A group of executives got together over a private boardroom lunch with Business News, led by career transition and leadership development firm Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), to discuss how workplace culture changes and new legislative frameworks are pressing organisations to put people first in the workplace, with a focus on psychosocial risk.
Kylie Johnston, Group Executive of People for RAC, talked about how new work health and safety regulations around psychosocial risk and the recent national inquiry into sexual harassment have been an important catalyst for change.
“The code of practice supporting the new work health and safety regulations around psychosocial risk has provided an important framework for behaviours. I think organisations can use this framework to start making important changes,” she said.
“Also, the recent human rights commission report on sexual harassment and how organisations can respond better provides an interesting lens that really highlights some of the issues.
Kylie Johnston, Group Executive People for RAC
The WA member organisation employs more than 2000 people across a diverse range of services, introduced mental health champions and recently refitted its 17-year-old building, to have a focus on wellbeing, connection and collaboration.
“The thing I’m most worried about is the stuff that sits below the surface. It’s not the stuff that’s overt. The issues that I see are people dealing with are changes in workload, technology, interactions in and out of work and personal pressures” Ms Johnston said.
“Everyone’s going to have to keep learning about how we deal with this as we uncover more of the issues. Reporting culture plays an important part as well. Ms Johnston said.
“I think we’re in an environment and a time where we have to remain adaptive, responsive, and be continually reviewing the environment we find ourselves in, the incidents we find ourselves responding to and learning from each other and learning as an organisation about how we might respond to some of these challenges.”
Zara Fisher, General Manager of Health Safety and Risk at Fortescue, said an important consideration was the shift to bystander or upstander interventions.
“One thing you often see in these events is a power imbalance with the perpetrator. To be able to shift culture, you’ve got to have everyone in the team picking up on the small things and intervening before they become more serious, ” Ms Fisher said.
“Some of this generation of leaders can be normalised to these behaviours. For example I have probably waved off little things I’ve experienced in the past that I wouldn’t accept now. So as we increase awareness and we empower bystanders to be the ones to call these things out when they are really low level, we start to bring about that cultural change.
“We started with basic training for leaders and for bystanders on how to communicate appropriately. We are seeing team members wanting to do the right thing and great improvement in team members supporting each other to align to expectations as a result of good bystander training. One thing I’m concerned by is that we don’t want to create an environment where some of our men are worried about speaking to women socially, that would be a really bad outcome from a cultural perspective,” she said.
“You need to create an environment where it’s actually OK to make a mistake, not on the big things but on the small interactions. How do you allow those mistakes to happen and be safely corrected for all parties? The concept of bystander enablement (to be upstanders) is critical aspect of this learning journey.”
Ms Thorpe from LHH said giving people the language to express themselves and the signposts of how to recover better from mishaps is important so that people aren’t afraid to speak up.
“Where programs are successful is where you’re upfront with a pilot and explain what you’re looking for and that you’re looking for a voice from a range of different perspectives and having those ongoing conversations so you can get a sense of how those things are being translated,” she said.
She reiterated it’s important to question if the conversations are being translated to the everyday people in the organisation.
Creating a positive workplace culture
Mineral Resources sets the bar high for what an ideal workplace looks like. When MinRes refurbished its Osborne Park office in 2020, the upgrade was centred around people and interaction.
Andrea Chapman, executive general manager of people at MinRes, formerly group manager of people at Fortescue, said MinRes went “carte blanche” to implement a culture where “people are absolutely at the forefront of everything”.
“Health and safety is not just practical physical safety, but mental health plays such a large part, so how do you weave those two together?” she asked.
MinRes has created teams of wellness coaches, in the same vein as safety advisers, but the company hasn’t stopped there. The Osborne Park office is a prototype of what happens when you put wellness first, with proof that it impacts how employees perform at work.
“We have a free in-house creche and a gym that’s heavily subsidised for $5 a week. We have a health centre with an in-house GP available for employees, an in-house psychologist and in-house counselling services. We have meals that are all crafted to make sure the macros are right,” she said.
The office has a soothing scent wafting through the air conditioning and lighting that changes throughout the day to create a calming atmosphere. There are breakout areas where teams can collaborate, cool stone around the office, and a central stairwell where staff can cross-pollinate, removing silos.
“Wellness is totally at the forefront. The office has been designed with connection in mind,” she said.
The prototype is taken into account into its pod accommodation so when people are working away from home they can feel like it’s a home away from home.
“It makes such a positive impact. It’s all about a beautiful place that people like to be and hopefully that expands the demographic of people that can come work for us,” Ms Chapman said.
“You can see in the data the impacts that it has. It absolutely worked. Turnover reduced by 50 per cent just by moving into that office. It’s really expensive but you can cost up that we have saved through reducing turnover. You can see the buyback but it’s very expensive.”
The mining services company has a five-year strategy and a campaign called ‘Show Up. Stand Up. Speak Up’, and collaborate with Experience Lab, an organisation that engage actors to act out scenes.
The company sits at a 22 per cent female participation, an improvement from 17 per cent two years ago when Ms Chapman joined. “From a diversity perspective we’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go,” she said.
“Where we really need to focus on is the targeted female leadership; that’s where you start to see the next big shift in culture change.”
