Creating a mentally healthy workplace involves more than providing an Employee Assistance Program, running mental health awareness training or developing a wellbeing policy. 

These initiatives can form part of a broader approach, but Australian businesses also need to consider how work is designed, managed and led. 

For business owners, managers and supervisors, this raises an important question: 

Are the behaviours being demonstrated by your leaders supporting the workplace culture you are trying to create? 

Workers Take Their Cues From Their Leaders 

Businesses often communicate positive messages about mental health and wellbeing. 

Workers may be encouraged to: 

• take appropriate breaks;
• raise workload concerns;
• report inappropriate or aggressive behaviour;
• ask for assistance;
• disconnect from work outside normal working arrangements; and
• speak openly when a workplace process isn’t working.

However, the behaviour of leaders can sometimes communicate a very different message. 

For example, a manager might encourage workers to take breaks while regularly working through lunch themselves. 

A business might encourage employees to raise workload concerns, but supervisors respond to those concerns with “everyone is busy.” 

Workers may be told they don’t need to respond outside working hours, while managers regularly send late-night messages that appear to require an immediate response. 

A policy might require workers to report occupational violence and aggression, while actual incidents are dismissed as simply “part of the job.” 

Over time, these behaviours can create unwritten workplace expectations. 

The Connection With Psychosocial Risk 

Under Australian work health and safety requirements, businesses must consider risks to both physical and psychological health. 

Psychosocial hazards may arise from the design or management of work, the working environment, workplace interactions and behaviours. 

Common examples include: 

• high job demands;
• poor support;
• lack of role clarity;
• poor organisational change management;
• inadequate recognition;
• conflict;
• bullying;
• violence and aggression; and
• remote or isolated work.

Leadership behaviour can influence how effectively many of these hazards are identified and managed. 

Importantly, managing psychosocial risk does not mean removing every source of pressure from a workplace. 

Most businesses will experience busy periods, deadlines, difficult customers, organisational change and competing priorities. 

The question is how those situations are managed. 

What Leaders Say Versus What Workers See 

Consider some common workplace messages. 

“Tell us if your workload is too high.”

What happens when somebody actually does? 

“We want people to report mistakes.”

Is the response focused on understanding what happened and preventing recurrence, or immediately finding someone to blame? 

“We don’t expect you to work after hours.”

Are managers regularly emailing and messaging workers late at night? 

“Aggressive behaviour isn’t acceptable.”

What happens when a valued customer becomes abusive towards a worker? 

“We consult our workers.”

Are workers involved before significant workplace changes are implemented, or simply informed after the decision has been made? 

The response to these situations helps establish what workers understand to be the real expectations of the workplace. 

Five Questions for Managers and Supervisors 

As part of your mental health and wellbeing activities, consider asking your managers and supervisors: 

1. What behaviours are we modelling? 
Are our leaders demonstrating the same behaviours we expect from workers? 

2. How do we respond when someone raises a concern? 
Workers are more likely to continue raising issues when they believe their concerns will genuinely be considered. 

3. What behaviours are we unintentionally rewarding? 
For example, are excessive hours consistently being associated with commitment or high performance? 

4. What behaviours are we tolerating? 
Repeatedly accepting unreasonable customer behaviour, workplace conflict or excessive workloads can establish an informal workplace norm. 

5. Are we giving supervisors the authority and resources to act? 
Supervisors may identify a psychosocial hazard but require management support, resources or authority to implement effective controls. 

Look Beyond the Wellbeing Program 

A mentally healthy workplace should not rely solely on individual workers becoming more resilient or seeking assistance after problems arise. 

Businesses should also examine the organisational factors that may be creating or contributing to psychosocial hazards. 

That means looking at: 

Workload → Roles → Resources → Support → Consultation → Leadership → Review 

For small and medium businesses, this doesn’t necessarily require creating another complicated management system. 

It can start with regular conversations between managers, supervisors and workers, reviewing psychosocial hazards, recording actions and checking whether the controls put in place are actually working. 

Leadership Sets the Standard 

Policies and procedures remain important. 

Training remains important. 

Support services remain important. 

But workers also observe what happens around them every day. 

They see how managers respond when workloads increase. 

They see how supervisors respond to mistakes. 

They see whether inappropriate behaviour is challenged. 

They see whether leaders genuinely disconnect from work. 

And they see whether speaking up results in action. 

Workplace culture isn’t simply what is written in your policies. 

It is also shaped by the behaviours your leaders demonstrate, tolerate and reinforce. 

So, as part of your approach to mental health and wellbeing, ask one simple question: 

What are we normalising in our workplace? 

How CHD Partners Can Help 

CHD Partners supports Australian businesses to develop practical systems for managing work health and safety, including psychosocial hazards. 

Our focus is on making compliance practical for small and medium businesses by helping organisations establish processes for identifying risks, consulting workers, implementing controls and maintaining evidence that those processes are being followed. 

Compliance Made Simple. 

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