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Exploring how humans connect and get stuff done together, with Dan Hammond and Pia Lee from Squadify.
We need groups of humans to help navigate the world of opportunities and challenges, but we don't always work together effectively. This podcast tackles questions such as "What makes a rockstar team?" "How can we work from anywhere?" "What part does connection play in today's world?"
You'll also hear the thoughts and views of those who are running and leading teams across the world.
Australia has recently introduced a law that specifically requires any employer to take steps to mitigate psychosocial hazards. That means to make the workplace safe psychologically as well as physically. Can it work? What implications does it have for teams and team leaders? And what can the rest of the world learn from the Aussies?
Dan:This week on We Not Me, we're talking to Ian Bennett, who's a legal expert in employment and safety law at Spark Helmore Lawyers. So that we can answer all these questions and learn how to create healthy, productive workplaces. Hello, and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.
Pia:And I'm Pia Lee. Dan Hammond, how are you?
Dan:Very well. Thank you. Very well indeed. Monday, well, it's not a Monday morning. It's sort of Monday morning post a long weekend.
Dan:So, very nice indeed. And today, I'm gonna dive straight into it because I'm really excited about this one. We've talked a lot on this show about psychological safety. And today, we are getting into the legal aspects of it because Australia's made some big changes in its law, which advises organizations to do something about this. It's a fascinating change for us, I think, in the world.
Dan:And I think for our listeners outside Australia, I think there's still a lot to be gained from this conversation.
Pia:I know. I think I think we're still sort of in our early stages of grappling of what it means. And whether that involves quite significant changes in our workplace, there are specific things that we need to work on, and yeah. And I think really what we are responsible for in the workplace and how that has changed. And I know there'll be a lot of listeners listening in Australia, but also our European and US listeners.
Pia:This is a term that I am hearing is becoming more and more common in the workplace, so I think the tide may reach many more countries in the next few years, so really valuable to have Ian's perspective. Let's get the let's get the legal view on this. And welcome, Ian, to We Not Me. Great to see you here.
Ian:Great to see you, Pia and Dan.
Pia:Now for full disclosure, so I Ian and I have already done a great webinar together on psychosocial hazards, which is actually going to be the topic of our discussion today. So really looking forward to delving into that and getting your experience on it, and, it's such an important topic. So the next exercise, it is quite safe, honestly, and Dan has done his training in psych psychosocial safety, and psychological safety. So, he will probably give you a green card just to make it a little bit easier for you.
Dan:Well, you are in luck, actually. This is not a bad card at all, I would say, that I've plucked. And that is, I spend an embarrassing amount of money on.
Ian:Oh, probably probably wine. I mean, I recently had to see my accountant and he was impressed that I actually had a line item dedicated to wine and way that someone breaks down their expenditure. So I like to consider myself a connoisseur, not in the problem category, but that's probably where a large chunk of my money goes.
Dan:And you live in, Western Australia? So mate so you've you're close to wine regions. Do you do a bit of touring and getting into the vineyards?
Ian:Well, I'm actually, a recent, inductee to the West Australian life, so I only moved over here about a year ago from Sydney. So it's still very new and exciting to explore the different wine regions that they have over here, and they're certainly, pretty spectacular.
Pia:And what's your favorite? What's your specialty? What's your favorite in the wine categories?
Ian:Well, the West Australian, Chardonnays. I mean, from they've really been hitting, hitting the mark. And then also, I really like the heavy red as well when it's when the weather's a bit cooler, which it hasn't been in WA for a while, so I haven't had a red for a while.
Pia:No. Well, the weather has just turned rainy and cool over here, so it is time. They'll be brought out from hiding.
Ian:I look forward to it.
Dan:Excellent. Excellent. So, Ian, you gave us a little hint of your recent life. Tell us a give us a bit of a bio of Ian.
Ian:Yeah. Sure thing. So I'm a partner with a national law firm here in Australia called Sparkhill Law. I'd practice in work place law. Yeah.
Ian:I moved over to Perth probably about a year ago to help in build our practice over here and lead a team, which we'd been establishing. Really, my practice area is traditionally helping employers with anything connected to their workplace. So whether that fits neatly into sort of the employment law space or the safety law space, because the legal landscape here is quite regulated when it comes to workplaces. I suppose that for me, something that I really enjoy is the people component, which probably isn't that common with most areas of law. So I really like that you not only have to be advising on this is what the legal framework is, but also having to think about that people part of the equation in terms of how do you actually socialize and implement that in a way that's actually appropriate and gonna get the best outcome for everyone concerned.
