AT A nATIONAL leVEL
While there were not many positive outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing it did do was bring mental health to the forefront of our minds. More robust discussion about the impacts of mental health on productivity and performance flowed around the board tables of Australian workplaces. The need to address this was now critical.
At a Construction Industry Level
Typically, the Australian infrastructure construction industry is challenged by both rising project costs and low profit margins. Coupled with a competitive tendering approach to winning work, there is increasing pressure and stress to perform and stay on time and on (or under) budget. As a result, most project leaders struggle to find either the time or the resources to commit to anything that is not perceived to be essential to project delivery. While many recognise that stress, wellbeing and burnout are an issue, they feel either powerless or ill-equipped to address it.
At an employee level, many white-collar workers only know what has been role-modelled in the past and tend to accept authoritarian styles of leadership, inconsistent communications, unclear reporting lines and long hours as the norm. Reluctant to speak up because they don’t feel psychologically safe, employees will either conform to a cultural norm or simply leave the industry creating a shortage of skilled resources.
With the issue now at crisis point and highly visible as a result of both the Downey-Swinburne Report and COVID-19, industry leaders are gathering to address mental health and wellness as a collective.
The 2020 Productivity Commission into Mental Health (1) also found that in the absence of clear requirements and examples, many workplaces need guidance on how to manage psychological safety. This need is especially critical in higher risk industries such as construction.
With such a complex issue and little real expertise in how to address it, the need existed to build something accessible, clear and proven that companies can use to audit existing wellness initiatives and to focus and guide their efforts so that they can be confident that real change will occur.
where to now?
Sources
The Australian Productivity Commission, 2020, Mental Health, Canberra, Report no.95, https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/mental-health/report.
The Australian Productivity Commission, 2019, Productivity Commission mental health inquiry: Whole of Victorian Government submission, Submission no.483, https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/mental-health/submissions#initial.