Employee mental health is an increasingly important issue across all industries, but in sectors like mining, where the work is physically demanding and often isolating, the toll on mental health can be significant.
The March edition of Safe to Work will focus on spotlighting the innovations, technologies and services that are helping worker wellbeing enter a new era. Ahead of the magazine’s release this week, we sat down with the Black Dog Institute to talk about a major aspect of workplace wellbeing: mental health.
Alongside the impacts to the individual, mental ill health comes at significant social and economic cost. In 2021/22, the median time lost to work-related psychological injuries was more than four times that of all physical injuries and illnesses.
Dr Mark Deady is a University of New South Wales senior research fellow at Black Dog Institute and the research lead within the Workplace Mental Health Research program. The program has a strong focus on mental health initiatives in high-risk industries, including male-dominated industries such as mining.
“In all jobs, psychological safety must be treated as much of a priority as physical safety, this is equally true in physically demanding roles and often neglected,” Deady said.
“Research shows that there are specific workplace factors that can create poor mental health outcomes, otherwise known as psychosocial hazards. The term psychosocial risk refers to the likelihood of these hazards causing harm.
“Common hazards include factors such as high job demand, job insecurity, or social isolation, all of which are prevalent in mining.”
While workplaces face these risks, organisations are also uniquely positioned to create meaningful change. With the right strategies in place, workplaces can actively support, as well as protect, workers’ mental health.
“Awareness and understanding of mental health in the workplace is growing, but the real challenge now lies in how we create mentally healthy workplaces,” Deady said.
When it comes to the practicalities of building better mental health, workplaces can leverage effective resources and frameworks to help guide them on what actions to take.
Black Dog Institute recently updated its ‘Framework for Mentally Healthy Workplaces’, which was designed as a practical roadmap for organisations across any industry and size.
“One of the most important factors to understand about workplace mental health is that it requires a whole-of-organisation approach,” Deady said.
“In our updated framework, we look at this across four levels of a workplace.”
The framework describes these levels as:
- systems and policy (policy and procedural arrangements within an organisation)
- operations and team (initiatives that optimise interpersonal, team and general environments)
- job (initiatives that alter the design, delivery or content of the work tasks being performed)
- individual (programs that modify employee perceptions and responses to conditions/experiences, rather than via workplace changes).
“At each level of an organisation, there is an opportunity to protect employees by mitigating hazards, promote a culture of good mental health and respond quickly to ill-health,” Deady said.
To build better mental health at work, organisations must adopt a holistic approach, addressing mental health at every level. By taking action across systems and policies, operations and teams, jobs, and individual roles, the mining industry can reduce risk, foster a supportive culture, and respond proactively to mental health challenges.
For those wanting to apply this framework to their own workplace, Black Dog Institute’s new free self-audit-tool enables workers, team leaders and business leaders to review the framework and measure how their organisation performs against each level.
“By understanding how and when to address mental health risks and challenges at work, and upskilling workers across all levels, workplaces can take important steps towards creating a healthy environment,” Deady said.
Backed by research and delivered by experts, Black Dog Institute offers a range of skill-building workshops, self-paced eLearning programs and knowledge-building presentations to support workplaces.
For more information on how these programs may help your workplace, get in touch with Black Dog Institute’s Workplace Engagement Team.