Ian:So I think that's something that I really like about the area of law that I practice in.
Pia:So this is your area of expertise. Now give us the Ian post school. What what happened there?
Ian:Oh, so I, I had a year off between high school and university just to work and go travelling. I studied in Newcastle, which is just north of Sydney, where most of my family is originally from. Also, a good wine region, Hunter Valley, up there, so take note of that one. And I studied a undergraduate degree of psychology and then also law as well. So I was kind of of the mindset that that if I don't like law, maybe I'll like psychology.
Ian:So I can kinda keep my options open and I'll sound that that's been actually quite a good, combination of things that I've got that experience in because, I mean, I don't consider myself in a position to be able to diagnose people. But it does at least mean that quite often when clients come to us with a scenario, it at least triggers for you being like, oh, sounds like that there's something else going on here, like
Pia:Below the surface.
Ian:Doesn't meet that's right. So I sort of, I suppose that then, in the term that I've been at, Spard Gilmore, I started as a graduate lawyer out of university. So I've gone through the ranks and now a partner over here. So I think that's quite reflective of that. You know, I've been the beneficiary of a pretty positive work environment where I've felt free to sort of explore the paths that I wanna explore and grow as a person and a practitioner.
Pia:I mean, that's really interesting because I guess there aren't I wonder how many lawyers do have a psychological or psychology background, and then and find themselves at this point in their career using both.
Ian:Well, that's right. Like, I mean, I think that there's a lot of good crossovers between sort of the law and the psychological component of it. But also, I mean, lawyers probably don't like the idea of not being the ones in control of things. Like I say, I'm doing psychology. The hardest thing is that I really like black and white answers.
Ian:And quite often, they would be like, well, we can look at the symptoms or the characteristics that someone's displaying, but it could be this or it could be that. And I think for me, one of the reasons why I kind of went down the law path was that I probably do sit into that category of liking things being a bit more black and white. Can handle a bit of gray, but, yeah, I think that psychology was just a bit too gray for me.
Pia:I think Dan and I find that sometimes, and we've made a living.
Dan:Yes, exactly. Lurking in the gray. Yeah, exactly. That's right.
Pia:So Ian, psychological safety and psychosocial hazards have got a lot of airplay recently in Australia and have become a regulatory requirement inside organizations. So let's unpack this a little bit. So people who are listening to this and we've got a worldwide audience, so we may have people listening to this, you know, in Iceland or Spain or Columbia. And so therefore let's get some level playing field. So what is psychological safety?
Pia:What is psychosocial hazards? And then what's the expectation of an organisation to provide them for the employees in their care?
Ian:That's a very broad question and a very broad audience. But I suppose as a starting point, whenever we're talking about psychosocial risks or psychological risks so in Australia, our health and safety laws generally frame it around psychosocial risks, which is really the concept that's used about anything that potentially has an impact on someone's psychological well-being and health and safety. So that could be anything from the environment, the particular work tasks that are being performed, and how that potentially impacts on an individual in terms of their psychological well-being. In Australia, we are quite regulated in terms of our workplace laws. It essentially means that we actually have prescriptive requirements where there is a legislative duty of care on anyone conducting a business or undertaking to take reasonably practicable steps to ensure the health and safety of workers or anyone connected to their workplace.
Ian:What I think is quite around that, though, so in Australia, those laws have been in place in their current form for about over a decade. And one of the recent reviews that was conducted by one of the regulators, and that's a function that exists under that scheme, was to look at how effective they are in managing or, dictating to people conducting businesses what's expected of them. And one of the big outcomes of that review was that, well, the duties have always been framed around risks to health and safety. It Didn't distinguish between whether it was a physical risk, so trips and slips, versus psychological health and safety. But they were sort of saying the problem is that people are still in that mindset of really thinking about health and safety from that physical lens.
Ian:So, in the recent years in Australia, our laws have been modified to expressly call out, well, you have a duty and that duty does exist in relation to mental health related risks.
Dan:So this is in existence before. It was sort of covered by existing legislation, but this has actually strengthened it and defined it and called it out. Is that right?
