Work
Pillars in action – Work
The actions we're taking:
Review and expand policies and procedures related to ‘work health’.
- Triennially, or as the need arises, review policies and procedures that act as work determinants of health and health determinants of work:
- OHS for safe work practices (e.g ergonomics and health surveillance), workplace adjustment procedures, flexible work, types of parental leave, transition training, and volunteering.
- Immunisation programs, health checks, first aid for workplaces programs, and Staff Wellbeing and Activity Program.
- Proactively enact and advance practices, policies and procedures through structural and social support to promote micro, meso and macro level recovery and rejuvenation. For example, a semi-annual, targeted health-check program located on campus. Focussing on common health risks, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Increase education and awareness of work health information and support.
- Use multi-pronged, university-wide communication as well as targeted communication to specific cohorts to raise work health awareness.
- Introduce goals in supervisor’s myPlan to distribute work health information and support work flexibility.
- Track the extent to which evolving COVID-19-related practices and guidelines are utilised by staff.
- Learn from staff accessing COVID-19 support measures to inform future education, awareness, induction and compliance efforts related to work health.
Hear staff voices on what ‘work health’ means to them.
- Develop novel, creative and engaging ways of regularly ‘checking-in’ with staff across different demographic profiles (e.g carers, staff with disability, new arrivals, transgender staff) to gain a deeper understanding of how work and health intersect for them.
- Include in the ongoing Thrive surveys measures of work health and wellbeing to capture broad, population-level insights.
- Enable staff to participate in in-depth staff forums, workshops and focus groups that examine refinement or expansion of particular policies, procedures and support measures.
- Conduct in-depth interviews with staff to better understand which aspects of their position yields health benefits and which aspects negatively affect health.
- Collect and synthesise all findings to ground operational, leadership and management policy and practice development and implementation.