The Australian Workplace Barometer: Psychosocial Safety Climate and Working Conditions in Australia

Work related stress represents a huge cost for worker health and ­productivity and is broadly regarded as an important social ­determinant of global health.

Over the past five decades, knowledge of the the causes of work-related illnesses and injuries has grown dramatically. Unfortunately, understanding how to use this knowledge for psychosocial risk prevention and intervention has failed to keep pace.

The Australian Workplace Barometer (AWB) project was developed in order to provide national benchmarks needed to set best practice standards in the area of worker psychological health and wellbeing. The results as published in this book:

• Provide nationally representative data on psychosocial risk levels and working conditions
• Build upon existing knowledge and understanding of psychosocial risk factors such as bullying and harassment, and work-family conflict
• Investigate relationships between psychosocial risk and workplace outcomes such as employee health and productivity
• Determine the cost of poor employee wellbeing to businesses based on aspects such as depression, absenteeism and presenteeism
• Identify industries and occupations at risk, and
• Provide evidence to support strategies for prevention and intervention.

This book provides a step towards social action and work environments that will stimulate problem solving, creativity and innovation at work rather than despair through compromised health and wellbeing.