Guiding Principles and Assumptions

Proactive and positive leaders are some of the strongest influencers and a key priorities in reducing or removing the risk of psychological harm to staff. Not only can those in leadership roles influence individuals, one conversation at a time, they also influence systems of work, processes and policies that can prevent the likelihood of mental health injury. This is why this framework contains significant discussion around styles of leadership.

The genesis of the consortium and the vision of The Integrated Approach and Integrated Framework are found in the findings from the 2018 Downey-Swinburne report which focused on the issues of the white-collar population. Given the use of the same benchmark survey, this is also the predominant focus of this framework.

Organisational culture mirrors the behaviours demonstrated from the top and when strong and cohesive leadership is in place, the benefits cascade throughout the organisation, all the way to the front line. In construction, this includes the blue-collar workforce.

Possibly one of the key benefits of 2020 was bringing discussions about wellness and mental health to the tables of industry, policy makers and public health providers. This gave many of us a louder voice and more opportunity to bring about change. In developing this framework, we recognise the good work already being undertaken in this space, and that there is diversity in the maturity of mental health and wellbeing initiatives, with some programs well-established and well-supported and others still in the planning phase.

The Integrated Framework offers insight into ‘what good looks like’ rather than seeking to offer the newest, shiniest and brightest offering. Everything that is offered is proven, based on research and was undertaken with transparency and consultation with industry. Wherever plausible, extended or ‘stretch’ thinking is also offered.

The audit will prioritise your efforts and direct your focus. For those of you already on the journey, it provides of gap analysis and for those just starting, it will provide a step-by-step process.

In any change initiative, the first step is to create awareness around the need for change. In the case of workplace mental health and wellbeing, this awareness often came at the cost of increasing numbers of stress-related mental health injuries, rising compensation claims and the alarming rates of suicide. These lag indicators (after the fact) provided the stimulus to move to a prevention or early intervention focus and improve mental health and mitigate possible psychosocial hazards before they cause injury.

A prevention approach reduces or removes the likelihood of work-related factors being the cause of mental illness for workers. By taking a prevention focus, this Framework is designed to help you to implement strategies to take an early intervention approach to sustaining or improving mental health.

This framework has not been designed to help support those with a diagnosed mental illness or injury. If this is the case, the services of a recommended EAP (Employee Assistance Program) or GP would be necessary for support.

One of the underlying principles that supports positive culture and worker wellbeing is the existence of psychological safety. The author Timothy Clark describes psychological safety as “an environment where you feel included, that it is safe to learn and contribute and that you can challenge the status quo - all without any fear of being shamed, embarrassed or marginalised.”.

Trust between leaders and with their direct reports, open communication, clarity and clear cultural expectations build psychological safety. Helping leaders to learn how to look for, identify and address potential psychosocial risks, just like we would for physical safety, aims to prevent injury rather than manage it.

By implementing a wellness program, you are creating cultural change and culture change takes time. Think back to the journey of physical safety. This moved from compliance and reactivity (working with lag indicators or exploring what happened after an incident), to proactivity and generative approaches where risk management and hazard identification (lead indicators) are used to prevent incidents. The aim is to replicate this process for psychological safety, following a familiar process of education, engagement, risk identification and prevention.

Wellness does not need to be something extra to add to the burden of leadership, rather it can integrate into the existing Safety Management System. The Integrated Framework makes this assumption, suggesting that it is an extension of what may already exist in the OHS field.

This Framework is not exclusive to the construction industry. While this industry and our work within it has provided invaluable insights, the principles offered in the Framework are relevant to any organisation that values the mental health of its employees and understands the importance of creating a psychologically safe workplace.