WorkWell survey

The Workplace Wellbeing Insights survey (the 'survey') is a self-assessment tool for workplaces to assess the mental health and wellbeing of their workforce from the perspective of both the organisation and the lived-experience of the workers.

There are two surveys which make up the Workplace Wellbeing Insights self-assessment tool – the 'Employer survey' and the 'Worker survey'. Employer refers to business leaders, managers, executives, or anyone in a position to drive meaningful change within the business, while worker refers to the staff on the ground.

Having two versions provides a true indication of your workplace's mental health and wellbeing. By separating management from the staff, the results of the survey will show you how the top-level of the organisation feel the business is performing in terms of culture and psychological safety, compared to how the staff think it is performing.

Broadly, the survey collects information about occupational health and safety, occupational stress, health promotion policies, procedures and programs, work-related quality of life, working conditions and demographic data. 

The survey results identify areas of success and areas to focus on and can be used to inform strategies and action plans to improve the mental health and wellbeing of workplaces

WorkWell recommends surveying annually so progress can be tracked over time

A workplace can also opt to administer the survey as a one-time 'snap shot' to increase their knowledge and awareness of the work related factors, workplace attitudes and practices that impact on wellbeing.

For recipients of the WorkWell Mental Health Improvement Fund or Learning Networks, it's recommended you take the survey before and after project implementation so you can measure the effectiveness of your project.

Employers/workplace leaders are invited via email to take the survey. Once complete, you can also share the ‘Worker survey’ with your staff by copy and pasting the link the relevant into a new email.

Best practice is to consult with your HSR's and inform workers of your intention to conduct the survey and provide them with them with 'why' prior to sending out the worker invite (please watch the video above for more).

Informing workers provides context before they receive the invitation, which may increase your workers' engagement and involvement in follow up consultation activities.

Simply copy and paste the 'Worker survey' link from the original email and send it to your workers in a new email.  

On your portal, click 'Manage workers' in the menu and then select 'email the employer link'. The email will open and you just need to add the names and email addresses of your partner workplaces before hitting send.

The survey is designed to provide you with insights into the conditions, culture and psychological safety of your workplace. The questions in the survey are designed to provide you with an understanding of the 11 work-related factors that can influence work related psychological stress.

The work related factors include:

1. job demands
2. job control
3. support
4. role clarity
5. workplace relationships
6. organisational change management
7. organisational justice
8. recognition and reward
9. environmental conditions
10. remote or isolated work; and
11. violent or traumatic events.

The survey will provide your workplace with areas to focus upon and link you back to the tailored actions in the WorkWell Toolkit so that you can improve mental health and wellbeing in your workplace.

Results are sent via email two weeks after the survey closes. For employers who completed surveys in February, you should expect to receive your results in mid March. 

The survey is designed to provide you with insights into the conditions, culture and psychological safety of your industry. The questions in the survey are measured against 11 factors that influence work-related psychological stress.

Out of these 11 workplace factors, the results contain the top three areas for improvement in your industry shown as semi circle graphs.

These results can be used to identify areas for improvement, and inform strategies and action plans to improve the mental health and wellbeing of workplaces with the help of our Toolkit.

There are two lines. The light green line represents your results as the employer, and the dark green represents the results of your workers. For each, a score is given out of 10 to show how your workplace is tracking against that work-related factor. The goal is to achieve the highest score possible out of 10. Low-scoring results indicate where you can focus attention and take action.

It's important to bear in mind that the results are subjective and designed to give you an indication of how you are performing with recommended links back to the WorkWell Toolkit to support you to make change. Even if the data provides a positive picture, there is still potential for workplace issues to arise.

Yes, the results from the Worker survey are anonymous. To further protect the anonymity of workers, at least 20 people must complete the survey before the results become available for the employer to see. If less than 20 workers complete the survey, workplaces will be provided with an industry-level report.

The results from the survey will show you areas of success and areas where you can focus your attention for taking action. Where your results indicate a focus area, you will be linked back to evidence based actions and resources on the WorkWell Toolkit.

You can also learn about how you can make improvements by clicking 'next steps to create a mentally healthy workplace' beneath the results on your Portal. Here you can access information and advice about how to address and improve upon the work-related factors. To get access to even more actions and resources tailored to your business size and industry type, you can create an account on the WorkWell Toolkit by clicking 'find out more'

We strongly recommend that employers share the results with their workers, and work together to create organisational change.

WorkWell Toolkit

The survey is wholly funded by WorkSafe's WorkWell Program and has been developed by EY Sweeny. Monash University Human Resources Ethics Committee (HREC) approved the worker and employer components of the survey.

The WorkWell program is a $50 million dollar investment by the Victorian State Government, which is being delivered by WorkSafe in partnership with Department of Health and Human Services. The program aims to reduce the risk of mental injuries and illness in the workplace by supporting organisational leaders to take a proactive approach to building a safe and mentally healthy business.

WorkWell has developed an evidence based evaluation process to understand the impacts to workplace mental health and wellbeing when participating workplaces take action to prevent mental injury and promote mental health. The focus of the evaluation is to look at the program participation, influence, changes in workplaces conditions and develop understanding around what workplaces can do to create to better outcomes for Victorian workers.

Researchers from Monash University, Melbourne University and the University of South Australia will also use the survey data to help WorkSafe to evaluate the benefit of the WorkWell program. All data is aggregated to population level (so individual workplaces and workers are not identified) and the results are used to help WorkSafe make better, informed decisions in the prevention of mental injury.

The survey is for everyone in a paid role over the age of 18 in a Victorian workplace.

As many as you like! The more workers that complete the survey, the better the findings will represent your workplace.

The survey takes about 10 to 15 minutes.

Yes! The survey is free and available to all Victorian workplaces that are registered users of the WorkWell Toolkit

The survey is an innovative tailored tool for Victorian workplaces which uses validated questions mapped to the work-related factors that impact on workplace mental health. It is designed to improve outcomes for Victorian workers through providing workplaces and leaders with the capacity, confidence and commitment to consult with their workers to create a mentally healthy workplace.

It also provides workplaces and the wider community with an evidence base to improve mental health and wellbeing, and prevent mental injury and illness at an organisational level.

Yes, we understand that the results could be very different for some workplaces during the Covid-19 pandemic, but it is important to understand how mental health and wellbeing are at this time, and will be taken into consideration when we compare the psychological safety of workplaces in future years.

There will be a statement in the survey cover email to employers to acknowledge this. The WorkWell evaluation report will adopt a contribution analysis lens to consider COVID-19 as recommended by WorkWell's Expert Reference Group.

WorkSafe is consulting with key unions prior to release of the WWI. Advice or further interpretation of specific workplace self-assessment results should not be conducted by any parties. The aim of using the survey is to re-direct users back to the Toolkit to access evidence based actions and resources to improve the psychological safety in Victorian workplaces.