October is National Safe Work Month. A SafeWork Australia initiative that is highlighted by the annual Australia wide campaign to increase awareness & safety focus via events, workshops, kits, seminars & other safety activities.
National Safety Month – As mentioned in one of our articles last month – October is National Safe Work Month!
Led by Safe Work Australia, it is an annual campaign run across Australia with a focus on increasing awareness and focus on safety including events, seminars, workshops and other safety focused activities.
We encourage everyone to have a think about how safety is part of your business and how it can be improved.
Of the many focus areas for safety – we believe it’s important to revisit the topic of mental health and wellbeing.
Please see below a SafeWork snapshot of injuries and workers’ compensation claims arising as a result of work-related harassment, bullying or exposure to occupational violence.
Across the workers’ compensation schemes in Australia there is an increasing trend of increasing frequency, complexity, severity and duration of psychological claims.
Governments and authorities have been very active in working to raise awareness of the importance of mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
For example, the NSW Government is currently pursuing a strategy to help support mentally healthy workplaces.
Surveys conducted in this push by the government found that less than 1 in 10 businesses were likely to have an integrated mental health and wellbeing approach in the workplace.
The focus is now moving to how do we proactively prevent or mitigate mental health and wellbeing issues in the workplace.
There is also a push to possibly legislate this as a business’ obligation.
As part of National Safe Work Month, there are many good resources to help educate and raise awareness in this area.
Particularly we would recommend to access the recent seminar by Safe Work Australia – Building a bully-free workplace – link here.
If you have any questions or would like assistance in this area, please contact us.
Sources:
https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/national-safe-work-month