Burnout, anxiety, and depression don’t make employees better workers. Surprising no one, research concludes that poor mental health decreases productivity and increases the risk of safety accidents on the job. That’s why it’s worrisome that most employers are facing a severe mental health crisis among their employees. What are the top wellbeing management strategies organisations can implement in 2022?
Duty of care encompasses worker wellbeing
Employers must start by addressing psychosocial hazards. These are the aspects of work that have the potential to cause psychological or physical harm.
Why should they matter? In many jurisdictions, these aspects of work fall under the employer’s duty of care obligation; examples include:
- Bullying in the workplace
- Fatigue
- Mental stress
- Overseas work
- Remote or isolated work
- Workplace change
- Workplace violence or customer aggression
Employers who ignore this component of duty of care while their workers suffer aren’t just at risk of losing productivity and increasing safety risk. There’s also regulatory sanction and monetary penalty.
In Australia, for instance, the cost of workers compensation claims related to work-related mental health conditions is about two and half times higher than that of other claims.
Not just that; the claims also involve significantly more time off work for employees.
Guidelines for managing mental health and wellbeing risk
What can be done, instead? Facing the reality of the mental health and wellbeing crisis helps.
In healthcare, frontline workers are seeing sharp increases in reported rates of burnout, anxiety, and depression. These findings are reproduced in multiple other sectors, as well.
Digesting best-practice guidance will help mitigate the risks posed by psychosocial hazards. And that guidance typically suggests identifying the conditions, circumstances, and workplace demands that have the potential to impair the psychological health and wellbeing of your workers.
From there, organisations should determine what changes will be required to improve the working environment to enhance the psychological health and wellbeing of workers.
Those changes, however, should be undertaken within the larger framework of an existing OHS management system, such as the one promoted by international standard ISO 45001.
Wellbeing management planning
Of course, proper planning helps. Planning enables organisations to establish appropriate objectives, determine how to achieve those objectives, and demonstrate the necessary commitment to continual improvement.
The exact nature of the planning process depends on your organisation’s risk profile, though. Figuring out what that is entails uncovering underlying sources of harm. That’s done by establishing, implementing, and maintaining ongoing, proactive processes for hazard identification.
Sounds easy enough. But don’t forget to account for the following:
- The needs and expectations of specific groups of workers
- The needs of specific workplaces or sets of operations or work tasks
- The results of the assessment of psychosocial risks
- The implementation of actions designed to eliminate psychosocial hazards and reduce the associated risks
- The evaluation of those actions and their outcomes
- The management of the process by reviewing and updating it to meet changing needs, recognising good practice
- Necessary resources
- How to actively involve workers through consultation and participation
Finally, plans might be a must have to ensure that the best wellbeing management strategies are implemented in 2022. But only dedicated resources, such as the appropriate wellbeing management software, can help your organisation achieve the objectives set out in those plans.
What other resources matter? Download our guide to the international standard for psychological health and safety at work, ISO 45003 to find out.
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