wellbeing and reduce a person’s capacity to work. Workers in specific industries, including health and social services, law enforcement, defence, and teaching are more prone to facing work-related stressors and have higher rates of poor mental health.

It is important for every workplace to understand that under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) and equivalent state and territory laws it is unlawful to discriminate against, harass or victimise people with disabilities or their associates – including in employment, where the term ‘disability’ is broadly defined. It covers mental illness: whether temporary or permanent; past, present or future, actual or imputed.6 Workplaces can include actions to support workers with mental illness in their healthy workplace strategy.

Strategies to address mental health at work

We recommend using a three-pillar approach to address workplace mental health (protect, promote, respond). This will prevent and protect against work-related mental health risks, promote positive mental health and wellbeing, and help workers experiencing mental ill-health to participate in and thrive at work. These pillars intersect, with action in one area often leading to improvements in others.

To create a mentally healthy workplace you’ll need to:

• Protect – Identify and manage work-related risks to mental health.
• Promote – Recognise and enhance the positive aspects of work that contribute to good mental health.
• Respond – Identify and respond to support people experiencing mental ill-health or distress and support recovery and return to work.⁷

Protect against work-related mental health conditions

Most job roles involve some degree of stress, but when workers feel that they are unable to cope with repeated stressors or there are no support mechanisms to manage the situation, stress can manifest in ways that become detrimental to the workers and the business.

Strategies to protect workers from mental health conditions at work centre on psychosocial risk management. The Managing psychosocial hazards at work code of practice (safeworkaustralia.gov.au) from Safe Work Australia provides practical guidance on how to achieve the standards of work health and safety required under the WHS Act and the Work Health and Safety Regulations and effective ways to identify and manage risks.

Psychosocial hazards are anything in the design or management of work that increases the risk of work-related stress and can lead to psychological or physical harm. A stress response consists of the physical, mental and emotional reactions that result when a worker perceives the demands of their work exceed their ability or resources to cope.

Stress itself is not an injury. But if workers are stressed often, over a long time, or the level of stress is high, it can cause harm.

• Psychological harm may include anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep disorders and burnout.
• Physical harm may include musculoskeletal injuries, chronic disease, or fatigue-related injuries.

The ‘optimum’ level of stress is not the same for everyone! Each individual will have their own relationship between stress and task performance – this is known as the Yerkes-Dodson law.8 It proposes that you reach your peak level of performance with an intermediate level of stress or arousal. Too little or too much arousal results in poorer performance. This shows us that performance increases with stress to a point, beyond which additional stress becomes counterproductive. Spend too long past the optimum point in the stress curve and we risk exhaustion, anxiety and eventually a breakdown and burnout.

Promote positive mental health

Workers who feel positive about the environment and culture in their workplace are more likely to perform better, contribute to employee engagement, and be more committed to the workplace. They are also less likely to experience work-related stress, sustain a psychological injury or leave the workplace.

Promoting positive mental health involves taking a strengths-based approach and focusing on the opportunities, strengths, and resources that will help to foster a healthy, positive, and supportive workplace culture. People thrive when they have:

• strong workplace connections
• meaning and purpose in work
• opportunities for personal and professional growth
• positive and supported leadership
• increased personal resources.

Mental health and wellbeing can also be improved when workers are offered opportunities to address smoking, alcohol, healthy eating, and physical activity risk factors. Adopting these healthy behaviours can improve wellbeing and resilience. Good mental health and a positive frame of mind means employees are better equipped to resist stress, tackle challenges and develop resilience.

By building on the aspects of work that help people optimise wellbeing, workplaces can function at their best too.

Respond to and support workers

It is common for people to experience periods where they need additional support or flexibility because of life circumstances, caring responsibilities, or mental ill-health. Key characteristics of a mentally healthy workplace include established workplace systems and processes to intervene early, respond and provide support when a worker begins to show signs of distress.

Workplaces can help by building their capability to respond and support people who are experiencing mental ill-health or distress. Creating an environment that reduces stigma, makes it safe to talk, supports early intervention and suicide prevention, and ensures people can recognise, respond and refer will lead to a win–win situation for individuals, organisations, businesses and communities.⁹

Actions you can take to create a mentally healthy workplace

Healthy place — create a workspace environment that supports positive mental health

• Consider the physical working environment at all worksite types, whether that be a home, vehicle, office or factory. When workers feel comfortable and calm in their physical work settings they produce their best work.
• Regularly assess environmental conditions include hazardous manual tasks, poor air quality, high noise levels, extreme temperature, working near unsafe machinery, cramped workspace, vibration, poor lighting, temperature, and humidity.
  Consider creating a designated support room or a relaxation zone where people can have private conversations.

Healthy vision — create polices, practices and a workplace culture that promotes positive mental health

Protect

• Foster a culture that promotes psychological safety.
• Create systems for workers to raise concerns at work without negative consequences. Make sure these systems are designed with worker safety in mind.
• Apply a risk management approach to identify the hazards, assess the risk, control risk, and review the measures to ensure they are working, in meaningful consultation with workers.
• Conduct a psychosocial risk assessment. You can use the free People at Work survey (peopleatwork.gov.au).
• Apply proactive and systematic approaches to address bullying, harassment and discrimination, and develop and support a procedure to address conflict, grievances and critical incidents in the workplace.
• Create reasonable job demands and manage staffing levels to ensure that adequate resources are available to meet workload requirements during times of high demand. Make sure that rosters are fair and provide adequate rest and recovery periods for shift workers.
• Develop appropriate policies and procedures to prevent and respond to occupational violence trauma in the workplace.
• Ensure employees are supported and well-informed during times of organisational change.
• Define job roles well and make sure employees clearly understand their roles and responsibilities.
• Create opportunities for people to shape their work using strategies like job crafting.
• Conduct regular performance reviews and give workers the opportunity to discuss psychological hazards and have input into the way they do their work.
• Recognise individual and team contributions and achievements with praise and recognition.
• Provide a workplace culture that supports open communication so workers feel comfortable to discuss issues.
• Encourage positive interactions based on trust, respect, and civility.
• Provide flexible work and leave arrangements.

