Poor working conditions are commonly associated with a variety of mental injuries and illnesses with huge costs for Australia estimated at $12.2 – 22.5 billion per year (Productivity Commission, 2020). This underrepresents costs to individual workers, families and employers (Rugulies et al, 2023). Globally, approximately 12 billion days every year are lost to depression and anxiety costing $1trillion per year in lost productivity (WHO, 2022).

A recent proliferation of mental health at work policy spanning different legislations and labour inspectorates has signalled increasing importance of attention to the welfare of workers’ mental health and government appetite to regulate in this space. Regulators that address worker mental health include work health and safety (e.g. psychosocial risk management) (Leka et al, 2015), industrial relations (e.g. right to disconnect, stop bullying and harassment orders) (Quinlan, 2024), human rights (sexual harassment), workers compensation (mental injury), and other industry specific regulators such as National Heavy Vehicle regulator (fatigue). This policy congestion across multiple national and state regulators is becoming increasingly complex to navigate leading to potential unintended consequences for regulators, organisations and their workers.

Academic research is also proliferating with an explosion of new insights. Organisational psychology, as a profession that has its roots in lifting evidence base into practice using the scientist practitioner model, is in a prime position to support the maturation of every workplace. And yet, organisational development through a work health and safety, industrial relations etc lens is not a dominant work pathway for organisational psychologists. A lack of organisational psychology professional focus at the heart of these paradigm shifts may leave vacuums susceptible to other disciplines less interested in developing the evidence base of what works and why.

As a former Director of Psychological Health in the Queensland WHS regulator and experienced presenter, Sam will discuss the:
1. current exploding regulatory landscape for mental health at work, of which psychosocial risk management is only one part,
2. some of the organisational psychology theories and evidence that underpins efforts to improve employee mental health and organisational effectiveness,
3. And finally, the value proposition of organisational psychologists at the heart of regulatory changes and a call to action for more organisational psychology focus on regulation for mental health as a critical lever for large-scale organisational change.

1. Understanding of current regulatory landscape for mental health at work and recent changes
2. Overview of some of the most pertinent organisational psychology theories in this space.
3. Helicopter view of organisational psychology workforce and its critical value in helping to shape paradigm shifts that retain the evidence base at its core.