Browsing: Stress | Page 5

Businesses and public authorities covered by the Commonwealth jurisdiction's WHS laws could soon face the toughest WHS penalties in the country, under a major amendment Bill that will also introduce presumptive workers' compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Complying with a business's WHS duties includes ensuring workers working from home "are not forgotten" under the assumption they will "reach out if they need anything", a senior employment and safety lawyer has told a workplace mental wellbeing webinar.

A commission has rejected an employer's contentions that: a "violent and painful" work incident could not have caused a worker's stress disorder; and her ability to undertake "suitable duties" not long after the incident blocked her incapacity claim.

With 73 per cent of people reporting higher stress and anxiety levels during menopause, becoming a menopause-friendly workplace through education, flexible workplace policies and open conversation will not only support women through this normal life stage, but help the employer meet its WHS duties, according to a commercial health expert.

A long-serving worker who experienced five years of bullying from a co-worker in the form of verbal threats and aggression has been awarded compensation for a psychological injury, after the bully was promoted to be his supervisor.

Workers at a "big four" firm have experienced bullying normalised as performance management, and "insane pressure to churn work" - factors causing harm to many of them, an Elizabeth Broderick review of the firm has found.

A police officer psychologically injured from working on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been awarded more than $1.8 million in damages, in a case examining the obligations of employers to oversee their employee assistance programs.

A project creating well-fitting 3D-printed work wear and sound-absorbing furniture for "recovery spaces" has shown the design phase is key to creating tools for preventing workplace injuries from psychosocial hazards.

• Safety officer's brother gets 20 months' jail;
  
• Breakthrough heat study should inform WHS practices, says Monash; and
  
• PTSD-presumption laws further amended in WA.

A worker who sustained a psychological injury, after her employer started monitoring her work schedule, has won her bid for compensation, with a commission finding the actions of her team leader didn't constitute a "performance appraisal" invoking the reasonable-action defence.