Lesson 2 – Topic 1: Introduction & Why Kind Workplaces
Workplace Health and Safety Statistics
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), worldwide there are 2.7 million deaths due to workplace accidents; that means about 6000 fatalities every single day worldwide.
Australia is not immune from workplace accidents. In 2019, there were close to 200 fatalities and, in addition, well over 100,000 serious work related injuries and illnesses which equates to nearly 2000 serious workplace accidents per week. Around 10% of injury claims are mental health related.
This number of workplace injuries is more than double the number for road traffic hospitalised injuries.
According to a September 2019 study by the University of South Australia, around 10 % of Australian employees admit to being bullied at work, but that figure may hide the true extent of the problem, with much antisocial workplace behaviour going unreported and research suggesting up to two-thirds of workers may experience unfair treatment on the job. (from unisa.edu.au/unisanews/2019/september/story3/).
The average workplace injury cost is around $11,700 per claim. This figure does not take into account the cost of workplace disruption, the resulting low worker morale and the effect it has on absenteeism, workplace efficiency and product quality.
Workers suffering from mental health can not perform at optimum level. The negative impact this has on people and therefore a business can not be understated.
Consistent with this level of significance, the Work Health and Safety Acts clearly state that “health” means both physical and psychological health. As a result, organizations must take a pro-active approach to managing mental health hazards and risks as well.
Health and Safety Laws place the Primary Duty of Care to ensure a safe workplace on the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). Officers of the organization must make sure that the PCBU meets this legal obligation by exercising due diligence.
This course provides top level managers with tools and practices to help them meet this duty and achieve mentally healthier workplaces. Some of the practices suggested in the course may go against to what is considered established and good business practice. If that is the case, it can then also be argued that these established business practices have contributed to the huge mental health issues that we see in the workplace. Great things do not come from comfort zones.
It is time for change.
About Dr Ute Steinel
For over 25 years, Dr Ute Steinel worked as a Medical Practitioner in hospitals and solo practices in Germany and Australia and still operates a GP practice in the Sydney area.
She has treated many patients after workplace accidents and experienced the horrible, often lifelong effects on the injured and their families.
A major part of her practice is counselling patients going through stressful life situations due to toxic workplace situations.
Her patients include a wide spectrum of the population: from cleaners to directors, from homeless to multi millionaires.
She migrated twice and raised 3 children as a single mum.
In 2014 she joined Coastal OHS Services Pty Ltd / Leading Safety Training as a Director.
GOOD SAFETY IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS
This statement is a no brainer. But why then are so many businesses still not safe?
This may be because often there is still an attitude of: “no worries mate, it won’t happen to us” or “we have done it like this for years and nothing has ever happened”. Often in these situations, safety is not seen as a true business value, there no true commitment to pro-actively managing safety and no one feels personally responsible.
Although their relatively good safety record has been achieved through luck rather than wisdom, that record then becomes “proof” that the no worries mate, it won’t happen to us attitude actually works and becomes the basis for future decisions. This of course is a recipe for disaster.
Smart managers will ponder the question whether their safety record is a result of “good luck or good management” and will naturally adopt a pro-active safety management approach.
Smart managers understand that psychological safety is just as important as physical safety. Workers affected by mental health issues will not perform at their best, and are likely to affect those working around them as well. Workers compensation data shows that about 10% of claims are mental health related. Studies by the University of Adelaide have indicated that mental health issues are under reported. In other words, workers just tend to “live with it” without having the issue properly addressed. The human cost of mental health is significant, and of course the resulting business cost in terms of absenteeism, low productivity, poor quality, low morale etc will be significant as well.
Good safety is good for business but smart managers will also understand that:
KIND WORKPLACES ARE GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Our mission is to help create Kind Workplaces around the globe.
Thank you for taking part in this program.
Why Kind Workplaces
Increasing amounts of studies show that positive, kind workplaces actually achieve higher productivity and thus are good for business.
But in reality a lot of workplaces have a toxic work environment.
Staff members are often stressed, burnout rates are increasing at an alarming rate especially in Western societies.
High stress levels lead to more mistakes at the workplace and a higher likelihood of accidents.
Increase in staff being afflicted with stress related conditions like hypertension, stomach ulcers, insomnia, etc.
This leads to higher amount of sick days which reduces productivity of a company. In turn this can lead to a high staff turnover which again costs a company time and money to retrain new people.
Be aware: People usually don’t quit their jobs, they quit people at work!
Another huge workplace problem is Bullying. And just to be clear, constructive criticism and monitoring is not bullying.
Workplace Bullying is a persistent mistreatment of others in the workplace that causes either physical or emotional harm.
Researchers at the University of South Australia revealed that although only 10% of workers self identify as victims of workplace bullying the true number is likely to be much higher.
According to their study two-thirds of Australians experience bullying.
Bullying is a huge problem
Bullying behaviours might be:
- verbal ( mockery, humiliation, jokes, gossip or other spoken abuse)
- intimidating others, including threats, social exclusions in the workplace, spying or other invasions of privacy such as reading their private emails.
