The Rise of the Chief Psychological Health Officer

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with David Heap, a leading organizational and coaching psychologist with over 30 years of professional experience. He's a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has a BSc in Psychology and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.

David helps safety professionals understand why organizations are increasingly adding a Chief Psychological Health Officer (CPH) to the boardroom. He explains how approaches to workplace mental wellbeing have changed over recent years - especially since the global pandemic.

But how does this affect safety management? David explores where a CPH could sit within an organizational structure and which backgrounds are best suited for this role. He argues workplace psychological health and safety should be an inter-departmental concern and that the appointment of a CPH shouldn’t diminish collective responsibility.

David insists that workplace mental wellbeing initiatives (including appointing a CPH) should result from genuine concern for the workforce - and not be attention-grabbing activities defunded in 18 months.

He wants organizations to holistically assess the workplace environment to prevent poor psychological health and focus on boosting positive wellbeing in the workforce. Proactivity at a systematic level is crucial - and safety professionals can play a key role in this transition.

♪ [music] ♪ - [Mary] My name is Mary Conquest. I'm your host for "Safety Labs by Slice," the podcast where we explore the human side of safety to support safety professionals. We move past regulations and reportables to talk about the core skills of safety leadership, empathy, influence, trust, rapport, in other words, the soft skills that help you do the hard stuff.

♪ [music] ♪ Hi there. Welcome to "Safety Labs by Slice." Organizations are increasingly adding a new member to the C-suite, the Chief Psychological Health Officer, or CPHO.

What's the reasoning and context of this development? Is this simply a trendy business idea that will be forgotten in a decade, or does it signal a C change in the industry of occupational health? What are the opportunities and risks associated with the rise of the chief psychological health officer? I'll be discussing those questions and more today with our guest.

David Heap is a leading organizational and coaching psychologist with over 30 years of professional experience. He helps people to create better lives and careers for themselves. His clients develop insights into their key strengths and passions, and then align these to improve their leadership and executive performance, all whilst leading more successful and fulfilling lives.

He also consults to organizations on leadership, change, teams, and resilience. David is a registered organizational psychologist, chair of the College of Organizational Psychologists, and past national convener of the Coaching Psychology Interest Group of the Australian Psychological Society. He's a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. David has a BSc in psychology from the University of New South Wales, and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.

David joins us from Sydney. Welcome.

- [David] Thank you, Mary. Good to see you. Good to be here.

- Yeah. So, how is the current more clinical approach to mental health different from emerging views of psychological health and safety?

- It's probably focused more on the more holistic view of the person and their environment, and really looking towards prevention as well as treatment. So, it's not either/or, it's and. And we see this too in general approaches to mental health, but particularly in the workplace. And that's where I think the last couple of years have really brought the importance of the workplace or people's experience of work and the impact that has on their mental health well-being and performance productivity.

So, I think this is, you know, one of the big changes that has been around for sometimes, but COVID and lockdowns and all the working from home business has really been a focus on that and accelerated people's awareness of it. So, it's been around for years as long as I've been interested in this aspect of managing stress in the workplace and people's reactions to it and improving their capacity to cope with it.

There's also been very much a trend about designing workplaces with people's mental health as well as productivity in mind.

- What kind of evidence do you see in your work, obviously, but in larger society, about the rise of psychological health as a concern in the workplace? Are you seeing more professional discussions? Are you seeing job postings or...

- Yeah. So, it's interesting. As I said, it's been around for a while. So, within my group, other organizational psychologists and people in HR and organizational development who are interested in these things, it's always been there. I think what we've seen is that there's a greater awareness in the media and generally within people's work experience, it exacerbated the situation.

So, very much focused people's awareness and attention on mental health and well-being. And then that was a catalyst to a lot of action. So, a lot of the rise, as you say, in the awareness of psychological mental health in the workplace in Australia at least, was precipitated into a change in the national legislation on workplace health and safety.

So, the psychological health was added in 2021, I think it was, to the national legislation, which then flowed through to all the state-based legislation. So, we have a federal system and the Commonwealth government in a sense, [inaudible 00:05:06], if you like template of workplace health and safety legislation, which then flows down to all the states who then actually regulate it.

So, I think that legislation together with the general background really precipitated the rise in this. And often that's how it works. The politicians and the government respond to trends and developments that are kind of inescapable in the public's awareness and amongst all the stakeholders.

And then that precipitates or it acts as a catalyst to then actions like organizations appointing a chief psychological health officer. Although there are some organizations such as Westpac who appointed their chief...I think he's called the chief mental health officer back in 2018.

So, it's been around, but it's just really come to the fore in terms of everyone's awareness, I think with COVID.

- Yeah. There's nothing like a pandemic for everyone to focus on how fragile our mental health can be.

- Exactly. So, there's a lot of things always there and lurking, not so much below the surface, but just there. And often it takes a precipitating event in order to focus people's attention and then precipitate action.

- This might not be a fair question, but that's the Australian context. Do you know much about the global context? Like, have you...

- It's pretty similar. So, Deloitte, you're probably aware, wrote a nice series of articles on mental health in the workplace, psychological health in the workplace. And there were very similar ones written for Canada and Australia, and the figures are pretty much the same. They obviously in each report use local figures, but I was just looking at the Canadian and the Australian figures and they're entirely similar.

And again, I suspect in America and Europe and everywhere else that has gone through and responded to the pandemic in the way that it has in our countries with, you know, the massive change, the working at home, you know, having most of our meetings over Zoom. And in a sense, and we might get into this later, having all the negative aspects of work pressure, but without a lot of the support of social features of being in the office.

And a lot of organizations absolutely were aware of this and did this. So, in Deloitte, when I was working there at the beginning of the pandemic, they were setting up social meetings, coffee and cake meetings and things like that with teams

[inaudible 00:07:55] have some social aspects to the workplace. But it's not the same.

- No, it's very difficult. And I can imagine. To me, it was work stress and home stress all at the same time once the kids were home from school, right?

- Exactly. Yeah.

- So, the concept of the...maybe not the concept, but the role of the chief psychological health officer sort of formalized in that way is relatively new. How do you think organizations should approach integrating this kind of a role into their existing organizational structures like OHS or HR departments, or does the role actually defy or break down those structures?

- It is a very interesting question. I think so far, just having a look at various organizations' executive groupings and how they've structured it, it seems to currently be under chief HR officer, HR director, whatever they're called, whose portfolio includes workplace health and safety OD and all the other parts of HR and personnel. And the chief psychological health officer sits there.

Now, they may have some dotted lines elsewhere in the organization to some committees, but I think that mostly they're integrated with or placed within the broader HR function. And I think a lot of places are still working it out. So, one example, Simon got a job as the chief psychological health officer in Australia Post, and that's very new within just the last couple of months.

So, I imagine he's working through just how that actually works. Because often too, as you would know, your influence in the organization is partially reflected in the box and wire diagrams of who you report to, but a lot of it is about stakeholder management and influence.

And basically...and this is where partnerships with WHS and OD and the other areas where it's about creating a culture that permeates the organization and the mindset of the managers and staff of the organization, even when you as a chief psychological health officer is not in the room, or it's something that you don't have a direct input in, it's that change of mindset as well as practices.

- I wonder if there will be a discussion between sort of...or a bit of a tug of war between HR and occupational health and safety as to, you know, where does this role really belong? And maybe there will, maybe there won't, and maybe it won't matter because as you say, a lot of it has to do with relationships and influence which don't always get reflected in org charts.

- Yeah. The other thing too I was thinking is it goes back to a philosophy of who is it responsible for and accountable for people in the organization. And there's one school of thought is we don't need HR because it's the line managers or the general manager's responsibility, people are their responsibility.

And I've worked in organizations where there is no HR apart from the compliance side. But then again, if something's important, then you allocate roles and responsibilities and then structure in order to actually carry out and advise general managers on these things. So, I think one of the things is they've got to thread this line between making sure that everyone feels accountable for the psychological health and well-being of their staff and being a catalyst to that, but not actually being the scapegoat or the person where everyone says, "Oh, look, I don't need to worry about it anymore. We'll just run a few workshops on psychological health and that'll be it."

So, I think there's an important catalytic change agent role at the moment for the chief psychological mental health officer to actually respond to the crisis aspects of where we are at the moment with the pandemic, but then use it as an opportunity to create a long-term focus and awareness and focus and action on organizations to seeing it part of a normal business of doing business of what they do to look after the psychological health and well-being as well as the performance of their staff.

- Yeah. That brings in quality. That's another... Again, it's not really interdisciplinary, but interdepartmental.

- I think the interdepartmental thing is really important because if psychological health and safety is just plunked onto the desk of the chief psychological health officer and everyone else wipes their hands, then it's not going to work. It really needs to be...and I think this is one of the things that people are becoming more sophisticated in and just running some workshops, just doing training, and that's it, is a complete waste of time.

Nothing's going to happen. You'll just feel good, but nothing will happen. The older members of our audience, or maybe the more British-focused ones will remember a TV show called "Yes Minister," and in which the Chief Public Servants, Humphrey Appleby, had a wonderful saying that I use quite a lot. He says, "Activity is a wonderful substitute for achievement." And I think a lot of organizations do this.

They get very active and they run workshops and do these things and have press releases and road shows and all this activity, activity, activity, but no one really looks at, "Okay, are we actually having an impact? Are we moving the dial at all on this?"

And just running those high-profile publicity and big splash stuff that's then defunded 18 months later when everyone's attention has moved away, it's just a waste of time and money, shouldn't even bother. But where things that really matter needs to be more pervasive and systematic. So, we're looking at the totality of the organization, understanding all the drivers of good and poor mental health, psychological health and well-being in the workplace and then addressing those in the very holistic and systematic matter.

And I think that's the real role and promise of the chief psychological health officer is to work at that systemic level. And I think that has been a trend from what I've observed in workplace health and safety in terms of just going away from this reactive incident model where there's an accident or an incident and then you file a report and, you know, cover up the hole or whatever to something that's looking forward more, more taking the initiative and creating a health and safety culture that actually looks ahead and spots the risk, spots the hazards, and systematically reduces the risk in the environment.

And I know that's been applied to physical hazards in the workplace, and I think that's also the approach that should be taken for maybe the less evident, physically evident areas of psychological mental health and safety.

- What kind of training do you think is best suited to take on a chief psychological health officer role? Like, should it be a safety professional specialized training? Should it be an organizational psychologist with, you know, specialized...?

- Two points. One, I'm going to be very obviously biased here and pitching to the home team. So, I would say that organizational or industrial and organizational psychologists or occupational psychologists, depending on where you live are the most qualified and suitable people to take up the role.

Talk about that...expand on that in a minute. And the second point is, well, you know, the hint is in the name psychologically. If you've got a psychological health officer, you should probably have a psychologist in the role. It's a bit like, you know, the CFO is usually an accountant, company secretary is a lawyer, chief technology, CIO, usually someone from IT.

So, I think it is one of those areas where you need someone with a relevant professional background. And the most relevant would be people who are psychologists, but also, you know, trained and experienced in organizational change and systems, job design, and working in organizations.

I think clinicians have a very important role in the post-incident, if you like, assessment and treatment of people. That's what they do. But they're not trained and experienced in working at that organizational and systems level.

Their focus is on treating individuals who are suffering from mental health issues. So, I think at WHS... And a lot of people in WHS do have psychologists qualifications. They may not necessarily be registered, but it would be helpful if that was their undergrad or even their postgrad degree was in psychology, as well as workplace health and safety.

So, someone like that with that kind of background could also be useful. It's interesting a lot of the chief psychological health officers in Australia have had a background in consulting. So, they've come in from outside, so to speak.

And I have not been on the selection panels for these people, but I think the idea is that idea of they need to be an influencer. They need to sell the idea. It's important for them, in a lot of cases, to have a media profile, but also... And that goes to...I think one of your questions around is this just a bit of PR for companies.

- Yeah. I was going to come to that, - And I think it is., I just helped Clyde get a role as the chief diversity officer with one of the top universities in the world. One of the things I liked about him was he had a very high media profile, both because he had an original background in the media, but also he'd had a very important role in Australia where he had a very high media profile.

So, they actually liked the fact that he could do media and show that this university put a strong emphasis on diversity. So, the PR is important, but I think it's also PR within the organization in terms of being that change agent, being able to influence and persuade people at the messaging level, telling the stories, as well as doing the more sophisticated work maybe, but the more behind-the-scenes work of setting up programs, policies, remuneration systems, all these other things that need to be aligned.

Because there's a lot of examples of where a company would say, oh, yes, we very much value this, this, this, and this, but all their remuneration systems, for example, are encouraging the exact opposite. So, this is where, you know, there's a need to make sure that the message and the push is coherent across all these different departments and systems if the dial is to move.

If you just want to make it show, [inaudible 00:20:06], you know, do media and have workshops. But it's going deep and long, deep in the bowels of the organization. So, yeah.

- So, you're talking about the risk. So, in some cases, a well-intentioned organization, you mentioned this before, could just sort of think, oh, well, I've ticked the box, I've hired someone for this, and they'll take care of it. And all good. And maybe a less well-intentioned organization would think I'm being seen to be doing this and this is a marketing strategy and all is well.

So, at the same time, there's this opportunity now that people are talking about, and it's similar in diversity and inclusion work. And so how do we prevent that performative kind of attitude? Let's say the organization that you're working for already has that attitude and, you know, you're hired to go in and do this.

How would you approach moving them from... It's a difficult question. But moving them from PR to actual effectiveness?

- Yeah. So, I think one of the first things...if you are offered a job, if you are thinking getting into this field, I think one of the most important things for you to evaluate before you step into the kind of situation you just described is, does the board, does minister, whatever, and the senior leadership, the board, the CEO, the other C-suite people, do they actually have a real commitment to this?

Do they actually see this as important, or is it, as you say, just a PR thing that we just need to get through and then we can go back to business as usual? So, I think going in, I'd be very wary of picking up a job where it was the latter because I think you may be wasting your time if not. However, I don't think people...I think most organizations are aware of the negative consequences of poor mental health in terms of things that they do care about, which is about productivity, engagement, the performance of their organization.

So, in the end, boards, heads of organizations do care about whether or not their organizations are successful and effective in what they do. And I think there's a lot of evidence now linking good mental health well-being to those productivity and performance measures. So, I think people have got that idea now that, yes, this is important.

We want to address what we've seen as some of the negative consequences of poor mental health in the workplace and physical health. So, absenteeism is a big issue in Australia at the moment, as in people are off ill. And some of that's colder than flu, but I think some of it is just technical term [inaudible 00:23:00], they're just tired and they're very susceptible to anything else on their plate.

And there's also a phenomena called quiet quitting that I've just been reading about in the last couple of weeks. And in the old days, that was called work-to-rule. And you just did what you were supposed to, no more. You turned off your computer at 5:00 or whatever, and that was it until 8:30 or whatever the next morning.

And that's not...organizations are not used to that. They're used to now...and then particularly this is working from home, you're never not at work. As you were saying, you still got the kids, you still got everything to do with the house and the rest of your life, and work's still there at 7:30 and your emails are still popping up on the screen and things like that. So, I think there's a number of reactions that people are taking anyway on their own initiative to role modeling from others from media like that to protect themselves.

And I think organizations have a duty of care in order to make sure that it doesn't get to that, where people are having to quit, disengage, or suffer. So, that's where the organizations need to make sure that their staff never get to that position where they feel they need to do this quiet quitting, work-to-rule, or just quietly suffer.

- I think it's an interesting...with that term quiet quitting, which when I first read, I said to my husband, this is work-to-rule. Work-to-rule though is a protest tactic traditionally used by unions. So, it's interesting, a protest tactic versus protecting one's mental health, those have two very different implications, even if it's the same action.

- I suspect there's a bit of bleeding there and that there is a bit of a...I won't do it onscreen, but there is a bit of a raised finger to the organization, but in a way that doesn't expose that staff member to retribution. It's protesting, but doing it in a way that they hope isn't going to be addressed vindictively by the organization, slightly harsh.

But a lot of people just because of, you know, the hierarchy don't feel they've got the power as individuals to do anything about this. And if they do protest, particularly since so many people are now on contracts, so I've got a lot of friends who are academics, but also teachers as well. And only a very few of them have good old-fashioned tenured permanent jobs.

Most of the younger ones anyway are on a contract. And that's pervasive. And I do think this is part of raising the level of uncertainty in the workplace or about your career. And uncertainty is very clearly linked to stress.

So, I think people don't feel they can put their hand up or many people don't feel they can put their hand up and say, oh, this is getting too much for me, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Or they try that and the boss says, no.

- Or they see their colleague do it and get fired.

- Yes. So, what do you do? You have to protect your income, protect your career, protect yourself. And so it's kind of that passive let's not create any trouble, but I'm just going to do something that's not going to get me into trouble, but still look after myself. And that's failure of the organization if someone has to get to that stage. So, this is where there's all these ends in a row.

So, the organizations are very much concerned with performance and productivity of their staff because that leads to organizational performance, but for that to be sustainable over time, it needs to be in line with people's positive psychological health and sense of well-being, engagement, and all these other things that people in HR and OD are trying to foster.

Because we know through decades of research that higher levels of engagement and identification with what you are doing in the organization leads to much higher and resilient levels of performance. So, there should be a win-win all the way along here in terms of having staff who are at their best, they're feeling good, they're focused, they can perform at 110% of the capacity because they're the right people, in the right place, doing the right things, in the right environment.

And, you know, it's a well-honed machine to do what we do, treat people [inaudible 00:28:00] in the ground, that sort of thing.

- It should be a win-win, and yet I imagine somewhere there's some resistance or pushback to this kind of change. Have you seen any? I mean, again, your position as a consultant, probably if someone's engaging with you, they already understand the importance of psychological health. But have you seen any kind of resistance?

- Not really. I think there are still some old and bold old-style, 50-style managers who just say, toughen up, sweetheart. If you can't stand the heat, blah, blah, blah. Not as many of those, but I think there's still remnants of that kind of thinking this is a tough gig. If you don't like it, you can go somewhere else. So, there's a lot of organizations consulting, but other ones as well, who expect you to work outrageous hours and put a lot of effort into what you do and to kind of self-sacrifice for the benefit of the organization and your career.

If you want to get ahead, [inaudible 00:29:06] very mixed feelings about said you can't change the world at 40 hours a week. And I don't think he's alone in this. So, a lot of organizations, you know, if you did the quiet quitting at say a big four consulting firm, and you were a manager on the way up, and as I said, I don't think Deloitte's alone in this, but sometimes I'd be late in the office and I would go up to one of the consulting floors at 7:30 and 90% of the staff were still there.

And I've got friends who have [inaudible 00:29:40], it's a long time since I've been interns, but, you know, the whole classic intern thing where you work, you know, three shifts in a row, not good. And I'm sure everyone can think of other examples of where you have to demonstrate to the organization your commitment to that.

And what I do see with my clients who are usually senior execs, or at least in leadership roles, and the ones who pile on work who say, yes a lot and give themselves outrageous workloads are recognized and rewarded for that because organizations like people who get stuff done. And one way to get a lot of stuff done is to work long hours.

And some people cope with that and can manage that, but others burn out and get left behind, which I don't think is a very friendly or sustainable organizational performance model, but it's quite a common one. So, I think there's a lot of old practices and beliefs that you have to work hard to get ahead. And that is different for different people.

So, one of the things about very senior people who do seem to work hard is they seem to have a lot of energy, you know, and they're naturally very energetic, very driven and self-disciplined people because they have to produce a lot. All my clients in the executive coaching area all have about three times as much work to do as they could possibly do.

So, there's a lot of prioritization and hopefully, managing their time and efforts in order to not just get stuff done, but survive their jobs. And that's an expectation now. Part of the whole process of going through organizations from graduate through to director and partner is actually weeding out those who don't want to do this or incapable of doing it and training people to be able to manage such outrageous workloads, which does have an effect on people's mental health and well-being.

- If you were to come into a culture like that where it's just part of the industry's culture, a law firm, for example, architecture, that sort of thing, how would you...and maybe the organization itself is not explicitly saying, it's just kind of part of the culture of the entire industry. If you were to come in as a chief psychological health officer, how would you address that? Like, what kind of programs or systemic changes would you set up?

- I think first of all, there needs to be a root cause analysis of what's actually going on in the organization from slightly different perspective or cost benefit. So, there are benefits to the organization of working people really hard and making them really productive because they're working 50% more than they're contracted, 40 hours a week.

So that's productivity. But is that sustainable, or indeed, is it moral? There's clear benefits to people working long hours in terms of productivity, but what are the costs to that? Are there better ways and more sustainable ways that doesn't give you turnover? So, one of the things may be getting organizations to appreciate what are the actual costs of doing this?

How is this actually negatively affecting your bottom line or the things that you care about as an organization? And I think one of the things too there is the reputation of the organization. Are you actually an attractive organization in terms of getting the best graduates, in terms of being able to attract, you know, the top talent in the industry?

Because if you're seen as bit of a grindhouse and you just work your grads to death and then they either leave or the tough ones exit the [inaudible 00:33:36] arena, 1 in 10 survive. Then is that a place that you as someone who's got a lot of options in the marketplace are going to choose to go to?

And often this grindhouse is self-perpetuating because they don't get the best people, so they have to work harder to get quality of work done that a really good productive person can do within, you know, a reasonable work time. So, you know, again, this is the systemic approach. I think I'd really like to encourage the senior leadership of an organization to think systemically about their business model and the role that psychological health safety well-being has in terms of how they do what they do and culture, systems, and all these other things.

So how can we design the best possible organization in terms of all the stakeholders, our shareholders, our customers, our staff, our partners in the community? How do we actually create something that has a positive benefit all around? And that's a very sustainable business model, is if you're keeping everyone happy, and balance is probably not the best word, but it's all integrated and coherent, it's probably a better word.

It's all consistent and self-supporting. There's no weak points in your...or an engineering term, there's no obvious points of failure, points of stress where if you run the machine at 100%, it's going to break over there. You want the organization to be like a well-designed and well-honed reliable machine that's just going to keep working even under more extreme pressure like a pandemic, or the economy collapsing, or war in Europe and Asia.

I think one of the lessons of the pandemic has been the importance of building resilient systems that support people and the organization, you know, through tough times. On the problems we've had in Australia is we haven't had a recession in Australia for 20-something years. I think it was the early '90s was the last time we were actually in a recession, technical recession.

And we just don't know...most Australian organizations don't know how to do hard times. But the ones who were more capable of dealing with hard times traveled better through the COVID than the ones who didn't have the resilience in their people and their systems, their people systems and their business systems.

So, I think that.... So, one of the things I did do during the pandemic was a whole bunch of talks like this podcast or addresses to client organizations on building resilience. How do you cope with this situation? What do you need to do? And I think that's good, fine, I was happy to do that for the people, but the resilience needs to be more than just the people.

So, we shouldn't be blaming the victim here in terms of just saying, oh, you guys are stressed. Well, that's because you're weak and you need training in mindfulness.

- Go take yoga.

- Yeah, yoga. Yeah, exactly. So, it's just that individualistic approach is ineffective because it's the person's environment, the stressors in the workplace, uncertainty, poorly defined jobs, bullying, poor management, too much work, that really are the drivers of poor mental health in the workplace.

The resilience of people are in there, yes, let's do that, but also let's look holistically at the environment and what we can do to prevent poor psychological health. And so that's kind of a traditional WHS approach in terms of identifying psychosocial risks in the environment and addressing those.

That's all good, so preventing the negative. Also, we need, I think, to take the lessons of the last 20 years of positive psychology and building up for good. So, making the place not just a place that doesn't harm you, but also a place that actually builds upon you as a person, so building a community, making social connections, connecting with your values and giving yourself a sense of meaning and purpose in what you do so that you willingly and enthusiastically come to work, do what you do because you care about it.

You feel that it's not only a great place to work and you enjoy what you do, but what you're doing has a strong sense of meaning and purpose and you're providing value to communities or whatever that you care about.

And you also feel that if you do go, if you do suffer, the organization will be there to support you. So, this is the three phases, I think, that need to be integrated. The reducing risk, boosting the positive aspects of well-being and engagement and happiness, fulfillment, and then if something does go wrong because people are complicated, that the organization will be there in terms of flexibility in your work style, EAP programs, referral to psychologists, supporting your medical bills, whatever it is.

So, I think that set sense of creating not just a safe workplace, but a very positive and productive one, both for individuals but also for the organization as a whole.

- Serve on the National Mental Health and Safety Alliance Board alongside [inaudible 00:39:39].

- Well, one of the advisory boards. Not the big one, but just one of the advisory boards. Yeah. Not quite so grand.

- But alongside OHS professionals.

- Yes.

- And you've just sort of talked about different perspectives, the positive psychology and OHS, but I'm wondering are safety professionals, is their perspective a little bit different? And I'm wondering if you can talk specifically about job design.

- I think one of the things I have noticed in being on groups and panels with the WHS specialists is what I was saying before in terms of they do see things in terms of workplace hazards and reducing the risk of workplace hazards and complying with the regulations and legislation in terms of this, which I think is necessary and important and probably the first step.

So, you've got a foundation dealing with hygiene issues. So, at least the workplace is not dangerous. I think where I would say as well as at the same time or other people might say, well, no, we do after is all the stuff on well-being and productivity.

I did sense some reluctance to go too quickly to that because they saw that that would distract management because it's all shiny and, oh, I can get some productivity out of this and I can say nice things to my staff and, you know, pat them on the head and rub their backs and everyone's feeling good and lovely without actually addressing some of the harder issues around, you know, reducing hazards and getting into, well, you can't work your people 60 hours a week.

No, stop it. That can be some of the tougher messages where managers might be more resistant. So, I think that's a different perspective because my career's really on the, you know, building on the positives and, you know, working with people who are already doing very well, although some of my coaching sessions are fairly clinical.

But I think it's that about getting that balance between having the tough messages about compliance and getting people to change work processes and established practices and cultural norms so that they at least as the old oath says, at least they do no harm.

So, that's bottom line. And so I don't think it's a bad thing, but I think that's coming from that hazard and risk reduction or elimination mindset.

- For our safety listeners or safety professionals that are listening, if they're interested in raising the prospect of paying more attention to whether it's the hazard or positivity, but just psychological health in their organization, do you have any tactics, any strategies, or tips that you think are a good way to start that discussion?

- I think as with many things, it's about creating a partnership with the senior leadership in the organization so that you're not coming at it from you need to do this because of regulations, so it's that compliance mindset, which admittedly, you do have to do. But I think if that's your only argument, then you really will fall short.

So, I think the idea is...again, this is true for any change in organizations, how do you engage the decision-makers, the leadership of the organization so that they see the costs if they don't do this, if they don't go down this path? And in particular, what are the benefits that they will accrue in terms of things that they care about, which is usually about organizational performance in its various measures?

What are they going to get out of it? And then working in partnership with them on the way to go from where we are now to where we need to be. And really helping them gain the confidence that this is going to be a good investment for their time. Because they don't want to do something that is a lovely pipe dream and unicorns and candy floss, and all that kind of stuff, they want it to be something real and attainable and they're going to get a return on their investment.

And so, it's as with many things, it's a rhythm them, what's in it for me, but particularly what's in it for us? What's in it for the organization? What's in it for the stack? So, again, sales 101, you need to sell benefits to people. And, you know, a dose of if you don't do this, these are the bad things that will happen, or this is the burning deck at the moment.

So, it's the Daniel Kahneman idea that people's motivation to take risks and lose things they've already got is to the five times more influential than the promise to gain something they haven't already got. So, often this is a decision you need to make in your pitch, in your influence arguments, is to what extent do we tell them about the burning deck and the terrible things that will happen if we do nothing, and so, therefore, the status quo is not tenable.

We need to do something. And then you present to them, so the city, the lovely place that we can all be, where we're happy and productive and profitable and whatever else, and this is where we need to be. And then let's work together in order to construct a pathway to go there. And so these things need to be attractive, but they also need to be seen as viable and attainable.

Otherwise, we'll just kick the can down the road a bit further and then there's a lot of work working alongside people with power and authority in the organization [inaudible 00:45:55] also give you funding, which is really important in this. And really if you get funding, then it matters.

- Yeah. Yeah. There's no clearer message.

- Boards and organizations' money is the fuel, money's a thing that measures success, and it's also the fuel that they then pump into the engine in order to move towards that success. So, one of the clear markers of are they taking you seriously is, are you being adequately funded? Are they giving you the organizational resources to enable you to attain your goals if you are the chief psychological health officer?

So, if it's just you by yourself, no staff, no connections, and you are out, and as we say in Australia, woop, woop, not in the head office, then you're just a PR thing. But if you're actually in with the power brokers in the organization, if you have good working collegial relationships with the key stakeholders in the organization, the people who can get stuff done, the people who can give you access to their staff and be there.

So, it's really important for people to accept that the change is real and your organization means it. [inaudible 00:47:18] leadership visibly and sustainably supporting something. So, if you've got the CEO, if you've got the general manager, MD, deputy secretary, whatever the important people are in your organization, if they're there at the workshops, at the launch of things saying how important this is to them and the organization, then people are likely to take notice and participate.

But if not, if people get the vibe that this is just a bit of PR, then they're not going to engage, they're not going to bother as they see how the organization's not serious. So, I think it's an example of organizational change. And so this is where the chief psychological health officer needs to really work in partnership, not just with the line people, but with the people in OD and the organizational change elements and HR and all these other areas.

So, it's always about partnerships and relationships and collaborating with your colleagues in order to get stuff done. So, I think that's one...so I think that would be one of the things I'd be looking for in a chief psychological health officer is do they have experience working within organizations in a senior role where they're used to all the schmoozing and having coffees and making presentations and all these other things, sitting on committees.

All these other things that you need to do to get stuff done in organizations to create change and to change the organization at a fundamental and sustainable level.

- Speaking of skills, what skills you need to do things, there are some questions I ask all my guests near the end of the interview, and one of them is...now, this might be a little bit difficult, but you do work with safety professionals. So, generally, I ask, where would you focus soft skills training?

In your case, I think I would say maybe psychological skills training for tomorrow's safety professionals. What skills do you think would be most helpful to them?

- I think if they don't have a background in psychology, their undergrad degree or whatever, then I think one way or the other, their formal workshops or just watching a whole bunch of videos on YouTube or, you know, doing short courses, things like that. Really getting up to speed on this whole idea of psychological health in workplace and how it fits in with what they may have been focusing more on in terms of physical hazards.

And I think too, and again, this is extending what they're probably already into in terms of moving just from that reaction and compliance mindset to more of a safety culture approach and extending what you've been doing there into the having a culture of psychological health and safety.

It might be bringing in someone who is a psychologist, either as a consultant or as, you know, someone in the organization to look after that aspect. And again, often it's really hard if you're 45 to go all the way back and become, you know, a fully registered licensed psychologist.

So often what really works there is a bit of education yourself, but part of that education is often working with people who are already there to bring in a qualified psychologist and to work and partner with them, and so that you get that level of expertise within the organization very quickly. But also you are learning by doing, you know,

[inaudible 00:51:17] 20/10 rule. You can do some reading, you can partner with people, but most of it is...the 70% of, you know, developing ourselves is really about learning by doing experiential learning. So, getting involved and partnering with people who are subject matter experts in this area, and they will learn from you about safety culture and the organization itself and where are all the roadblocks and who's helpful and all that sort of business.

And you'll be learning from them and working with them and the management in order to create this environment. So it's more of a culture because there needs to be systems and practices and things and policies and investment. So creating this environment of promoting, positive psychological health well-being and productivity in the workplace.

- David, if you could go back in time to the beginning of your career, everyone hates this question, and give yourself one piece of advice, what do you think it would be?

- It would be more...so persistence comes to mind. And it's that idea, which it took me a long time, but I did work it out, is that idea of your best self. So, your best self is really that overlap between your strengths, the things you're really good at, and what you're passionate and what you care about.

So, you should always do things that you are good...career-wise anyway, that you are good at and you enjoy and get fulfillment from. Don't do stuff that you're bad at and you hate. Sounds obvious. So, there's that awareness of matching what you do, but at the same time, persisting in what you do. So, if you really care about something, just keep doing it, keep going.

You will have setbacks, but that's fine. Or you might not get all the success. You may be frustrated because you don't know everything, but just hang in there if this is something you really want to do. I take lessons from experience, but be very aware of your true north or what you really want to do, you know, the passions and hang in there.

It might take you 20 years to get to where you want to be, but in the end, you are going to be more successful and happier by being true to yourself.

- Excellent advice.

- It took me a while to get there.

- Of course, it takes us all. Most of us, years. How can our listeners learn more about some of the topics that we've discussed today? Are there books or projects, groups, websites that you would recommend?

- So, the group I'm involved with is the part of the Australian Mental Health Commission. And there's something called the National Workplace Initiative that's part of... I'll have to get cascading right, the Mentally Healthy Workplaces Initiative.

They've been doing work for a number of years in this area and they're quite good there. But look, just Google search articles of psychologically healthy workplaces. And as I said, it's been in the literature for years.

So, if you search it goes back to the 19th century actually. There are some really interesting stuff of, you know, like 1,000 years ago. But since the turn of a century, there's been a lot of research and a lot of papers written on this, and people have been working on this.

And so I think a lot of what we need to do is pretty clear. It's out there. That's not a mystery. The challenge now, and this is the opportunity of the chief psychological health officer, is for organizations to actually pick up what we know from all the research and all the writings and conferences and things like that, and to actually apply, put in practice, and get some results on the ground, for people.

And that's COVID in some respects, mixed blessings. But I think this is one of the things that COVID and lockdowns has precipitated, has accelerated. And that's the opportunity which is manifested in the rise of the chief psychological health officer. I think it's other manifestations of people realizing this. So, some organizations are promoting psychological mental health in the workplace without necessarily appointing a chief psychological health officer.

I think it's a good symbol of their commitment to this idea, their awareness and commitment to do something about it. So, I'm not saying it's just a PR exercise, I think it's always good to have someone responsible for taking these initiatives. But I think there's other organizations who are doing it through their OD culture change and other existing aspects of their workforce and structure within HR.

- Where can our listeners find you on the web? Insightmc.com.au. That's my not very well tended because I get most of my work through word of mouth and things like that. So, they can find me there and the email is there. So I'm very happy to talk with them and just see what they'd like to do in this area, or in leadership development and executive coaching, which is probably my main areas of business.

But I have done quite a few assignments over the years with a number of organizations around this idea of psychological health in the workplace, making people's roles more sustainable and less injurious to them.

So, this is one of the things I do.

- Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks to our listeners, and thank you, David, for your time and your insights.

- No, Mary, thanks for the opportunity, and hopefully, someone will hear this, listen to it, and it'll precipitate them to take some action.

- Excellent. My thanks to the "Safety Labs by Slice" team for finding our wonderful guests and making sure we all sound and look great. Bye for now. Safety Labs is created by Slice, the only safety knife on the market with a finger-friendly blade.

Find us at sliceproducts.com. Until next time, stay safe.