In the depths of the pandemic, we kicked-off work with the National Mental Health Commission on the National Workplace Initiative (NWI).
The NWI is a bold project to establish a nationally consistent approach to workplace mental health across Australia.
Four years and a huge amount of work later, the Mentally Healthy Workplaces website is live and hosts a range of helpful workplace mental health tools and resources, as well as self-directed training for organisations of all shapes and sizes.
Get started with the Mentally Healthy Workplaces Blueprint.
It is very challenging to build and maintain a workplace that continuously supports good mental health. There are so many factors, many beyond your control, that are regularly impacting people and teams.
Individual employee mental health that can be hard to understand and address. People need to know what to ask, and how to support colleagues at difficult times.
And then there is the impact of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in markets and society. Pandemics happen. Change is constant and change is challenging.
There are common mental health risk factors and responses for all businesses. Read them and you will not be surprised. Addressing them is not always straightforward; however, knowing them is a fundamental requirement of any company’s leadership.
National statistics and trends
According to SafeWork Australia’s Key Work Health and Safety Statistics 2025:
- There were 17,600 serious mental health/work-stress workers’ compensation claims in 2023–24 (12.0% of all serious workplace injury/illness claims).
- Mental health claims have increased by 161.1% over the last 10 years (2013–14 to 2023–24), far outpacing the growth in other injury categories.
- Median time off work was ~ 35.7 weeks, compared with a median of ~ 7.4 weeks across all serious claims.
- The median compensation for those mental health claims was ~ A$67,400, which is considerably higher than compensation for many other injury types.
Mentally Healthy Workplaces resources include guides, real life stories and quick reference cheat sheets.
Some factors affecting mental health are different for large organisations versus small businesses or not-for-profit organisations.
Smaller organisations simply don’t have the resources for designing and maintaining the broad range of policies, cultural programs, infrastructure and education devoted to mental health and related activity in large companies. Knowing where to focus is hard.
Having guides that are tailored to organisation type and roles gives leaders confidence they are meeting expectations and minimising risk. And that includes the personal risks of leadership responsibility and pressure.
The Mentally Healthy Australia workplace mental heath resources range from detailed and instructive guides to quick reference ‘cheat sheets’.
Many resources have been translated into Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic and Greek.
The resources are instructive, based on credible research, and produced in accessible, easy to understand guides. They can sit on your desk as a reference when you deal with different issues or brainstorm opportunities to build good mental health.
Many of the Mentally Healthy Workplaces resources are translated into different languages.
If you are a manager or leader, these accessible workplace mental health tools are your friend. If you are a sole trader, they are also your friend.
The website also hosts structured learning series, so you can get started and learn at your own pace.
Plus, there are great case studies in which companies share their journeys: from implementing programs on the ground.
Get started and take a look at:
At EJ, we learned so much about mental health in the workplace while helping to create the Mentally Healthy Workplaces resources – knowledge our leadership team would have gained much confidence from, and applied, as we built the company over the years.
Share these workplace mental health tools with your networks and help other organisations benefit as well!
