Psych Health and Safety Podcast

In this episode we chat with Sandra Lam, Organisational Psychologist and Founder and Managing Director of FIFO Focus, helping Fly in Fly out (FIFO) workers to maintain good mental health and employers to design their organisation and work to enable psychological wellbeing. Sandra shares her observations of how psychological health and safety is managed in the FIFO world, what employers could do differently, and the changes she has seen in Western Australia following the Parliamentary Inquiry into FIFO mental health and subsequent publication of the DMIRS Code of Practice. She also has some great advice for early-career Organisational Psychologists, and other professionals with an interest in workplace psych health and safety.

In this episode we chat with Diya Dey, the second Organisational Psychologist to feature this week. Diya has a wealth of experience working with State Government in the field of health, safety and wellbeing. In this episode, Diya explains what vicarious trauma is, how it develops, which professions are more at risk, and the different career stages where vicarious trauma risk tends to increase. Diya then takes us through what a systems-based approach to vicarious trauma risk management looks like, acknowledging the shared responsibility model where both the employer and the employee each contributes to risk reduction. She shares some practical interventions that employers can use to reduce employee exposure to vicarious trauma risk, and discusses how higher risk professions can build a culture of professional development that includes strategies known to reduce individual risk.

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In this episode we chat with and receive insights from highly experienced health and safety leader Wade Needham, currently working at General Manager, Environment, Health and Safety Australasia at Fresh Country Farms of Australia. When it comes to workplace mental health, HSE and HR professionals often work in silos, but these two professions have highly complimentary skills when it comes to protecting employees against psychosocial hazards and crafting work experiences that promote mental wellbeing. We discuss the need to not just focus on individual wellbeing, but also consider systemic interventions. Voluntary versus mandatory participation is debated. Leadership commitment is vital for workplace wellbeing initiatives to work, and Wade shares some ways in which HSE and HR can collaborate on this.

In this episode:1:00 Meet your co-hosts14:00 Why a psychologically healthy and safe workplace is different to a mentally healthy workplace17:30 The current approach to workplace mental health is backwards22:00 Why are EAPs used in place of psychological injury prevention?24:00 How fatigue risk management and psychological health and safety are very similar25:30 SNAPS versus PERMA for mental health promotion36:00 Why are physical injury rates going down but psychological injury rates trending up?42:30 Why it’s important to treat employees as humans not machinesJ45:30 Psychosocial hazard identification: the importance of employee consultation48:30 Psychological risk management. 51:30 The latest workplace stress and psychological injury statistics.59:00 Will the stick work better than the carrot to improve employee mental health?1:04:00 Why does workplace mental health now fall under the HSE portfolio?107:30 How psych health and safety will deliver more opportunities for people and safety professionals Resources:UK HSE Management StandardNational Standard of Canada for psychological health and safety in the workplaceSafeWork Australia: Work-related psychological health and safety: A systematic approach to meeting your dutiesISO 45003 (Draft): Occupational health and safety management — Psychological health and safety at work : managing psychosocial risks — GuidelinesSafeWork NSW: Draft NSW Code of Practice Managing the risks to psychological healthUK: Labour Force Survey - Self-reported work-related ill health and workplace injuriesSafeWork Australia: Australian Workers’ Compensation Statistics 2018-19SafeWork NSW: Psychological Injury Claims

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