AN EMERGING crisis in the mental health of Australia is costing the economy between $43 billion and $51 billion a year, according to a draft paper by the Federal Government’s Productivity Commission. Leading employee assistance program provider AccessEAP has outlined the role workplaces must play in reacting to the Australian Government Productivity Commission’s Draft Mental Health Report.

The Mental Health, Draft Report revealed that beyond this alarming statistic of economic cost, an approximate $130bn additional cost is created by diminished health and reduced life expectancy for the one in five Australians living with psychological conditions.

The draft highlights the complexities around defining a mentally healthy workplace but acknowledges the recognised risk factors and stressors that can impact mental health in the workplace. The role of employee assistance programs (EAP) and the importance of investing in research and evaluating outcomes were also identified, according to AccessEAP CEO, Sally Kirkright. 

“Workplaces must take a stance against mental ill-health,” Ms Kirkright said. “While diseases and physical conditions tend to affect older generations, mental ill-health inhibits our working lives, limiting the ability to secure and retain employment.

There are four main job-related factors that exacerbate psychological conditions, including: job demand and control, caused by a lack of control over highly cognitively and/or emotionally demanding jobs; a perceived imbalance between effort and rewards; job insecurity; and exposure to trauma.

“Businesses need to be mindful of the impact they have on employees’ mental wellbeing through the job itself, workplace culture and organisational support including recognition, stigma and the physical environment,” Ms Kirkright said. “Employers should also support employees in the workplace and with external stressors, such personal issues and lifestyle needs.”

Ms Kirkright has outlined the lessons that businesses can take from the report, to improve the mental health of their workforces:

MENTAL HEALTH CODES

Almost half of all Australian adults will meet the diagnostic criteria for a mental illness at some point in their lives, showing the scale of the issue.

Bosses must create an open dialogue around mental illness, free from stigma and fear of discrimination and should be given it the same importance consideration as physical health and safety, when developing processes and health codes.

ABSENTEEISM AND PRESENTEEISM

Absenteeism from people with mental ill-health or their careers, is roughly five percentage points higher than the average worker. Additionally, presenteeism amongst this group can be anywhere between five and eight times higher.

This issue costs Australian businesses somewhere between $13bn and $17bn annually in lost activity, with potential further losses due to the secondary effects on colleagues. Allowing employees to take time off to manage their mental ill-health is essential in helping them to remain productive and to allowing managers to direct workflow.

EARLY INTERVENTION

Employees most commonly come to us for help with stress, anxiety and depression, which can all greatly benefit from early intervention and management. Worryingly, the report reveals that 40% of sufferers don’t seek professional help for their condition. This makes the role of the workplace in supporting mental wellbeing essential. Employers must train managers to identify and engage with mental ill-health sufferers and encourage them to get help from an Employee Assistance Program or other professional.

STIGMA

Stigma is one of the biggest barriers to getting help for psychological disorders, with the report highlighting that it reduces the efficacy of mental health programs. It also discusses the importance cultural differences around the issue.

In addition, we encounter mental health stigma regularly in male-dominated industries, such as construction and mining, which can harbour a ‘macho’ culture where asking for help is seen as a weakness.

Regardless of industry, it is also important that employees feel that they can trust employers enough to reveal their mental health conditions. The report found that a fear of discrimination and lack of support from bosses, has led to 38 percent of people living with psychological conditions choosing not to disclose them at work.

WORK AS THE SOLUTION

There are strong two-way links between employment and mental health, as it can provide a sense of identity, purpose, life satisfaction, increased social connection and regular opportunities to communicate with people outside of the immediate family and/or social circles.

It is important for people to be able to stay in work while they deal with any psychological issues, if their workplace does not contribute to the condition. Businesses should provide practical support, such as Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP’s). These organisations allow businesses to offer workers with a range of confidential psychological and counselling services via phone and face to face sessions, as well as a range of support materials.

An EAP will assist with health and safety practices for mental health conditions. It will also offer proactive training on creating a positive work environment, which is particularly important in preventing cases of psychological injury. The average mental health compensation claim is over $25k and will see employees miss an average of 16.2 weeks of work, compared to just 5.2 weeks for all other claims.

