Organisational psychologist John Chan recently launched his company’s 2026 State of Workplace Burnout Report, presenting burnout as a consequence of work design rather than individual resilience. While many of the findings of this grey literature will be familiar to OHS professionals, the audience questions offered interesting insight into how burnout is understood outside the safety profession.
Three recent legal commentaries reveal something important about the evolution of workplace health and safety. They address different issues, from board governance to sexual harassment investigations and cumulative psychosocial hazards, but they all point to the same conclusion: employers are running out of opportunities to treat psychological health as an individual problem. We may be at the start of a work revolution.
Michael Plowright and I enjoyed completing our 4th episode of the “Real Work, Real Talk” podcast. My background is occupational health and safety (OHS); Michael’s is consulting on workplace bullying and some Human Resources issues. These two disciplines need to talk with each other if employers are going to effectively manage psychological safety in their workplaces. We thought we should get things started.
Below is one review we have received:
“Safe Work, Real Talk is a coherent, engaging four-part podcast series that explores psychosocial hazards, leadership, workplace conflict, and organisational responsibility through the combined perspectives of OHS and HR.
While some episodes would benefit from stronger evidence, more workplace examples, and more debate between the hosts, the series succeeds through its authenticity, practical relevance, and willingness to challenge accepted assumptions, earning an overall rating of 8.5/10″
Episodes can be accessed at:
Stream SafetyAtWorkBlog | Listen to podcast episodes online for free on SoundCloud
SafetyAtWorkBlog – Podcast – Apple Podcasts
Safe Work, Real Talk at Working Well Together
The legal profession has spent decades asking why lawyers are burning out, becoming depressed and leaving practice. The newly released Mental Health and Wellbeing in Legal Workplaces: A Global Guide may have inadvertently provided the answer. As is becoming clear elsewhere, the “mental health crisis” is less a psychological problem than an organisational and systemic one, even in a profession with a strong institutional culture, high legislative awareness and a sense of sophistication.
The release of Safe Work Australia’s Best Practice review left me wondering whether Australian work health and safety policy has reached regulatory overreach, or whether it is finally catching up with the realities of contemporary work.
Much of the discussion has focused on the report’s individual recommendations. What interests me more is an assumption that seems to underlie almost every recommendation: that occupational health and safety (OHS) should become the nation’s principal framework for preventing workplace harm in all its forms, not merely physical and psychological injury.
Many Australian employers, managers and executives take inspiration from counterparts in the United States. When it comes to occupational mental health, they are looking in the wrong direction and could benefit from looking more locally. But there is merit in evaluating the US perspectives.
Below are responses provided by several Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents on my own PC to the question in this article’s title. There is considerable overlap in many, but I start off with the most confronting response, provided by the World Socialist Web Site‘s Socialism AI:
Continue reading “Why don’t US employers focus on preventing psychosocial hazards?”The culture standard for the construction industry has been discussed for several years. Trials have been conducted, and the results were positive, but the value of this standard has always depended on someone powerful implementing it in practice. Last year the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government embedded it into public-project procurement, arguing that government purchasing power can drive improvements in wellbeing, diversity and psychological safety across the construction sector.