Ian:That's right. So the work health and safety laws, which have essentially been adopted in all Australian states and territories so that they can be uniformly applied. Those have been in place since around 2010. And really what that did is that it meant that there could still be enforcement action by the regulator if they felt that there was non compliance. Say, for example, if they became aware of an incident that may involve someone sustaining an injury or an illness from their particular workplace or their interaction with the workplace, but it was actually quite uncommon and people were quite unsure about how that sting fit in with mental health.
Ian:So really what those changes that we've seen in recent years, so in Western Australia here, we actually have specific regulations that call out psychosocial hazards are this, which is essentially the definition that I summarised. And as employers or businesses, you have a duty to take certain steps to control those potential risks. And it actually talks through what the sort of stages of those controls would look like.
Dan:And how closely is this defined, you know, what a psychosocial risk is in the law, and how clear is that, if you like?
Ian:It's quite broad. So it is essentially just anything that could have a potential adverse impact on someone's psychological health and safety. That could be anything from workload pressures. It could be anything from sort of interactions with members of the public. Regrettably, a pretty common one at the moment is cost of living, the economy.
Ian:Everyone's pretty stressed and it means that people that are generally in customer facing roles are unfortunately being subjected to quite problematic behaviors. And I think that it is such an interesting sort of concept because more often than not, people are coming to us saying, well, have we done everything as employers or as managers to discharge our duty when there is so many variables about, well, how do we know if someone's particularly volatile to a particular issue? How do we know their interaction with another individual is going to be particularly triggering? And most of the time, our advice is that, look, it is really hard and your duty isn't about sort of being able to predict the unpredictable. It's about taking reasonable steps in trying to identify, is there a risk here?
Ian:What can you reasonably do to control that? And are you regularly considering that on a dynamic basis to see how effective you are in sort of adopting that system?
Pia:And, Ian, so what's been the impact for organizations? So there's a change in this regulation. It's making it more specific. It's trying to meet and support the needs of human beings in quite a stressful time. Have organizations responded to it?
Pia:I mean, there's been a flurry of psychological safety training or development or people putting things in place. What are you seeing? Well, I
Ian:suppose that there's a few components to that because from an observation, I would say that a lot of people have been very concerned about these developments and feeling a bit sort of, I don't think apathetic is the right word, but probably more a bit unsure about how they're supposed to do what's reasonable because they're always viewing it from that perspective of saying, well, what is reasonable? What's reasonable to me might not be reasonable for someone else. And so, I mean, my one observation as someone that practices in this area of law is that the messaging, I think, in terms of what has been conveyed to businesses, to managers, is more about the big stick being like, you have these serious obligations and if you don't comply with it, you're going to go to jail, which for me in practice, the reality is that your duty is about doing what's reasonable in the circumstances. So provided that you have thought about these risks, you've identified what you can do in trying to control those. And you feel as though that you're doing that to the extent that's reasonably possible, you should feel pretty comfortable that you're doing the right thing.
Ian:And you're right that there's a whole range of mechanisms that workplaces are doing that I think are really positive. So, things like training about not just what our legal framework is in Australia in terms of what's expected in looking after employees mental health and well-being, but also about educating managers about how they identify if there may be particular issues or staff members that are having some difficulties in the workplace, being able to make sure that they are utilizing their existing systems to monitor how their workers are going. So whether that's using metrics like their KPIs, how they're performing, looking at workers' compensation data so that you can be identifying if there are hotspots where it's indicating that maybe people are having a particular tough time. I think also just having the conversation about it as well. I certainly know that in our team, it's quite common.
Ian:Our jobs can be quite stressful. And I think that a large part of it is being able to go to your staff and say, this has been a hell of a week. Friday afternoon's looking pretty good. I'll be on the mobile, but I'm otherwise just going to go chill at the beach and, you know, encourage you to do the same when your work sort of permits.
Dan:Yeah. Well, one of the things I was I was really interested in when I saw this was that I've seen, I'm sure we've all heard, even with sort of physical health and safety legislation, people some people can be quite dismissive of it and sort of it's the nanny state. It's even with those physical things, I personally believe you should be able to go to work and come home safely. It seems reasonable. But in the wider society, I'm not talking about your clients, but has there been some skepticism or cynicism about this to sort of say that it's this is just going a bit too far?
Dan:Or is it or is it widely been received reasonably well? What's the sort of as a I'm only asking you as an Australian now. What's what's the public reaction been?