While the full report is yet to be issued, it’s clear that businesses need to tackle mental health head on, with a well thought out approach that includes organisational codes of practice and supported by expert psychologists.

www.accesseap.com.au

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By Michael Reid  >>

IS THERE A BOTTLENECK in your business that slows the flow from attracting interest to serving customers effectively? Is there a task you consider a ‘necessary evil’ in the course of your work? Is there a question your customers frequently ask but is never answered to their full satisfaction?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you may have an issue with one of your processes.

Almost every business has inefficiencies that cost time, money and opportunities. Often, business growth plans ignore process problems that could be fixed.

But sub-optimal processes can cost you customers, drain your time, frustrate your staff and slow your business growth. Not to mention that as you scale up, the problems often become bigger and more obstructive as well.

The problem with ironing out a process is that it often takes time and money to diagnose the issue and develop a viable long-term solution. There’s a case for investing in streamlining your processes, however: making an essential step or regular task in your business smoother or less troublesome offers the most benefit to your business because it offers improvement gains over a long period.

BAD PROCESSES AN OPPORTUNITY COST

Here’s a situation I’m intimately aware of: a supplier opened a trading account with a substantial credit limit – $500,000 – for a client.

The client asked if there was an on-boarding process to deal with ordering, rebates, credits, payments, accounts, pricing support and so on, but the answer was ‘no’ – the supplier’s only communication was to email the client their account number.

Things did not improve. This industry attracts rebates and has pricing support for major customers/projects, but the client was unaware of the necessary manual processes. The supplier’s credit department issued a ‘stop trading’ notice as they believed full payment had not been made.

This repeated itself over months until the frustrated client and the equally frustrated credit department reached a crisis point. The client then contacted some of the supplier’s other customers and found this to be standard practice – ‘you just have to work it out’.

At this stage, the client took the initiative. Armed with all the evidence and communication, they met with the supplier’s CEO to explain how things weren’t working.

The cost of this ongoing problem with the credit department was substantial and varied, from the $500,000 client closing their account and taking their business elsewhere, to the substantial labour costs of having the credit department rework credits and rebates, which were never reflected on the bottom line.

To their credit, the supplier hired a professional consultant to create an on-boarding process, complete with documentation and checklists.

The true cost over the years is unaccounted for because the problem had gone undetected for a long time.

How many other clients had taken their business elsewhere because of this issue? What was the opportunity cost of tying up the credit department with unnecessary work?

IDENTIFY THE ISSUE

The hardest part is diagnosing the problem. Because you go through the process every day as part of business-as-usual, it can be difficult to see what might cause angst for your staff or customers – they are likely to have accepted it as ‘the way things are’.

Look at the experience from your customer’s point of view. If you suspect there is a flaw, the first step is to ask them for feedback on what the process has been like for them.

I’ve found this to be an eye-opener.

Next, turn to your staff to find their pain points. Be aware that they might be using workarounds, which can be band-aid solutions that conceal the core issue.

Human nature may also cause them to minimise the issue, in case they are blamed for a breakdown or a poor process.

Data may also shed light on trends and identify inefficiencies. For example, if you are a service business, assess how your staff spend their time and see where efficiencies can be created. Track the journey of a new business enquiry to see where potential customers might drop off, get frustrated, or require a lot of your team’s time unnecessarily.

If you run a physical store, track which days and times are your busiest and then roster your staff accordingly to prevent paying for staff to do little, or being overwhelmed during peak when customers who wait too long may never return.

Sometimes the problem is industry wide. Perhaps the process was created in a different era and inherited without question by subsequent businesses in that industry. The drive for innovation is often about asking ‘why do it that way?’

COLLABORATE ON A SOLUTION

Once you’ve identified the issue, you need to collaborate on the solution. Because the process will affect a lot of people, involving these stakeholders to develop a fix will go a long way to making it work for all of them.

This prevents you from developing a ‘solution’ that makes things easier for the customer but harder for your team or vice-versa.

You may wish to turn to an outsider at this point. Specialist consultants in process improvement are few, but they give a big-picture perspective and ask, ‘why do it that way?’

Sometimes it is better that they aren’t attached to the detail and to the frustrations and aren’t likely to be defensive. Focus on solutions rather than complaining about the problems and you’ll come up with some excellent ideas.

Bring in your team at the fine-tuning stage to make sure the ideas will be do-able and are tailor-made to what they need to do their best work. This step also attains their buy-in; no one likes being told to change without having a say in how.

If, like me, you realise that the solution has a wider application beyond your business, then you have the opportunity to create a new business from your innovation.

