A recent Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI) online article outlined a recent case heard by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia (AATA) which AHRI believes “should cause HR and employers to sit up and take action”.
In the AATA case, the Tribunal ruled in favour of an employee’s worker’s compensation claim which surrounded a psychological injury which came about during a remote management work arrangement.
While the AHRI article notes that the case wasn’t the result of COVID-19 related overworking, the view taken is one that “could set a precedent for employees who’ve felt stressed and overworked over the last 16 months”.
Aaron McEwan, Vice President for Research and Advisory at Gartner, who provides strategic advisory to Heads of HR and other Senior Executives, is quoted as saying “This case could potentially be one of the most profound changes in the IR landscape that we’ve seen”. His view is presented from the perspective that not enough is being done to prevent such psychological injuries. The article notes a 10-20 year time frame where a ‘do more with less’ work mentality has meant “operating as close to the margin as possible to deliver outcomes but spreading people too thinly as a result”.
The article notes a 2020 Centre for Future Work finding which noted employees worked an average of 5.25 hours of unpaid labour each week during COVID-19 – increased from 4.62 in 2019 – and noted the figure was 6.21 unpaid hours for full-time workers. The report outlined that “based on a standard 38 hour work week, this is the equivalent to more than seven weeks of unpaid work per worker per year. Extrapolated across Australia’s workforce, this implies total unpaid overtime worked of some 2.9 billion hours per year”.
So – how can HR prevent forms of psychological injury from occurring? The AHRI article poses a few specific suggestions which are worth looking at, but the resourcing of teams is identified as needing to be a key focus. A view emerges that employers need to stop thinking of employee wellbeing as an extension of benefits, but rather, from the perspective of the need to fundamentally redesign work practices.
Specifics from the AATA case finding can be found here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/aat/2021/1183.html