Ian:It's quite difficult because I think that a lot of people see it as a real necessary approach because as a lawyer as well, I think that we approach it. We love rules. We think the rules are very important. We try and see it from that perspective of saying, well, the role of the law really is to be a bit of the big stick approach in sort of saying these are the standards and expectations that we have. They don't operate in isolation because if they're not enforced, if they're not set for purpose, it doesn't actually achieve what they've been put in place to try and do.
Ian:And I think that just the sheer prevalence rates sort of in Australia, like, I think that the statistic is 1 in 5 people each year will be diagnosed with a mental health condition of some form that from a workplace lawyer perspective, it's all if that's the prevalence in the general community, it's not surprising that we're seeing the need for regulation in the workplace context, because you're on notice that this is actually something that's impacting people's lives. I don't think that people view it, in my experience, too skeptically in terms of saying this is ridiculous, other than the fact that quite often there is that concern about saying, well, I'm gonna get criticized because I haven't done enough, and how could I have controlled that situation? We're actually in the state where there have been a few instances of cases going through where it has related to psychological health and safety, But most of those have been quite extreme examples where you're almost saying, well, it probably did warrant some sort of regulatory investigation just because it did have quite significant, quite tragic circumstances, most often involving suicide. But where I think that most of the skepticism can come from it is at that on the ground level where managers are dealing with individuals because you won't normally see it as just, someone presenting and coming forward and saying, I have this diagnosis that is a mental health condition and I need help.
Ian:It's more often that you have little tells about dropping the ball on performance, having an outburst that a manager needs to manage, and then not sort of knowing, well, how do I make sure they're looked after? How do I make sure that I'm articulating what our standards of performance and behavior are? And how am I also looking after other staff members? I think that's what people really struggle with is sort of saying, I've got all these different things that I need to weigh up. Like, where does it kind of end?
Ian:It's all getting a bit hard. And in fairness, I think that that's a pretty reasonable assessment. Like, I don't think that it means that the expectation is any less important, but I think that people's response to it is not surprising.
Pia:I mean, I see a lot of disruption in the workplace, both in Australia and globally, in actual fact. And that puts managers under a lot of pressure. They have to restructure. They have to reform teams after, you know, transformation or another restructure, and sometimes they have to performance management manage people as well, and that can make it very difficult. So what do they have to bear in mind about psychosocial hazards?
Pia:Why they're trying to deliver some of these more difficult elements that the organization wants them to deliver?
Ian:Well, I think that and, again, putting on my employment wear hat, the starting point normally is people are employed to perform a role. It doesn't mean that they operate in isolation or in a vacuum where they won't potentially have other things going on that need to be taken into account. But your starting point is, are they meeting the requirements of the role and how do we then appropriately manage that? What it does mean, though, is that if you're you become aware that someone is maybe struggling with something or that potentially you need to have a pretty firm discussion with them, I think that's where the human element comes into it because more often than not, a client will come to me and say, this employee, they haven't been performing, turned around and swore at their colleague today, can we fire them? More often than not, the answer is, well, the legal answer is maybe because that potentially is misconduct and that's potentially a performance issue.
Ian:Then walking it back is like, well, if this is an employee that you've had worse with you for a long time, if this is quite uncharacteristic in the way that they've been in previous years, have you actually had a discussion with them about, is there something else going on? It doesn't mean that we're not going to pick up those other lingering issues, but it potentially means that they're deprioritized in the scheme of things of saying, well, we need to pick those up. But first and foremost, are you okay? Because we've noticed these things and I just want to try and understand what's going on. And I do think that's a really difficult thing for managers to try and navigate.
Ian:And the additional overlay of that as well, I think that in a very regulated legal environment in Australia, a lot of managers that we deal with, they have this real concern of that if they ask too much, are they then going to get into trouble? So it's like, if I'm saying, I've noticed this, you know, is everything okay? They're like, oh, am I breaching their privacy? Are they going to have a go at me? And I quite often will adopt the approach of saying, if you overstep the line on the front of that, if you're approaching it, though, from that position of concern and care that you actually just want to understand, is there something more you should be doing?
Ian:The likely ramifications of that is really not very extreme compared to if you notice that something was a bit off and don't ask the question and then have something more catastrophic eventuate from that.
Pia:Yeah. That's really interesting, wasn't it? We're frightened to ask, but actually not asking can have a bigger impact.