Promote

• Provide opportunities for personal and professional development, career progression and lifelong learning.
• Model good work-life balance and self-care to others in the workplace. Positive leaders create positive work environments.
• Use recruitment methods that assess personal competencies relevant to the position to ensure job–person fit.
• Provide opportunities for workers to build positive working relationships.
• Recognise and celebrate diversity and inclusion and reduce discrimination.
• Create a culture that encourages taking lunch breaks and other breaks as awarded in your sector.

Respond

• Respond appropriately to mental ill-health in the workplace according to legislated duties ranging from workers compensation, discrimination, privacy, and workplace relations. You can use the Guide to Workers with Mental Illness: a Practical Guide for Managers (humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/document/publication/workers_mental_illness_guide_0.pdf) from the Australian Human Rights Commission as a reference.
• Provide reasonable adjustments to support people experiencing mental ill-health.
• Create an environment that reduces stigma, makes it safe to talk about mental health, and supports early intervention.
• Understand how to manage disclosure.
• Provide an effective flexible work and return-to-work process to support recovery.

Healthy people — strategies to promote and support mental health within the workplace

Protect

• Make sure that workers understand their responsibilities relating to psychological safety in the workplace.
• Involve workers and make sure you consult and communicate with workers and their representatives to increase psychological safety and identify and manage work-related stressors.
• Provide effective training and supervision across the organisation on psychological safety and ways to minimise harm of psychosocial hazards.
• Provide information, instruction, and training on expected workplace behaviour and conduct, including all relevant policies and procedures (to prevent bullying, harassment, racism, and violence at work).
• Ask managers to assess whether they have identified the behaviours that effectively prevent and reduce stress at work. Help managers reflect on their behaviour and management style. You can use the line manager competency indicator tool at hse.gov.uk.
• Provide coaching, mentoring, and/or training to build supportive and capable managers. When managers can be respectful, responsible, manage and communicate existing and future work, manage the team, and manage difficult situations, they can reduce work-related stress and promote positive mental health.

Promote

• Support mental health first aid and suicide prevention awareness training.
• Provide employees with information and education on evidence-based strategies that can enhance positive mental health (e.g. resilience, mindfulness, meditation).
• Promote the principles in the Five Ways to Wellbeing.¹⁰ These are easy ways to think about how you can create good mental wellbeing.
  Engage workers in co-design to support ways of working that will help them reach their potential.
• Provide seminars or workshops on financial planning, stress reduction techniques, organisation and time management,
  and improving sleep and reducing fatigue.
• Include a regularly updated social calendar and volunteering opportunities in staff induction materials along with other relevant wellbeing policy and information.
• Leave a list of referral sources and information in staff rooms, newsletters, emails and/or on the intranet to raise awareness
  of the mental health support available.
• Celebrate cultural and gender diversity through participating in relevant activities.

Respond

• Promote mental health support services. This may include employee assistance programs as an option to confidentially discuss any concerns.
• Provide information, education, and training to recognise and respond to the signs of mental ill health and distress and discuss methods of supporting others in distress.
• Consider implementing a peer support program.
• Promote and provide research-supported early intervention initiatives.
• Take an individual-focused approach to recovery.
• Promote help seeking and pathways to treatment.

More resources to help you take action

Mental health resource referral guide (DOCX, 492.1 KB)

SafeWork SA information on mental health and psychosocial hazards as does Safe Work Australia.

The National Workplace Initiative has produced a series of resources to support mental health at work.

Mental health strategy and action plan template by WorkSafe Victoria.

¹ WHO and International Labour Organization, Mental health at work: policy brief, WHO and ILO, accessed September 2022.

² Beyond Blue, Developing a workplace mental health strategy, Headsup, Beyond Blue.

³ Productivity Commission, Inquiry report - mental health, Productivity Commission, 2020, report no. 95.

⁴ Productivity Commission, Inquiry report - mental health. Wise workplace, Racial discrimination at work,

⁵ Wise workplace, n.d., accessed October 2022. wiseworkplace.com.au

⁶ Australian Human Rights Commission, Workers with Mental Illness: a Practical Guide for Managers, Appendix A: Knowing the law, Australian Human Rights Commission, 2010.

⁷ National Mental Health Commission, Blueprint for Mentally Healthy Workplaces Release 2, Australian Government, July 2022, accessed October 2022.

⁸ Health Line, What the Yerkes-Dodson Law Says About Stress and Performance, Health Line, 2020, accessed October 2022. healthline.com

⁹ National Mental Health Commission, lueprint for Mentally Healthy Workplaces Release 2, National Mental Health Commission, 2022.

¹⁰ Wellbeing SA, Five ways to wellbeing, Government of South Australia, n.d., accessed October 2022.wellbeingsa.sa.gov.au/your-wellbeing/connecting-with-others/5-ways-to-wellbeing