Employers have a duty to minimise workers' psychological stress and can do so by proactively boosting office morale and enforcing manageable workloads, a recruitment expert says. Meanwhile, employers have been warned that problem gambling can have a significant impact on the workplace, and offered tips to help struggling staff.
Employers have been urged to use R U OK? Day this week to kick off and maintain strategies promoting positive mental health at work, while the Mental Health Commission has found an electronic stress-reduction intervention provides "good value for money" for employers, in addition to numerous benefits not included in the economic modelling.
Workers who can mentally and physically detach from work after hours have fewer concentration problems, sleep better and are at lower risk of depression and exhaustion, according to a study on work breaks, which highlights the important role managers play in facilitating this behaviour.
A PCBU knew workers from other businesses were removing parts of its scaffold without authorisation but failed to routinely check its integrity, a court has found in fining it $225,000 over a major scaffolding collapse where workers were forced to ride falling material down seven storeys.
Limited training and delayed access to new software contributed to a worker developing a stress-related psychiatric injury trying to meet an unworkable deadline, a commission has found.
Deciding whether to disclose a mental health condition to an employer can be complicated for workers but a "decision aid tool" can ease the process and reduces the stress it causes, Australian researchers say.
Psychologically injured workers will no longer need to prove their employment was the "major" cause of their injury, while employers will be able to apologise to injured workers without fear of admitting liability, under a 79-page Bill introduced in Queensland.
An employer acted too harshly when it dismissed a worker for attacking its directors in a Facebook post while she was suffering a psychological injury caused by her work, a commission has found.
A worker's actions in "counselling" and psychologically injuring a colleague cannot be considered reasonable action "taken by an employer" unless the worker's role involves managing and disciplining the colleague, a tribunal has ruled.
Ninety per cent of workers won't use workplace complaint processes to stop bullying, so employers need to "empower" them to tackle the roots of the conduct through strategies like communication upskilling, according to a workplace bullying prevention and management specialist.
