Safe Work Australia’s Psychological health and safety in the workplace report reveals an increase among workers claiming compensation for their mental health conditions.
The report’s most pressing statistic is that mental health conditions accounted for nine per cent of all serious workers’ compensation claims, a 36.9 per cent increase since 2017-18. With the rise of these claims, the median time lost due to these conditions was more than four times greater than that of all physical injuries and illnesses.
The report notes that the median compensation paid for mental health conditions was more than three times greater than that of all physical injuries and illnesses. However, workers who filed these claims had to endure poorer return-to-work outcomes and were more likely to experience stigma from colleagues and their employers.
“This new report by Safe Work Australia aims to increase understanding of the impact of psychosocial hazards at work by highlighting trends in psychological health in Australian workplaces,” Marie Boland, Chief Executive Officer of Safe Work Australia, commented. “The data gives insights that can help governments, researchers, industry and worker representatives to address current and future challenges in psychological health and safety.
“Proactively managing psychosocial hazards at work not only protects workers, it also benefits businesses by improving organisational performance and productivity,” Boland added. “Under model work health and safety laws, psychosocial hazards and risks are treated the same as physical hazards and risks.”
The report was prepared with the help of data from Safe Work Australia National Dataset for Compensation-based Statistics, the National Return to Work Survey and the People at Work risk assessment survey.
