R U Being Harmed by Us?

This article discusses suicide.

As working Australia collectively recovers from the cupcake-fuelled sugar high, and frontline workers return to a work experience indistinguishable from the day before (apart from the absence of black and yellow livery that adorned every visible surface), now the real work must begin.

Yesterday Erin Pearson in The Age reported on a Melbourne Magistrates’ Court case in which the state body tasked with investigating the unexpected deaths of Victorians (the Coroners Court of Victoria), pleaded guilty to failing to protect staff from bullying, overwork and vicarious trauma after an in-house lawyer took her own life in 2018 (the irony is not lost on this author).

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The court was told that a note was found at the scene which read: “[An acting CEO] ruined me.”

Court Services Victoria has pleaded guilty to failing to conduct any adequate processes to identify or assess the psychological risks to the health of employees between 2015 and 2018. Lawyer Patrick Doyle, SC, said the agency acknowledged the harm caused and that it had done more wrong than they’d been charged with.

?R U Ok? is a simple question with a simple resolution. Not ok? “Speak to someone who can help”.

The answer to the first question posed in this article is a little more scary for employers. If the answer is “yes, you are harming me”, there is action required by the employer to address the source of harm. However taking these actions can prevent further harm for this and other workers exposed to the same hazards.

This latest case bears an eerie resemblance to the High Court case of Kozarov v State of Victoria (2022). In both instances, there was forseeable risk of harm due to excessive work demands, as well as the content of the job (exposure to traumatic material).

Those Victoria employers who believe they are untouchable because a) there are no psychosocial risk regulations in force in Victoria yet (unlike most Australian jurisdictions), and b) they have not completed a psychosocial risk assessment (their version of 'I didn't know there was an issue'), need to heed the warnings served by these two similar Victorian cases.

The state of knowledge is there - employers should be aware of forseeable risks of harm caused by poor work design, they should be consulting with workers regularly to ensure they are not being harmed, and they need to take responsibility for improving work design when this has the potential to cause harm. These actions will be received far more favourably than the overused rhetoric "you need to be more resilient".

Employers need to get into a regular cadence of asking workers “R U Being Harmed by Us?”. It might just save a life - and other psychological harm, productivity losses, turnover, insurance premium increases, fines, repetitional damage and jail time (for negligent company directors).

P.S. please ask this question more than once a year if you really want to create work that prevents harm and promotes mental wellbeing.

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If you or anyone you know needs support call Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.