Making workers feel trusted when they work from home is key to reducing stress and burnout, while well-equipped home workspaces are also extremely beneficial, a study has found.
Workers' comp claims for "stress" and "burnout" are being axed in Victoria, with the State Government acting on its May 2023 plan to fix the "broken" compensation scheme by cutting benefits.
Australia's various workers' compensation schemes are likely to be significantly amended or completely overhauled, to reflect recommendations from a first-of-its-kind study using the experiences of injured workers to design a new compensation system.
Employers need to be more strategic when planning work schedules and rest times to "reduce physical and mental overload", according to safety experts, who found the widespread problem of lower back pain tends to build up across consecutive work days.
Court Services Victoria (CSV) has been convicted and ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in penalties, in relation to a toxic workplace culture that contributed to the suicide death of a lawyer and to other workers taking stress leave.
Special protections for first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder are among the "urgent worker safety measures", in the Federal Government's Closing Loopholes Bill, which two crossbench senators are attempting to fast-track through four separate pieces of legislation.
A manager's evidence on the support a worker received has helped establish a reasonably arguable case against the worker's claim that alleged bullying and work stress caused her psychological condition.
A major employer should consider introducing a "points system" for workers' traumatic exposures, and prescribing welfare measures for workers under scrutiny to avoid "idiosyncratic or poor exercise of discretion", a coronial inquest into the suicide deaths of four policemen has recommended.
