ADA Australia’s facilitation team regularly travels to construction sites across Melbourne (and beyond) to conduct early morning or pre-shift toolbox talks.
On larger construction sites, particularly when a job is in its final stages, the pressures and demands on workers can rapidly escalate with longer hours, less down-time between shifts, more finger pointing, ‘shorter fuses’ and more pressure on workplace relationships.
Good management, of course, has a key role here in ensuring there are safeguards and systems in place to protect people from excessive stress, unreasonable demands and mental injury.
A friendly toolbox talk to the team by ADA Australia can also play a role.
These casual talks around workplace mental health can help get the right conversations going. And, by opening up discussion, can help people recognise warning signs of psychological stress (in themselves and in others) and also highlight the dangers of negative coping practices (like drinking to excess, gambling or substance use).
Talking about stress and negative feelings can be a first step in helping to deal with these feelings when work becomes ‘a pressure cooker’. It can also help people recognise when they’re in danger of burning out, or when others are struggling.
We also talk about help-seeking behaviours – reaching out to a GP, to the EAP provider, or to counselling services – when carrying troubling or negative thoughts.
Let’s face it, our work worries should not follow us home and into our lives after work. Work should not ‘bust our brains’.
It might surprise then that nearly half (48%) of Australian workers believe their workplace is mentally unhealthy, and 44% do not believe that “their most senior leader values mental health.”
This suggests that Australian companies – large, medium and small – and those responsible for running them, have work to do. (See ADA’s The Little Blue Book of MENTAL HEALTH pp. 30)
An ADA Australia toolbox talk can be an easy first step to getting ‘the culture’ right, particularly around relationships, around looking after mental health and promoting safe practices around alcohol and drugs.
This can be a really productive and unintrusive 15, 20 or 30 minutes for your team (we’re happy to fit with your operational demands).
After all, happy workplaces are productive workplaces.
If you’d like to learn more about this program, or any of the other training programs we offer, please call ADA Australia on 1300 378 429 or email: enquiry@adaaus.com.au
Additionally, If this information raised any concerns for you, please do speak to your GP, they can help you back to good health, or call a helpline: LIFELINE 13 11 14 or BeyondBlue 1300 22 4636.