This is what led me to develop the Measure & Quote app, which solves an industry-wide problem.

I noticed that measuring by tradies, using the traditional method, takes an average of 45 minutes on-site, plus all the time spent back at the office calculating and generating the quote.

So I created an augmented reality app that shaves that time down to just a few minutes and can accurately measure, calculate supplies and draw up quotes all in the same place.

Process improvement is not as glamorous as business development, but getting your processes as smooth and efficient as can be is essential to business growth.

Any cost savings will be multiplied over the long term and having sound processes will give you a strong foundation to pursue new opportunities as your business expands.

https://measureandquote.net/ 

About Michael Reid

Michael Reid has worked in the building industry for two-and-a-half decades and has been at the helm of AILD buying group for the past 10 years. Under his leadership, AILD has enjoyed tenfold growth as the group continues to improve ordering efficiencies between manufacturers and distributors. Michael Reid is a thought leader, director and visionary entrepreneur.

He is also the founder of the newly launched app, Measure & Quote AR, which is aiming to change the future of construction estimation. 

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By Colin D. Ellis >>

YOU NEVER FORGET your first toxic culture. It stays with you, night and day, weekday and weekend. It affects your work, your relationships, your life. Often, you’ve done nothing to create (or maintain) it, but like everyone else, you’re forced to live it.

For some, this is a daily routine with no way out. I scoff at ‘so-called’ experts who tell people that if they don’t like their culture they should leave. This is easy to say when you’ve never been in the position that some people – including me – have. 

In the last toxic culture I was part of, I was a senior executive with two young children. My wife was running our loss-making business in between parental duties and we just about made the ends meet.

Did I enjoy being part of the toxic culture? Absolutely not. But could I just resign and leave? Nope. So what to do? If you stay you make things worse, but if you leave, you may do likewise.

Of course, sticking with something that’s bad for you is never a good idea and make no mistake, toxic cultures are bad for everyone. They’ve been statistically proven to increase stress, anxiety, mental health issues and thus undermine engagement and productivity.

According to US research company Gallup, toxic cultures costs US businesses alone about $500 billion every year in lost productivity.

So they’re bad for people and bad for business too, yet some people seem to revel in them and some leaders choose to ignore them.

WHAT CAUSES A TOXIC CULTURE?

Toxicity in organisations is a result of a working culture that has stagnated. In these kinds of cultures everything stops. There’s no conversation, no challenge, no clear strategy or priorities, no consequence for poor behaviour or poor performance and no visible leadership.

There is plenty of fear and a distinct lack of safety.

When Google surveyed its teams in 2017 and asked them what their number one attribute of great teams was, psychological safety came out on top.

Amy Edmondson is the authority on Psychological Safety (PS) and I’ve followed her work for a number of years now. In a paper in 1999 she described it thus: “Psychological safety describes the collective belief of how team members and leaders respond when another member ‘puts themselves on the line’ by asking a question, reporting an error, or raising a difficult issue.”

In toxic cultures this doesn’t happen. Leaders ‘blame throw’ and look for scapegoats. They use power and authority and seek to make the simple complex. When faced with this scenario, employees have to do all they can to ensure that they did their bit to challenge these norms and to show courage in the face of toxicity.

LEAD WITH COURAGE

Toxic cultures are created as a result of low emotionally intelligent employees who feel little to no connection with what the team or organisation is trying to achieve.

Sometimes, where strategy or a decision is clear, this is understandable, however in my experience, it’s mostly a result of bullying behaviour from managers or else allowing certain individuals to become a disruptive influence. In order to address either of these issues, courage is required and in toxic cultures, courage in numbers provides greater psychological safety.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not suggesting for one minute that people ‘gang up’ on those they believe are responsible for the toxicity. It’s critically important that they practice what they preach and approach the issue with empathy, seeking to understand the root cause of the toxic behaviour and presenting solutions to address it.

Whether this is being honest with a colleague or manager about their behaviour or – in the absence of acceptance that this is an issue or safety in doing so – then escalating the issue to those that can help.

Throughout this process conversations must be had and notes must be taken. Email should only ever be used to confirm understanding and action, never as an outlet for frustration or discussion.

MOVING FROM TOXIC TO VIBRANT

For a culture to move from toxic to vibrant, people have to be called to account for their behaviours or performance. The best teams do this really well so that managers never have to do it.

