A substantial number of Australian organisations are unlikely to be meeting their obligations as part of the new WHS guidelines surrounding psychosocial safety, according to a report by Swinburne Edge and Deloitte.
While hybrid and flexible work has been found to improve employee performance and wellbeing when structured effectively, poor implementation can lead to unintended consequences such as blurred work-life boundaries and increased workload hours, which are detrimental to employee wellbeing.
Insurer Allianz reports that mental health injury related claims are on the rise, with a 19% increase in psychological workers’ compensation claims for work absence in 2022 compared to 2019.
As a result, the Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) legislation now formally requires organisations to manage psychosocial risks, alongside physical risks, through the implementation of an effective risk assessment and control framework.
The report, Reset, Restore, Reframe – Enabling Wellbeing through Flexible Working, shows 23% of workers report working from home without a remote working policy.
Without a policy and clear guidelines to manage staff time away from the office, employees are exposed to psychosocial risks such as low role clarity and low job control.
What’s the solution?
Swinburne and Deloitte data show that leaders, and the examples they set, are critical to the solution.
Flexible work policies and practices require appropriate planning and investment to enable their benefits to be realised. The report reveals that organisations struggle with this, with 70% of people with a formal remote work policy in place still face challenges with working from home.
More specifically 34.5% are working more hours, only 15.1% are working less and 48.1% are working the same amount of hours. When asked the reasons for working outside standard hours, 62.9% said workload, 43.4% said choice and 15.8% said their employer asked them to.
Sean Gallagher, director of Swinburne’s Centre for the New Workforce, said: “Flexible workers tell us they want and need leadership to ensure flexible working meets their individual needs and concerns. For instance:
“Millennials are more likely to be concerned about their choice of work location negatively impacting on their career prospects (1.3x) or relationships at work (1.1x).
“Women are 1.7x more likely than men to choose ‘home’ as their preferred location compared to the ‘office’.
“Flexible work policies need to be equitable rather than equal, while also meeting the needs of the workforce and the organisation. Consulting with their workers about how to balance the equation between employee expectations and organisation needs is leadership in action.”
Justin Guiliano, partner and risk advisory at Deloitte Australia, said: “A surprising insight was that the proportion of people preferring hybrid work doubles when respondents had more than two dependents within the household.
“An important factor which warrants further attention is the impact leaders can have on employees and their wellbeing through trust and expectation setting when it comes to flexible work.”
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