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.
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.
Recent Nordic research has dropped a number that should unsettle Australia’s safety regulators: fatal workplace incidents make up only 1% of work‑related deaths. If similar proportions apply here, our entire inspection and prevention model is pointed at the wrong end of the problem.
Australian employers continue to struggle to understand #psychosocial hazards and psychological harm. A lot of advice competes, conflicts and confuses. So, Michael Plowright and I are joining the effort to make sense of this #mentalhealthatwork challenge in a lively, plain-English way.
You may already follow me through this blog’s SoundCloud account, but this new four-episode podcast series – Safe Work, Real Talk – offers new plain-English perspectives and, we hope,m solutions, or at least pathways.
We’ll talk about #Leadership, what went wrong, what went right, the unhelpful conflict between #HR and #OHS, and return-to-work.
The first episode will be out shortly, with the remaining three episodes rolled out in support of National Safe Work Month.
If you have any questions about work-related psychosocial and psychological issues, email them to this link, and we will try to answer them “on-air”.
Every book by Ellen Pinkos Cobb deserves close attention, as her perspective and approach to examining sexual harassment and psychosocial hazards in the workplace are unique and valuable. Her new book, “The Global Evolution of Bullying, Harassment, and Discrimination Laws” is a great addition to one’s library.
Yesterday I posed the following questions for Victoria’s upcoming Parliamentary Committee inquiry into proposed work-from-home (WFH) laws.
Below I offer some answers.
