0452 471 960

   support@freshhrinsights.com.au
LEAVE US A REVIEW
RECRUITMENT
MEMBER LOGIN

Is it really matters? Employee’s mental health and well-being in Australia!

by | Feb 10, 2019 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

This blog will answer the following ambiguities!

  • What is mental health & well-being?
  • Importance
  • Reasons
  • Bad effects of poor mental health well-being on Organization
  • Some facts and figures
  • Global ways to improve mental health well-being
  • Future recommendation regarding mental health well-being

Employee mental & health well-being is an essential factor in our modern workplace’s and its non-existence can cause variety of physical illness such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, headache,  burnout, back pain, disturbances, gastrointestinal, bipolar disorder, substance abuse and different minor illness and it can also cause psychological effects such as depression, anxiety, loss of focus and deduction in decision making skills. Seem harsh to blame all this on a workplace HOWEVER Work-related stress has directly positive impact on absenteeism, medical cost, staff turnover, human error and negative impact on productivity & profit and employee morale.

Stress can be caused by extra work load demands. Although work demand pressure also causes motivation, there is a clear differences between pressure that causes motivation or pressure that cause stress. According to researchers, Level of Risk that causes stress is also different in one occupation to another. Higher stress level means higher hazard for mental ill health. The decrease in Employee mental health & well-being is a worldwide issue.  In the Netherlands 58% of work related issues has been recorded as being because of mental health disabilities and In UK 30%-40% of sickness absence is because of stress. Work related stress is very expensive for employees in the US as an example as employee mental and health well-being cost is twice than all other medical cost. Depression patients claims almost $14,967 USD medical bill an year, compared with $5,929 a year for the total population. This really does show a stark need for having a mandatory requirement to make some efforts to improve employee mental health and well-being.

ABS National surveys of Mental & health well-being reports that around 65,000 suicide attempts are made a year in Australia. 38,000 of this  total is linked back to or is because of the Australian health system. The reason behind these 38,000 suicide attempts have been recorded as being pain, depression and internal torture. Professor Robert Goldney from the University of Adelaide concluded in his book, Suicide Prevention,  that More than 70% suicide attempts are because of clinical depression.

This may seem all to daunting for business owners but there are many ways to improve mental and health well being in your workplace. Employers arrange wellness programs that increase physical health. Employers are starting to give more importance to support employees  and this will go a long way in the  increase in their mental health, well being and improve social, emotional and financial aspects.

There are Employee Well-being Awards ceremonies as well that also motivate employers to maintain employee well-being. Swisse Wellness has been recognised as an Employer of Choice in The Australian Business Awards 2016. Swisse made it their mission to promote health in the wider community through the provision of their products, but this also extends to their internal focus.

Work Stress Scale (WSS) is an instrument to estimate the work related stress so that it can be controlled. WSS allows an individual to evaluate degree the of stress in different domains such as work, family, conflict, poor job prospects, relationship problems with colleagues, relationship problems with superior, performance pressure and bureaucratic constraints.  Employers are planning and working towards making mental health their top priority.

Mental Health Council of Australia’s (MHCA) is a strategic publication which focuses on Mental Health & Well-being in Australia. This publication emphasizes on significant incidents regarding Australian employee mental health in multiple sectors. The best thing about MHCA is its better contribution that is not only in addressing problems but to resolve the problems effectively as well. Its aim is to truly improve the millions of employee’s mental health well-being of physical and psychological concerns.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP) details

Whilst researching for this blog we have come across a number of useful links to information that will further develop what we have written about in our short blog on Workplace Well-being. We have posted the links below;