Workplace mental health introduction: part two

Job demands relate to the physical, mental and emotional effort required to do the job.

When an employee has little control over aspects of their work, including how and when a job is done. It’s also when decisions that affect an employee are made without telling the employee or asking for their opinion.

Support can be both emotional and practical. When employees don't get the appropriate support they need from leaders and colleagues, it can harm their health and wellbeing.

When organisational change (large or small) is poorly managed or not communicated to employees well, it can cause stress and anxiety. Change can include people’s job descriptions changing, downsizing, relocating, and introducing new technology or production processes.

Poor organisational justice is when people are not treated fairly, or there is inconsistency or bias in the workplace. It’s important to be open about how decisions are made – if employees can’t see what’s happening, they can’t know whether or not people are being treated fairly.

A lack of acknowledgement, reward and recognition of employees for their contributions, achievements and efforts.

People aren’t sure what their responsibilities are or what is expected of them. It can also mean there are conflicting roles or priorities, for example, when employees are told to do different things by different managers, and they are not sure who to listen to.

Unresolved conflict or strained relationships between co-workers or managers can be a significant stressor and lead to mental ill-health. Incivility is one of the biggest causes of poor workplace relationships. Incivility is inappropriate behaviour such as rudeness, sarcasm and belittling or excluding people. This can happen through various mediums eg. spoken or written.

Remote work is work at locations where access to resources and communications is difficult and travel times may be lengthy. Isolated work is where there are no or few other people around and access to help from others, especially in an emergency, may be difficult.

Work-related violent or traumatic events are incidents that can cause fear and distress and involve exposure to abuse, the threat of harm or actual harm. The fear and distress from violent or traumatic events can lead to work-related stress, psychological injury and physical injury

Traumatic events or environments are interpreted by people differently, so there is no way of telling who may or may not be impacted after exposure. Trauma doesn’t just affect the employees who are there at the time, hearing stories about distressing incidents can result in second-hand trauma ('vicarious trauma') for some people.

Working in poor quality and hazardous working environments, such as poor air quality, high noise levels, extreme temperatures or working near unsafe machinery is not only a risk to your employee’s physical health, but also their short and long term mental health.