As burnout levels remain alarmingly high, experts are urging Australian workplaces to take proactive steps to support employee mental health. Mark Pittman, Executive General Manager of Personal Injury at Allianz Australia, highlights the urgent need for organizations to foster a culture of well-being. Associate Professor Ross Iles, Chief Research Officer at Superfriend, emphasizes that while awareness of workplace mental health has improved over the past decade, significant challenges persist.
Burnout has been a chronic condition for more than a decade. Almost six out of ten employees say they have suffered mental distress related to their work. Psychological workers’ compensation claims have increased by nearly 30 percent, highlighting an emerging crisis in workplace mental health. Almost three million Australians are looking to leave their role in the next 12 months as a result of this pressure.
Here are the three key approaches that Pittman describes, both to address burnout and create a better workplace overall. He emphasizes the importance of taking proper breaks, setting boundaries around work hours, and prioritizing recovery activities such as sleep and exercise.
“The research shows that employees are really struggling to schedule that regular personal time for themselves, and they’re unable to split household responsibilities equally, and don’t have a reliable network to help with routine tasks like school drop-offs,” said Pittman. “So we encourage Australians to take a proper break, set boundaries and prioritise recovery activities such as sleep and exercise, and making these small changes can really make a difference in helping to prevent burnout.”
To say the least, the trajectory we’re on is alarming. Fewer than half of Australian employees feel comfortable talking to their managers about their mental illness. This lack of open communication plays a major role in the stigma surrounding workplace mental health.
Iles emphasizes the need for leaders to foster environments that enable support. It’s critical, he says, to build meaningful and deep connections between staff, which can boost morale in the workplace and help ease employee burnout.
“While we’ve been making progress, we still find that less than half of Australian workers feel comfortable talking to their manager about mental health and we find that figure hasn’t shifted too much,” Iles stated. “So it’s really important to break down that stigma and that will help prevent burnout. Possibly the most important thing though, I think is to deliberately think about connectedness and how to actually foster good relationships and a good working environment in the workplace.”
Industries such as healthcare, education and retail are all grappling with this crisis. Yet, they report the highest burnout rates. As Iles explains, psychological distress is a key risk factor driving burnout in these industries.
“And in healthcare we’re able to find, I guess a number of key risk factors that make it more likely that people are going to experience burnout symptoms,” Iles explained. “And sitting at the top of the list there is psychological distress.”
Even with increasing attention to the mental health crisis in our workplaces, we are not moving the needle fast enough or in a meaningful way. Employers are encouraged to implement better training programs for managers, reduce unnecessary tasks, and consider providing recurring mental health days for employees.
“The top three solutions that are desired by employees that we’ve identified through the research includes better training for managers to support employee wellbeing, taking fewer unnecessary tasks through to the workforce, and recurring mental health days,” Pittman added.
Collectively, this data paints a picture that makes it more critical than ever to address mental health proactively within organizations. Fostering a workplace culture of health has profound impacts on employees’ total wellbeing. It even increases system-wide productivity and employee happiness!
