This is an interesting question. It is not a matter of where wellbeing should be positioned i.e., HR or HS but what these respective functions focus on. It seems that when positioned in the HR function the focus is more individually based and often reactive - supporting individuals who may be struggling or building resiliency. When positioned in the HS function there is a stronger risk assessment approach with a focus on the work. So, the question is not where wellbeing should be positioned but are we addressing designing protective factors into the work and eliminating or minimising the risk to mental wellbeing and building the capability of people to thrive as well as supporting when they may be struggling. We need to stop framing wellbeing as resiliency self-care and have the courage to address aspects of the work that harm mental wellbeing.

Thanks all..

Many thanks.

Hi Joanne,

Can you provide a sense of what a 'joined up ' approach is or point us to references that we can explore?

Hi Joanne

Do you have thoughts on how we would assess physical and psychosocial risks together?

Great conversation - thanks everyone

Hi Grant - to echo Todd Conklin, should the question a business should be asking be: do we have sufficient and effective controls in place to resume work?

Thanks everyone - great to chat!

We still need to check in, and not just check in on how the work is going but how the person is tracking. This requires our people leaders to understand both their obligation in respect to tracking how their staff are working remotely, but the opportunity to support them to stay on the 'coping side' of the mental health continuum. As I said previously, our mental health is dynamic so the check-ins need to be quick but frequent.

Not sure there is a definitive answer to this. I wonder whether we go back to assess why we protect our people in the first place - is it because we have to (obligation) or because we care. Most people would say because we care. If this is the case then do whatever we can to prevent the harm. I guess what you are asking is what is reasonably practical - again I think if our driver is we care, we may do more than less. Not a great answer Maxine - hope other have some thoughts for you.

Hi Jessica - sadly no. I think there are two parts to this. One is having a good measure, this is the easier part. The second and more challenging part, is shifting the mindset of leaders from the SLT to frontline leaders that they need to be tracking the wellbeing of their people on a regular basis. So I think we need to provide leaders with a sound, easy way to pulse check where their people sit on the mental health continuum. Happy to talk to you about some ideas I have on this.

Perhaps this is because some level of harm has already occurred and so it gets clouded with privacy conerns. If we shift our focus from the harm to the risks we may have more opportunity to reduce the potential for harm. Not that I am saying we should ignore the harm. This is an area where I think we tend to treat physical injury differently form mental injury. If the harm was hearing loss from excessive noise would we share this more freely?

Tracking illness usually invovles subjective reports of wellbeing/harm. Given that our mental health is subjective and dynamic and moves along the mental health continuum, my thinking in this space is that to track personal wellbeing we need to do regular pulse checks as to where people see themselves along the continuum from thriving to unwell. Measuring once a year as we tend to with engagement will not provide an adequate picture

Bullying is known risk factor to a person's mental wellbeing. As it is covered by several legislative acts - it can be viewed as both an HR and HS issue. The key issue for me is that we do not see bullying solely as an individual issue but look to support the people involved as well as assess the extent to which the workplace has recognised bullying as a risk factor and has appropriate processes to manage the risk

Hi MAxine.

I think this is the heart of the matter. I think we need to start putting more effort into identifying the risks to wellbeing in our specific organisation rather than relying on the many shopping lists of 'psychosocial hazards' that are found in any Google search. The looking for appropriate controls. However, when looking at controls we need to entertain the idea that the work as currently arranged may not be the best way to do it. It is also important that this work is done through a 'work-as-done' lens rather than a work-as-imagined lens. In other words, we need to understand the risks from the people doing the work, not those removed from the realities of the actual work

Hi Craig my thoughts are that we to look beyond our normal ROI indicators.
The Global Wellness Institute questions whether ROI is the appropriate measure for workplace wellness programmes given that the value of these programmes is often intangible and given the inherent limitations of a programmatic approach to employee wellness.

Hi Rachel,

This a good point. Part of the good work design piece is to be clearer about work expectations and arrangements . In a recent wellbeing survey I conducted for a NZ organisation the key improvements to wellbeing identified were better management of workload and more flexibility on work arrangements. Interestingly this was across all age groups. Both of which are design issues

I agree that many people working in H&S find addressing mental wellbeing scary. However if one steps back and reflect on the work to be done, people are not being asked to be counsellors. To protect people's mental health at work we need to know what the risks are and then to ensure we have done what we can to eliminate and minimise. My concern is that we know what many of the risks are but take many of them as 'givens' rather than looking at ways to redesign or arrange the work. I see this so often in relation to workload. Research from the UK has shown that behind 44% of work related stress sits workload pressures and lack of manager support.

Morning – to start our conversation, I thought it may be helpful to share some of my concerns. My sense is that most organisations get that their duty of care extends beyond physical health to mental health. However, the response to deal with mental harm has largely been to build the wellness and resiliency of workers or provide them with EAP support if they are struggling. Although these are sound initiatives, they do not address the major known causes of poor mental health i.e. the many known wellbeing risk factors such as excessive workload, constant change, bullying. This puts the focus for improving mental health with the individual. If we want people to thrive, we need the courage to question the way which work is organised and managed i.e. we need to assess the extent to which work meets the principles of good work design.
In short, while mental health awareness has risen significantly in recent years, too many employers are tinkering at the edges of change rather than making the fundamental differences that are really needed to improve their employees’ mental health. We treat mental health differently to physical health.