A healthy and safe workplace has managers who prioritise their employees' wellbeing and take steps to prevent psychological harm.
Managers have additional occupational health and safety (OHS) obligations under the Codes of conduct and the Public Administration Act 2004.
If you’re a manager, your role may include:
Managers play a key role in creating a mentally healthy or unhealthy workplace.
For example, supportive leadership can positively impact the performance of a team.
Being a supportive leader means your team:
As a manager, you should regularly bring your team together to talk openly and share information to build your team’s culture.
Some simple things managers can do to build a positive workplace culture are:
As a manager or senior leader, you look after both your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of your team.
Good mental and physical health means you will be more alert, motivated, attentive and resilient. These are all qualities a manager needs every day.
In your role, you may face a lot of challenging situations.
If your physical and mental health is in good shape, you will be able to manage these better. This also has a positive impact on your team.
As a manager or senior leader, never forget that you can ask for help too.
You can use our Wellbeing toolkit for practical tips, tools and activities for you and your team.
Speak with your own manager or HR if you need support.
Individual activities and organisational supports can help your mental wellbeing. Here are just a few tools and approaches to try:
As a manager, you play a key role in identifying signs of distress in your employees.
When your employees feel safe, they’re more likely to speak up when something is wrong.
The warning signs of distress are different for everyone. If you notice a change in a team member, you should address it early.
It’s not your responsibility to diagnose or counsel an employee. But you should offer support and make any reasonable adjustments they need to continue to work.
For example, you can follow these steps from our Wellbeing Toolkit:
Managers and senior leaders have more influence and responsibility in preventing, identifying and managing psychosocial hazards.
As a manager or senior leader, you should use a risk management approach to address psychosocial hazards that could cause harm or injury.
Risk management involves thinking about what could happen and how likely it is to happen.
At each step of the risk management process, you must consult employees and your health and safety representatives.
For practical guidance and best practice advice on managing health and safety risks you can check out the:
Risk control measures for job demands should focus on good work design, including job design. Good work design considers the organisation’s needs, context and work environment.
Good work design can transform the workplace to benefit everyone. Good work design can eliminate and minimise hazards and risks at the source.
You can use these resources to help you understand and design good and safe work:
You can use these resources to help you understand, reduce and manage job demands:
Negative behaviours can include a range of poor communication and behaviour issues that are inappropriate. They can have an immediate and long-term negative impact on those involved, including those who witness them.
Negative behaviours can include:
In Victoria, employers are obligated to take reasonable steps to eliminate certain negative behaviours under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010. These include:
Treating someone unfavourably because of a protected characteristic such as race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or other personal attributes. This can occur in various forms and can be direct or indirect.
Unwanted or unwelcome sexual behaviour that makes a person feel offended, humiliated or intimidated. This includes verbal, non-verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature.
Treating someone unfairly because they have made a complaint, intend to make a complaint, or have assisted someone else in making a complaint about discrimination or harassment.
You can use these resources to help you understand, prevent and manage negative behaviours:
Trauma is an event that someone experiences as harmful or life-threatening.
It can negatively affect mental, physical, emotional, social, or spiritual well-being.
Trauma is usually a response to an incident or event, but it can also come from:
These resources can help you understand, reduce and manage trauma:
As a manager, a risk management approach can help you understand:
The four steps for dealing with an issue are:
Early identification of issues can help your team meet their goals and maintain a safe and healthy team environment.
Here’s some things you can do to help identify if there are psychosocial hazards in your team:
Once you’ve identified hazards in your team, assessing the risk to employees will help you understand what action to take.
Some things to think about are:
You can use a risk assessment tool and/or matrix to support this process. This will help you understand the potential impact of risks. For example:
Once you understand the risk, it is important to act.
This is also called controlling a risk. A control means a way to manage an issue, or the things that you put in place to eliminate or reduce risks.
Some controls work better than others. The hierarchy of control is a system that helps you figure out which controls offer the best and most reliable protection, and which ones offer the least protection.
| OHS Hierarchy of control | Definition | How effective is it? |
| 1. Eliminate hazards and risks | Remove the hazard from the workplace | Eliminating the hazard and the risk provides the highest level of protection and is the most effective control measure. |
| 2. Substitution | Replace a hazard with something safer | The hazard is still present but the risk is reduced by substituting it with something safer. |
| 3. Engineering controls | Isolate people from the hazard | The hazard is still present but people are physically separated from it. |
| 4. Administrative controls | Change how people work to reduce exposure to the hazard | This control is less effective as it relies on people following rules and procedures. |
| 5. Personal protective equipment (PPE) | Anything employees use or wear to minimise risks to their health and safety | PPE is the last line of defence. It provides the lowest level of protection and is the least reliable control. |
Example of the hierarchy of control measures for work-related stress:
Continue to monitor and review your risk management strategies and any controls you have put in place to check their effectiveness.
Remember risks often fluctuate over time. You can
Sometimes addressing psychosocial risks is beyond your control. In this scenario, you should report harmful risks.
You can:
If someone in your team or workplace sustains an injury, you can follow these key steps:
Visit WorkSafe website for a guide on what to do if a worker is injured. The guide has information on:
You can find more information in the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013. The Act has information for Victorian workers on insurance, workers compensation, claims, rehabilitation and more.
Research shows that managers have the most influence in supporting a successful return to work.
The support you give someone should be tailored to their individual circumstances and needs.
The Victorian Mentally Healthy Workplaces Framework has a guide for supporting the recovery-at-work and return-to-work of an employee.
The same principles apply to people returning from work-related and non-work-related absences like parental, personal or study leave.
The guide includes:
When planning your approach, you should reflect on your relationship with your employee.
For example, if you and your team member have issues communicating, offer an alternative contact person they feel more comfortable talking to.
Key things to keep in mind: