Employee health and wellbeing

Employee perceptions of their leaders

There has been improvement in employee perceptions of how senior managers and executives provide clear direction for the future of their organisation.

There is a need, however, to strengthen the communication between the executive group, senior managers and employees.

This should focus on informing employees about the priorities of their organisation.

It is important that the executive group and senior leaders not only create opportunities to brief employees, but it is also critical that employees are able to provide feedback and ask questions of the executive and senior leaders. The extent to which employees perceive such opportunities to be authentic is critical to creating an engaged workforce.

Source: Working for Queensland 2022 and 2023.

Change management

The Queensland public sector experienced two Machinery of Government (MoG) changes in 2023. Change in the sector, however, is not limited to MoG changes. At a broader level, change could be for the purpose of improving what already exists, transitioning from old processes and systems to new ones, or it could be transformational change which significantly impacts the direction and identity of an organisation.

Change can be focused on one or all these areas: policy and strategy, governance and people, and operations and finance.

There are many benefits associated with a well-executed organisational change. Change can result in improved processes for policy coordination, productivity, or cultural integration. On the other hand, poor change management could result in loss of corporate knowledge, financial costs, administrative confusion and risks to the management of an organisation’s records.

Respondents to the 2023 Working for Queensland survey reported relatively low satisfaction levels with the way change is managed:

• 29% agreed that staff are always or often consulted about significant change at work directly affect them
• 31% agreed that they always or often have the opportunity to provide feedback on change processes that directly affect them.

The overall change management score based on the 2023 Working for Queensland survey results is at 30% which shows one percentage point improvement compared to 2022.

Work demands

Job demands are elements of a job that require sustained physical or mental effort and are therefore associated with certain physiological and psychological costs.

Demands are commonplace and expected in all types of work, whether that work or effort is paid, volunteer or leisure. That said, it is important to monitor work demands so that they can be managed and mitigated when necessary. The experience of excessive demand, over sustained periods of time, negatively impacts individual, team and organisational health and performance.

Examples of demands are high workload, physical demands and emotional demands which can contribute to burnout, and ultimately higher unscheduled absenteeism, poor performance and negative health outcomes.

Working for Queensland survey data is used to understand how often respondents experience various demands. While metrics previously discussed were asked on an agreement scale, the work data is asked on a seven-point frequency scale – from never and rarely to often and always.

Demands need to be managed through good work design and other positive elements of the work environment (e.g. flexible work, supportive leadership and teams willing and able to work together).

There has been a slight decrease in types of demands that employees in Queensland public sector are experiencing.

Source: Working for Queensland 2023, % of respondents.

Burnout

There is a relationship between excessive or unreasonable demands and perceptions of feeling burned out.

Some demands may have a stronger relationship with burnout than others. This means that if they are experienced more often by employees, it is very likely that employees will feel burned out. Others have a weaker relationship with perceptions of feeling burned out.

This does not mean that these types of demands are not important and can be left unchecked.

It is important to monitor demands and to explore what positive aspects of the work environment can be used to mitigate the impact of each demand.

Physical demand has a strong correlation with burnout, with employees in frontline roles more greatly impacted.

Emotional demand and work overload remain the key types of demands that are contributing to burnout across the sector. These demands have a strong relationship with burnout.

Source: Working for Queensland 2022 and 2023.

Bullying

Workplace bullying is repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards an employee, or a group of employees, that creates a risk to health and safety. It does not include reasonable management action.

Bullying can show up in different forms.

It can include overt behaviour such as insulting, shouting and swearing, or covert bullying like micromanaging, isolating someone and excluding them.

Cyber bullying involves using social media and sending hurtful messages, images or videos online.

A one-off incident of unreasonable behaviour does not amount to work-related bullying, however behaviour that is repeated or escalated should not be ignored. Bullying not only affects the person being bullied, but also impacts those who witness the behaviour.

Queensland public sector employees have protections from bullying in the workplace under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and the Industrial Relations Act 2016.

The Queensland Government takes workplace bullying very seriously. One of the key principles fundamental to good public administration under the Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 is integrity and impartiality. Under this value, the standard of conduct expected from those working in the sector is to treat co-workers, clients and members of the public with respect.

Source: Working for Queensland 2022 and 2023.

When a respondent indicates that they have experienced or are experiencing bullying, the Working for Queensland survey asks a series of subsequent questions to understand this experience. Respondents are most likely to be bullied by a colleague, followed by a direct manager or supervisor. Verbal abuse (such as offensive language, derogatory remarks, shouting or screaming) is the most common type of bullying experienced.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment in any form is unacceptable in Queensland Government workplaces.

We have a positive duty to prevent and address sexual harassment in the Queensland public sector as part of providing healthy and safe workplaces for all employees, visitors, and contractors.

Sexual harassment is misconduct under section 121 of the Industrial Relations Act 2016.

A critical step to prevent sexual harassment in workplaces and in work-related settings is to promote and support a positive culture of respect and inclusion.

Under both the Public Sector Act 2022 (s33) and Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (s19) chief executives of public sector entities have a duty to promote a culture of inclusion and diversity and proactively prevent sexual harassment.

The duty also extends to managing the physical and psychological risks associated with sexual harassment and the reporting of sexual harassment.

The Preventing and responding to workplace sexual harassment directive (the directive) requires chief executives of departments, public service entities in schedule 1 of the Public Sector Act 2022 to:

• have a standalone workforce policy to prevent and respond to workplace sexual harassment
• promote awareness and train their workforce about their obligations and rights in relation to sexual harassment in the workplace
• promptly respond to reports of sexual harassment
• ensure those who report alleged sexual harassment are offered trauma-informed, gender-informed and fit for purpose support options.

When a respondent indicates that they have experienced or are experiencing sexual harassment, the Working for Queensland survey asks a series of subsequent questions to understand this experience. Respondents are most likely to be sexually harassed by a colleague. The most common types of sexual harassment were sexually suggestive comments or jokes that made the person feel offended, followed in prevalence by intrusive questions about the person’s private life or comments about physical appearance.

Among those who did not make a complaint about sexual harassment, most did not think their complaint would result in any action being taken or did not want to go through the hassle of reporting the matter.

Since the Preventing and responding to workplace sexual harassment directive came into effect in July 2023 several milestones to prevent and respond to workplace sexual harassment have been achieved, or are under way:

• organisational policies to prevent and respond to workplace sexual harassment were approved and published by most departments by 1 February 2024
• departments and public sector entities are working to establish contact officer networks which are to be in place by 1 July 2024
• procurement of training modules is underway to raise awareness of every employee, and increase the capability of leaders, managers, and HR practitioners to provide person-centred and trauma-informed responses to sexual harassment matters.

Racism and discrimination

Questions associated with racism and discrimination are included in the Working for Queensland survey. Employees who indicated they experienced racism in their workplace has not changed from 2022 to 2023.

Source: Working for Queensland 2023.