Work is a big part of our daily lives and can help to prevent mental ill-health by giving us a feeling of purpose and a sense of contribution. Chemring Australia has been working with WorkSafe Victoria, the state’s health and safety regulator, on a mental health awareness program. This has led to a wider project on workplace wellbeing with a company called Rapid Context.
The project, funded by WorkSafe Victoria’s WorkWell Mental Health Improvement Fund, is called The 4WM Project: Work, Worker, and Workplace Wellbeing in Manufacturing. It focuses on the development of preventative measures that will foster greater psychosocial safety within workplaces.
The Mental Health Improvement Fund aims to promote health and wellbeing and prevent mental injury and illness by changing workplace cultures and practices. Projects funded under this program contribute to building the evidence base on creating and maintaining mentally healthy workplaces.
Melanie Calegari, Chemring Australia’s HR Advisor, explains, “Chemring Australia has been involved in a WorkSafe initiative called ‘Mental Health Essentials’. This program provided our managers with training on mental health awareness and strategies for the workplace. From our involvement in this initiative, we were contacted by Rapid Context. They had received a grant to undertake a project on the work-related factors that impact worker mental health and wellbeing in the manufacturing industry. This is an area of great interest to Chemring Australia, and we were more than happy to participate in the project.
“This project, which will run for two years, involves the collaboration of a number of manufacturing organisations in Victoria. Employees will be interviewed and surveyed initially, followed by a report on the findings from the information they obtain.”
The manufacturing industry is of particular interest to WorkSafe as it is classified as an ‘at risk’ industry regarding workplace mental health. As a predominately male workforce and the third largest industry in Victoria, studies have found the manufacturing industry to have had historically low mental health and wellbeing outcomes due to work-related factors.
The project team will work with participants from the manufacturing industry, peak bodies, and employee representative bodies to develop evidence-based resources for the prevention of mental injury. These resources will enable manufacturing employers to respond to work-related factors impacting employee mental health and wellbeing at their root cause.
Continues Melanie, “We are constantly looking for areas in which we can improve both culturally and in terms of our employee experience.”