Category: mental-health

Socioeconomic Determinants of Organisational Behaviour

The Systemic and Socioeconomic Drivers of Bullying that Employers Keep Ignoring

Workplace bullying and harassment are often described as interpersonal problems, such as a clash of personalities, a difficult manager, or a “bad apple” who spoils the barrel. This framing is convenient, familiar, and wrong. Bullying is not an individual defect. It is a systemic outcome produced by organisational structures, cultural norms, and socioeconomic pressures that make harmful conduct predictable. If employers continue to treat bullying as a behavioural characteristic rather than a structural hazard, they will keep missing the causes and potential controls, and fail to meet their legislative duty of care.

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When Political Division Complicates the Workplace

Political debates do not stop at the workplace door. When questions of independence, self-government and national identity become highly charged, they can affect employee wellbeing, workplace relationships and an organisation’s ability to operate calmly and fairly. The current discussion around Alberta separatism in Canada, when compared with Norfolk Island’s campaign for greater self-government, offers useful lessons for Australian employers. The constitutional issues differ, but both cases show how distrust of distant decision-makers can deepen division, and why workplaces need practical systems for consultation, respectful communication, and psychosocial risk management.

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Psychosocial Risk Isn’t Special – Start With Hazard Identification

A LinkedIn colleague said this to me recently in a thread I started:

“I can’t see the logic in not integrating psychosocial hazards into the risk assessment process. The scope and complexity of the org will obvs have an impact but on one hand you’re saying employers have to manage both physical and psychosocial hazards/controls, but not to use the same process. And while we’re at it, that’s HR’s responsibility so it’s not on us. I say engage, embrace and guide the entire leadership team (HR included) in the process. As to why you wouldn’t use the risk assessment process I’m keen to know how you demonstrate you’ve used the hierarchy of control and reduced the risk alarp.” (slight edits)

Here is my response and clarification.

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Wellness Is Not Safety and Employers Can No Longer Avoid Their Duty

For a country with clear health and safety obligations for almost half a century, it’s remarkable how often Australia still hears employers say they’re “unsure” what psychological health and safety requires.  The duty has never been ambiguous.  Employers must provide work that is safe and healthy and free from risks so far as is reasonably practicable.  That obligation to prevent psychosocial hazards, the precursors to psychological ill-health, has been sitting in legislation since the 1970s and 1980s.  It didn’t suddenly appear.  It didn’t evolve spontaneously out of the primordial ooze.  For those of us under the age of 70, it has always been there.

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Why the Intergenerational Report Matters More to OHS Than Treasury Realises

This week the Australian Government released its latest Intergenerational Report (IGR). It does not discuss occupational health and safety (OHS) directly, but it does cover some of the socioeconomic factors within which OHS must be managed.

The report’s projections on ageing, labour supply, climate, care demand, migration and fiscal pressure shift safety from a narrow focus on acute hazards to a long‑term, systemic challenge centred on chronic exposure, job design, psychosocial harm and workforce vulnerability. The IGR is important for our consideration of work-related harm.

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Understanding How Work-From-Home Reshapes Psychosocial and Safety Obligations

Yesterday I posed the following questions for Victoria’s upcoming Parliamentary Committee inquiry into proposed work-from-home (WFH) laws.

  • Does WFH increase or reduce psychosocial harm?
  • Does WFH improve or worsen fatigue, workload, or burnout?
  • Does WFH reduce commuting‑related risks (not just monetary costs)?
  • Does remote work affect hazard reporting or supervision?
  • Does WFH change the risk profile for vulnerable workers?

Below I offer some answers.

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The Work-From-Home Right Meets Business Group Anxiety

Based on mainstream media reports of the working-from-home (WFH) debate in Victoria over the last few weeks, Victorian politics has fractured over the proposal to give most employees a right to work from home two days a week. The politics of the WFH initiative came to the fore, even if occupational health and safety (OHS) didn’t.

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