And in order to be able to hold each other to account, time needs to be spent discussing what works well in the team and what doesn’t. Then a set of behaviours and principles need to be agreed that can serve as the foundations for better working conditions.

Without this, people lack the foundations from which courage and discipline can rise and the toxic culture will remain.

It is vital that individuals who have identified their culture as being toxic, take meaningful action. Simply waiting it out and hoping that it corrects itself is not an option.

To get rid of a toxic culture, the staff have to define what vibrant looks like and then have the courage and discipline to hold themselves to account to it.

If nothing changes then leaving and finding a place that allows you to do your best work may be the only option you have. 

Colin D. Ellis is a culture change expert, an award-winning international speaker and a best-selling author. His latest book ‘Culture Fix: How to Create a Great Place to Work’ (Wiley $29.95) has seen him travel all over the world to help organisations transform the way they get things done.  For more information about how Colin can help your team visit www.culturefix.xyz

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AUSTRALIA is no stranger to natural disasters and as summer edges closer, bringing on drier, warmer days – especially in southern regions – bushfires are sure to become a more prominent risk.

As such events impact entire communities, including organisations, their employees and families, the disruption to daily life can be harrowing.

As many people may be forced to evacuate their homes and workplaces, and leave cherished possessions behind, they turn their energy towards survival.

AccessEAP clinical director, Marcela Slepica knows only too well how a tragic disaster, such as a bushfire, can have damaging and often long-lasting impacts on people.

“It is common to experience a range of intense emotions following a traumatic event like a natural disaster,” Ms Slepica said. 

“The immediate loss of control and personal safety is frightening, and can lead to severe and acute shock, distress, and anxiety.”

The risks of business leaders facing such crises are, sadly, likely to rise rather than diminish in the future. Bushfire seasons are widely believed to be lengthening and becoming more intense, and seemingly starting much earlier than usual.

Bushfires have already left families homeless this year and seen hundreds evacuated from their houses, as more than 50 fires recently burned across New South Wales and more than 15,000 hectares burned in Queensland in September, as reported in a feature article in The Conversation.

Ms Slepica said the memories and associated fear that a similar event will re-occur can be long lasting, so it is important that managers are sensitive in how they deal with staff members who have been affected.

AccessEAP has documented insights into how managers can support their employees through this difficult time, based on both research and experience, Ms Slepica said:

Welcome people back to work

Having a sense of purpose and connection is essential to recovery and often work offers this, as it provides a sense of control, routine and security. As the recovery process takes time and each individual will be coping at different speeds, with setbacks cropping up along the way, it’s important to remember to be patient and understanding.

Normalise reactions

It’s important to remember that people will be experiencing a range of emotions, and that once the event is over, it will take time to come to terms with these feelings. Outbursts of emotion, or people isolating themselves from the rest of the staff, are signs that managers should look out for. Acknowledge that all emotions are okay and that it will take time to grieve. Reassure people that intense feelings are normal, given the disaster.  

Ask ‘how can I help?’

Ask if there is anything, as a manager, that you can do to assist employees or if there is anything that they may need to help make this process easier. Flexibility will be incredibly important during the immediate aftermath of a bushfire. Staff may need to work different hours, or from home, to oversee repairs to their properties or to support loved ones. They also may need assistance with transport and getting to and from work, and with organising childcare. Catch up with senior managers to discuss what the business can do to recognise employees that may need help and put a strategy in place to meet their needs.

Encourage people to talk, but avoid probing

Curiosity is a part of human nature. However, by asking people for details of a traumatic experience, it may trigger painful emotions that they are not ready to share. Instead, gently encourage people to talk about how they are feeling and let them lead the dialogue. Some may be more eager to share than others, as there may be more important things to focus on at that time, so check in regularly.

Advise those suffering to speak with their confidential EAP service

As a manager, there are times that you can only do so much to support people, so make sure your business has other support networks in place too. An employee assistance program (EAP) can offer help in person or over the phone, offering coping strategies and counselling for any problems, without judgement.

www.accesseap.com.au

About AccessEAP

AccessEAP is a leading employee assistance program (EAP) provider assisting companies across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia since 1989 in supporting a mentally healthy workplace. As an Australian owned not-for-profit provider, surplus profits are directed into programs to assist children at risk in the community through direct donation and via The Curran Access Children’s Foundation.

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