Employers who tell their employees to ‘leave their
personal problems at home’ may be contributing to a more
hazardous workplace by increasing the risk of serious, even
fatal, accidents on site.
Stats NZ reports a
significant increase in the proportion of people with poor
mental well-being, up from 22 per cent in 2018 to 28 per
cent in 2021. How this impacts broader health and
safety—for example, falls and accidents with machinery,
power tools and forklifts—is a significant concern for
+IMPAC, New Zealand’s leading health and safety
experts.
Maxine Bowring, Health and Safety trainer at
+IMPAC, said mental health issues cause distraction and
anybody working on a construction or manufacturing site,
among others, cannot afford to be distracted.
“There’s
no data on what contribution mental health makes to
workplace incidents because people can keep it hidden.
Nobody may know that the person involved in an accident, for
example, is going through a divorce, is trying to deal with
excessive work-related stress, or having financial
anxieties,” she said.
* A study by Tatauranga
Aotearoa (StatsNZ) called New Zealanders’ Mental Wellbeing
Declines, reports that the portion of people with poor
mental wellbeing equates to more than a quarter of the
population.
Bowring is leading +IMPAC’s rollout of Te
Pou’s Mental Health First Aid Aotearoa programme across New
Zealand, to increase mental health literacy in workplaces
and give people the understanding and confidence to talk
about depression, anxiety and suicide. New Zealand has one
of the worst suicide rates amongst OECD countries,
especially of young men (males are more than twice as likely
to die from suicide than females), and particularly high for
Māori males aged 15–44 years.
“Having somebody
there to listen and offer support makes a significant
difference. Having somebody in the workplace who can
recognise the signs, offer a quiet word, a genuine
conversation, and encourage them to seek professional help
and support can save lives and help prevent workplace
accidents.
“There is always somebody in the workplace
that people seem to trust enough to take into their
confidence — these are the people who will make ideal
Mental Health First Aiders,” Bowring said.
Mental
Health First Aiders are trained to approach, assess and
assist. The process involves listening without judgement,
providing information and support and encouraging the
struggling person to seek professional help.
“Very
often, people can see something is wrong, but they don’t
know how to open the conversation. The title, qualification,
and tools to open conversations will better position them to
open up sensitive conversations with fellow
workers.
“Mental health is not a visual thing. You
cannot see what’s going on in somebody’s head. We assume
everybody thinks and copes as we do, but we are all wired
differently. Different genetics, different
lives.”
Christchurch-based +IMPAC Health and Safety
consultant and trainer, Louise Trevella, said that, unlike
most health and safety training, people need a clearer
picture of the risk in the workplace when it comes to mental
health.
“Falling is a critical risk for people working
at height, but with a number of known excellent controls
around that activity, the likelihood of falls is reduced.
Control measures can be applied when leaders understand the
critical threat to their people. With mental health and
suicide, people don’t clearly understand the risk—the
hazard is not visible and they often don’t know what to do
if they suspect there are mental health issues affecting one
of their team.
“You can tell people to leave their
problems at home, but that’s not going to happen. People
bring their mental health issues, challenges and problems to
work because we are human. You can’t just flick a
switch.”
Trevella said certain states in Australia are
even going so far as to legislate mental health and safety
in the workplace.
“Employers are starting to
understand that they have influence over a worker’s mental
health and well-being and that they have an obligation to
that worker’s mental health and safety, which is just as
important as physical health and safety.
“Mental
health issues can lead to physical accidents through
distraction, loss of concentration and low environmental
awareness. This can lead to poor decision making or
uncoordinated activities.”
Trevella said the Te Pou
Mental Health First Aid course delivered by +IMPAC creates
mental health champions to foster conversation, knowledge
and understanding of mental health in the workplace—a vast
improvement on the little or no support for mental health in
the lives of regular Kiwis.
“The workplace is becoming
the place of first contact. Finally, Kiwis may have better
access to mental health and safety than the vast majority of
New Zealanders currently experience.”
She offers the
following advice to employers who want to help those
struggling with mental health in the
workplace.
1. Assess what measures are
currently available
Employers should ask what
they are currently doing to protect their people on the
mental health front. Assess how the company does business
and what the business can tweak to make a real difference
for its people.
“This may include revisiting how
rosters are run, what social supports are in place and how
tasks are carried out.”
2. Understand and
communicate
“The Dr Hillary Bennett model
suggests, in **Protecting Mental Wellbeing at Work, that
employers assess the risk and do it by breaking work into
four areas—organisation, tasks, environment and social.
Work through those subtopics to understand what aspects of
each subtopic may contribute to mental health
issues.
“Use the assessment to open up a dialogue with
your staff. Understand if they are thriving or just
surviving. You can use tools such as Surviving to Thriving
scales to get them to rate themselves by colour—red,
amber, yellow or green; this can help normalise mental
wellbeing conversations and assist in identifying where
people are at emotionally or mentally. Mental Health
Awareness Week (18 – 24 September 2023) is also a great
opportunity to raise awareness. It shows you care,” Trevella
said.
3. Be ‘CPR’
prepared
+IMPAC’s rollout of Te Pou’s Mental
Health First Aid Aotearoa course is like CPR training, but
for mental health. Most workplaces have first aiders,
defibrillators and first aid kits, and +IMPAC supported by
its broad repertoire of H+S consulting and training, plans
to lead the drive in putting mental health first aiders into
the workplace.
“One in four Kiwis report that they are
experiencing mental health issues. Mental Health First Aid
in the workplace is a grassroots approach to tackling this
problem. If we can change the culture, we can fundamentally
impact all New Zealanders’ mental health and
well-being.
“Our focus is, and always will be, to get
everyone home from work to their loved ones, safe and
well.”
ABOUT
Founded in
1999, +IMPAC provides a full range of health and safety
services—consulting and advice, training, safety
management software, contractor pre-qualification,
recruitment of H+S professionals and specialist safety
equipment.
+IMPAC employs 100 staff across New
Zealand, specially selected for their practical business and
health and safety backgrounds. They’ve been there and done
that and know what works best.
Maxine
Bowring
Trainer Maxine Bowring began working
in health and safety in 2012 when she was elected chair of
the health and safety committee at an iconic NZ
manufacturing company. Maxine’s career then progressed to
project managing and facilitating health and safety learning
solutions for multiple organisations around New Zealand,
providing her with a wealth of understanding of the
challenges faced by companies when health and safety
management, implementation and culture are not
aligned.
Maxine has a National Certificate in Adult
Literacy and Numeracy Education, which enables her to
recognise and remedy any potential literacy gaps in people’s
capabilities.
Louise
Trevella
Health, safety and well-being
specialist Louise Trevella’s credentials include
Occupational Health and Safety Level 4, a postgraduate paper
in vocational rehabilitation, a Bachelor of Occupational
Therapy (with distinction) from Otago Polytechnic and she is
working towards a diploma in occupational health and safety
management.
Her experience includes health, safety and
well-being specialist at Frucor Suntory, health and safety
lead at the Briscoe Group, case manager at Counties Manukau
Health DHB in Auckland and a number of years working in
mental health settings.
Sources:
*https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/new-zealanders-mental-wellbeing-declines/
**https://forum.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Guides/Protecting-Mental-Wellbeing-at-Work.pdf
https://mentalhealth.org.nz/suicide-prevention/statistics-on-suicide-in-new-zealand
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