In this episode we chat with Liam O’Brien, Australian Council of Trade Unions Assistant Secretary. Liam shares some background on the past efforts of workers and unions to drive reform for psychological health and safety. We discuss the improvements in psych health and safety already achieved in workplaces, along with the opportunities for improvement that remain. Liam shares his views on current regulatory reform efforts in Australia, along with a perspective on the next areas of legislation requiring reform to ensure that psychological health and safety achieves parity with physical health and safety.

In this episode we chat with Rob Briner, Professor of Organizational Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. He shares his views on the growth of employee wellbeing and workplace mental health initiatives, and explains why organisations should focus on problem identification and diagnosis before seeking solutions. We discuss what evidence-based practice looks like when conducting organisational diagnosis, and the benefits for organisations who choose diagnosis first rather than purchasing a popular solution. He shares advice on how to select an intervention, following diagnosis, in the absence of good evidence of efficacy.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12347339_Psychosocial_Risk_Assessment_Problems_and_Prospects

https://cebma.org/

In this episode we chat with Tom Holliss, Chief People Officer at Zappi. He shares Zappi’s ‘agile-HR’ approach to People policies grounded in compassion and trust, provides examples of how these approaches can work at scale and across industries, and discusses some of the challenges or barriers organisations might face when attempting to shift to a more compassionate culture.

In this episode we chat with Siusan MacKenzie, CEO of the Emergency Services Foundation in Melbourne, Australia. We discuss the current state of mental health within emergency services personnel. She describes the different programs being run by the Foundation to prevent psychological injury in emergency services through a focus on leadership, along with programs to assist frontline personnel in recognising warning signs and seeking help when required.

In this episode we chat with Dr Jacqui Wilmshurst, Chartered Applied Psychologist. Jacqui shares her experiences in working with neurodivergent clients and her own experiences as a neurodivergent woman. We discuss the benefits of a neurodiverse workforce, and Jacqui shares some tips on how employers can improve the experience of work for neurodivergent employees.

In this episode we chat with Dr Simon Albrecht, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Masters of Organisational Psychology program at Deakin University. We talk about the elements of good quality applied research and how it supports the scientist-practitioner approach, then get into more detail about employee engagement, its organisational drivers, and how it relates to wellbeing.

In this episode we chat with Dr Helen Kelly about burnout in teachers and school principals. Helen shares some of the statistics about burnout and attrition rates in teachers, the commonalities and differences in psychosocial hazard exposure between teachers and principals, and the reasons behind the ever-increasing workload for both groups. She offers suggestions for how schools can better manage psychosocial hazards, and shares examples of novel approaches that different schools have taken to improve the wellbeing of their teachers and principals.

https://www.schoolmanagementplus.com/heads-governors-school-leadership-governance/teachers-are-not-to-blame-for-their-own-burnout/

https://drhelenkelly.com/

In this episode we chat with Dr Keaton Fletcher. As the 2022 SIOP Trend Champion for Employee Mental Health, Keaton explains the Top 10 Work Trends initiative, then shares the research he has been doing as Trend Champion to produce his first quarterly round-up for 2022. He gives us an overview of the main themes that have emerged this quarter, along with his observations about what is missing from current conversations about employee mental health. He shares insights from his work with a group of CEOs, along with some practical tips for building a strong business case for upstream employee mental health interventions.

https://www.siop.org/Business-Resources/Top-10-Work-Trends

In this episode we chat with Dr David Anthony, Co-Founder and CEO of Mantle Health. We chat about how his experiences working in male-dominated industries led him to co-found Mantle with a focus on men’s mental health. Dave shares his views on the current state of mental health provision for men, particularly within EAPs. We discuss whether the current approach to EAP use in organisations is an effective use of resources, and consider what a more effective model of support might look like.

https://mantlehealth.com.au/