Professor Niki Ellis. Photo supplied
‘Things are pretty tough in the health industry; it’s one of the industries with the highest rates of claims in this area,’ says Professor Niki Ellis, referring to the issue of psychosocial workplace hazards. ‘So I hope that people haven’t become so demoralised that they feel there’s nothing that can be done – because that story is changing: we’re at a tipping point and change is not only possible, it’s a legal requirement.’
An occupational and public health physician, Professor Ellis developed her interest in the relationship between work design and health in the 1980s, when she was the director of RSI strategy for WorkSafe Australia. In the 1990s, she began working on practical interventions for stress in the workplace, including in the healthcare industry. ‘And that’s really been a great flavour of my work since then,’ she says.
After running her own consultancy business for many years, Professor Ellis went to London to work in the health innovation space, and upon returning to Australia she moved into academia, where she’s been working on the translation of research into practice. Her book, Work and health: Management in Australia and New Zealand, was published by Oxford University Press. Some members may recall Professor Ellis from the ABC TV series she presented, Stress Buster.
In November, Professor Ellis will be speaking at the ANMF (Vic Branch) Advancing safety in healthcare conference on the topic of psychosocial issues in workplaces, and what is reasonable for HSRs to expect from their employers.
We can expect to see changes
‘The reason I’ve accepted this invitation is that I think we’re at a tipping point with regard to workplace mental health,’ she explains. ‘Employers now understand that they have to take it seriously, they have to address it. So HSRs in particular are in a position to really make a difference. I don’t want to raise expectations too high, but we are now at the point where we can expect to see changes.’
There are a couple of reasons for this, she says. One is cultural: a more holistic understanding of health in the workplace. The other is political: legislative changes. Decades of work have brought us to both.
Historically, change was left up to individual leaders who were interested in the welfare of their staff and who understood the strong association between worker wellbeing and productivity. Those leaders would implement good work design and good leadership, and once they had successes they could influence other leaders, and government.
Once that began to happen at scale, government was forced to act and hence we now have legislation around psychosocial hazards, forcing employers to accept that there are things they can be doing to improve the design of work and the way people are managed.
‘But the question is: how do you implement that, and what does it mean? It’s not always obvious,’ Professor Ellis says. ‘So that’s really what I want to talk about in my presentation: we’ve got the regulations now, but what does that mean, and how can you best use them? And what could you reasonably expect to see in an industry which we know struggles?’
Professor Ellis emphasises that there are plenty of examples of strategies that work but notes that the solutions for this issue are not as clear cut as with some other OHS issues.
‘When we were grappling with manual handling in the health industry it was about maximum loads, for example,’ she says. ‘With psychosocial matters, it’s going to be more specific for your team. There are some general principles available to you, but no cookie cutter solutions; it’s going to depend on the mix of people and the mix of what actually happens in your team. So it requires a little bit of creativity.’
Not getting any traction in your workplace?
Recent legislative changes will be key for members at workplaces that are not doing enough to address psychosocial hazards. At the federal level, this includes 2023 amendments to the Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011 that prescribe how employers must identify and manage hazards and risks to workers’ psychological health and safety. At the state level they include the proposed Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Psychological Health) Regulations.
(In Victoria, until the specific regulations are accepted and implemented, there remains a duty under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 for employers to provide workplaces that are safe and without risk to health, including psychological health; and with all the developments around the rest of the nation and the improved state of knowledge, it is harder for employers to resist taking action.)
‘If managers are coming back to you and saying: “well, there’s a resilience program, or you can go to the employee assistance program,” I’d be saying: that’s not good enough; we’ve got these regulations now,’ Professor Ellis suggests.
‘I’m not normally a fan of regulations’ she adds, ‘because they often don’t make a difference. But I think for this issue they were necessary because we knew what needed to be done and we knew what could be done, but it wasn’t being done. So I actually was pleased to see the regulations that have come out.’
Case studies are also useful. ‘It helps to have examples of other hospitals or other teams that have successfully implemented changes. People love case studies.’
She also suggests getting help from colleagues. ‘If it’s not just one person campaigning for change, but multiple people saying “we think this is a good idea” that can be hard to resist.’