- bullying related to work performance can include wrongful blame, work sabotage or taking false credit for ideas
- institutional bullying: institutional bullying happens when a workplace accepts, allows and even encourages bullying to take place.
- bullying behaviour is usually repeated over time
Who gets bullied?
From research in 2017 from Workplace Bullying Institute we read that:
- females are targeted more often
- more males than females are bullies ( 70:30 %)
- 60% of bullying comes from Bosses and Supervisors
- around 30% of bullying is due to coworkers bullying other coworkers.
- the rest is people bullying their supervisors or managers.
Bullying can have significant, serious effects on physical and mental health of the individual person.
How does bullying affect the workplace?
Workplaces with high rates of bullying can also experience negative consequences such as
- financial loss resulting from legal costs or bullying investigation
- decreased productivity and morale
- increased employee absences
- high staff turnover
- poor team dynamics
- reduced trust, effort and loyalty from employees
To sum it up BULLYING is a serious issue in many workplaces.
We know that bullying is bad for business, so why does it still continue?
Workplace bullying is one of the leading causes of work-related mental stress in Australia, according to the Australian Productivity Commission’s draft mental health report, released in 2019.
The report estimated that the issue costs Australia’s economy between $22 billion and $47.4 billion each year due to loss of productivity, absenteeism, legal costs and early retirement payouts.
So why does bullying still occur?
Projection
To understand that we have to look at the psychology of the human mind. There are many theories out there that can give us a better understanding of what is going on.
Every human being has positive and negative qualities. Let’s call the negative qualities the shadow side of the human. If we are not aware and conscious of that and we haven’t healed our own hearts we can very easily be triggered and lash out at somebody in complete anger or other unconscious behaviour patterns. That is called projection.
Projection is unconscious and works in a way as to protect the bully from their own pain of one kind or another (emotional or mental) It is a process that works independently from a person’s awareness or everyday understanding. It is designed to reduce anxiousness or distress of any kind by assisting the bully to externalise their pain onto another person.
It could be true to say that most bullies are actually trying to produce the very fears and feelings that they have within themselves into the victim. In other words the bully is indicating and revealing their own fears, insecurities and weaknesses by bullying the victim simply by producing those very things within the victim.
So the way out of this is becoming aware and conscious and owning our own emotions without projecting them onto others. This can be a lifelong journey.
We must learn to become a responder not a reactor.
Psychopaths
At this stage I also want to mention a group of people which psychology calls psychopaths. A psychopath is traditionally a personality disorder characterized by persistent anti social behaviour with very little or no empathy and compassion for others.
Psychopaths are uncaring for other people’s needs, show no remorse and also have strong egotistical traits.
Research by Professor Clive Boddy, published on the website of the University of Tasmania, estimates that 1% of the population falls into that category.
Now what does that have to do with workplaces and managers because traditionally we associate psychopaths with crime, violence and court cases.
However, the same research estimates that we find a much higher proportion of psychopaths of 3 to 10 % in the Corporate region.
To make it very clear, none of you who are doing this course belongs to this group.
Why not? Because it is not in the interest of a psychopath to make workplaces safer and kinder.
So why do I talk about this then? I think this is very helpful if you look at your organization and the people who work there. You might ask: How did psychopaths ever come up into the Corporate region, how did they manage to get promoted with those character qualities?
First of all psychopaths can be utterly charming, they can fool you in the beginning, lying is nothing to them, they look into your eyes and you couldn’t even detect that they are lying. Psychopaths thrive and love to create stress and drama wherever they work.
If you have employees who love to do their work in peace and in a harmonious work atmosphere and mix them with even 1 psychopath the following scenario unfolds:
The people who love peace and quiet get so distressed with the constant stress which a psychopath always emits so that they can’t focus and thus not achieve that much. So if a boss looks around before promoting staff the psychopath seems the obvious choice as he is unaffected by all the stress he causes and he often gets the promotion.
A Real Life Example
Let me tell you a real life example. A good friend of mine worked in an organisation, her manager had all the characteristics of a psychopath and terrorised the whole department. As a result my friend developed blinding migraines and stomach upsets and eventually left. They lost a very valuable staff member due to mismanagement at leadership level.
She is now running a highly successful business herself.
So to have psychopaths in corporate functions can be quite costly to the company, as good workers with high integrity quit and leave. Remember people never quit jobs they quit people.
You might ask what does all that information have to do with me? You as a Manager, Director or CEO set the tone at your company. You are responsible for the culture in your business. Now, kindness is not a subject which is taught at most business colleges at the moment but trust me it will be in the future. Kindness is not an inherited gift, it is teachable and learnable, like any other skill. The more you practice the better you get at it.
Remember: Kind workplaces are good for business.
To help create a kind workplace…Always start with yourself. Be nice to yourself, don’t beat yourself up. Treat yourself kindly.