We are pleased that you are joining us for this program! Our aim is to help you develop understanding and skills to identify psychosocial hazards at work, and to design or re-design work to create mentally healthy workplaces. This will have a positive and protective impact on people’s health and wellbeing, benefitting you and your workplace.  

The skills we aim to develop will fit side by side with the NSW Government’s Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work.  The program provides practical guidance and a greater depth of knowledge in identifying psychosocial hazards and the design of work. There are also opportunities for collaboration and one-to-one mentoring from our team.   

Alongside what we hope you will gain from the workshop, our research will be evaluating the process and the materials, so we thank you for your help with that. There will be a series of brief surveys throughout the program, but we welcome your feedback at any time. 

Your guides for this program have extensive experience in the design of mentally healthy workplaces through their research and practice. The team has a real diversity of skills and backgrounds, including in psychology, organisational behaviour, human factors and ergonomics, occupational medicine, business, management and accounting, and injury rehabilitation and rehabilitation counselling. You can meet the team through the audiograms we have recorded. 


Who to contact during the program 

You will be grouped with a member of the team for online collaborative learning sessions and ‘check-ins’. However, for any questions or difficulty accessing the background materials please contact: mhwworkredesign@gmail.com. 
  

About this program 

The goal of this program is to increase your understanding of mentally healthy workplaces and develop your skills in designing work to create and maintain them.   

The program will provide a framework for you to understand how psychosocial factors impact mentally healthy workplaces, and workplace health and safety. Through the weekly learning using these background materials, online meetings, and regular ‘check-ins’, you will gain the skills to identify an issue which is negatively impacting the mental health of people in your workplace and then design a solution to
support change.  

The program is part of a research project funded by the Centre for Work Health and Safety. Alongside this background material, there is a work re-design tool (Psychosocial Hazard Work Re-Design Tool (PHReD-T) which is more activity based and will lead you through activities to help with re-designing a work scenario from your own work experience. There are also links to  

• videos that outline the wider research project of which this program is a part,  

• audio resources that provide examples of psychosocial risks 

• videos that introduce and explain the Psychosocial Hazard Work Re-Design Tool (PHReD-T) 

While we had intended to deliver the program face to face in 2021, COVID restrictions meant re-designing the content to be online and self-paced, with opportunities for connecting with the project team for support. We’ve worked hard to create an engaging set of materials that we hope will be useful to you in this program, and live on to benefit others interested in developing confidence with work re-design for psychosocial risks. 


Anticipated competency development  

It is anticipated that this program will help to develop: 

• Understanding of the concept of mentally healthy workplaces 

• Knowledge of psychosocial hazards 

• Skills in identifying psychosocial hazards  

• Knowledge of work design processes, tools and methods 

• Skills in identifying work design tools appropriate to psychosocial hazards  

• Skills in planning the re-design of work 
  

Intended outcomes 

This program is intended to build your capabilities to identify psychosocial hazards and undertake a work
re-design intervention in your workplace. By the end of the program, you will be able to: 

• Describe the role of organisations in providing a mentally healthy workplace 

• Communicate the relationship between work design and psychosocial hazards in your workplace 

• Identify psychosocial hazards in aspects of your workplace  

• Analyse workplace scenarios to identify potential work re-design solutions 

• Assemble a plan to re-design work, including evaluation of the plans 

• Build and communicate a case for implementation
  

What you will achieve  

The materials and activities in the program build toward the main task of developing an action plan for re-designing a work task or scenario at your workplace. You can implement this plan and use it later as a model for other task re-design projects.