Ian:Yes, absolutely. And I had one quite recently where there was that exact scenario where a gentleman that had been with the organization for years had really dropped the ball on some big ticket items. They were going down this path of terminating their employment and had sort of said, Look, this isn't acceptable. We can't handle it. What's going on?
Ian:We just don't understand it. The individuals would not convey anything. It wasn't until someone actually said, we think we need to look at terminating your employment because this is just unacceptable and we can't understand it, that they actually turned around and said they had a family member with a terminal illness that you were like, okay, that actually does explain a lot of what we've seen. Again, it doesn't mean that we can just ignore these things, but the approach then becomes more of a, what do you need in the meantime? Do you need to take some leave?
Ian:Do we need to reallocate some of your responsibilities and things like that so that we can get through it? And I think that's sort of where the real challenge comes is that we've gotten better at having the discussion around mental health and how to sex people, but there are still lingering pockets of it where people see it as a sign of weakness, but they don't really know how to initiate that discussion, particularly in a work environment.
Dan:I I'd say it's really heartening to think that this sort of big stick of the law, as you've called it, has sort of been enlarged or is swinging hard or whatever, but actually the answer, how do you adapt to that is through conversations. And it's something that Pierre and I now work definitely see that very often doesn't happen. You sort of think people say this is happening and we'll say, well, have you talked to him about it? 99 times out of a 100 it's no I haven't yet. Well that would be a good first step and it's interest It's just really heartening to hear that the law could actually drive these conversations as a mitigating factor, which which actually should have been should be happening anyway because we're humans.
Ian:Well, that's right. And I think that in Australia, so whilst we have that safety lens there where we have this proactive duty. We also then have more of the employment law side of things where there has been a lot of significant changes in that space as well. And the idea there is more about helping employees know what they're entitled to ask for or what they're entitled to request of their employers. So, you know, some really big things that have come about is that under our Fair Work Act, which is the sort of minimum standard that applies to most employees across Australia, there's the National Employment Standard that is the baseline of entitlements.
Ian:Within that, there's the right for employees to request flexible work arrangements in certain situations. So that can be things like modified work times. It can be remote work, primarily to try and get that balance right of recognizing the way in which we work, what our people's priorities may be, will probably change from time as well. It's time to time as well that there needs to be that flexibility. But I do think that it is quite interesting seeing it from again, I probably consider myself as a pretty left leaning person where I'm always like, oh, you know, the employee rights and this is what they need.
Ian:But then the majority of my client base is employers, where then I get to see the other side of it where they're saying, well, this is actually really hard because we wanna be supportive, but then we also have a job that needs to get done. How do we try and get that balance right?
Dan:Yeah. And I I was thinking about that particular instance. We mentioned performance management, and you've said a few times where, you know, performance starts to drop. I guess at the heart of it, as soon as you start to, I know people call it performance management, but as soon as you start to give people feedback, put them on a performance improvement plan, let them know that termination could be ahead if things don't improve, They that's introducing some psychosocial risk, isn't it? It's not it's gonna be negative for those folks.
Dan:And at the same time, you say the employers have things they need to get done. So imagine that's an area where it can get very tricky.
Ian:Yeah. And I think that, you know, the thing that I feel very sympathetic about as well is that when people are potentially going through a performance management process, it is stressful, like, and it's not nice getting feedback on the work that you're doing. That doesn't mean, though, that the approach of the employer or the manager is necessarily unreasonable in their approach. Because, again, coming back to what your role is, are you beating those requirements? Is it sustainable to sort of have you there?
Ian:But one thing that I quite often, you know, if someone does raise up raise that they have some sort of personal circumstances that they're finding challenging to do the job, That then becomes a question of, well, can you help us understand more about what's going on? How do we potentially fit that in with the role that you're doing, and so that we're kind of getting that balance right. And it doesn't always mean that's something that can be permanently done. One of the big fallouts that we had in Australia after COVID was everyone working from home. And then when it was time to come back to the office, you had a lot of workers that were saying, well, I I don't really wanna come back to the office and I actually really like working from home and you've let me do it this period of time.
Ian:So I'm telling you that I'm now just gonna work flexibly from home. That's not really how it works. There should be a discussion about what you ideally would like and what you consider to be preferable. But more often, that needs to be a well, is the employee being reasonable with their request? And is the employer be reasonable in potentially them insisting on something that differs from that?
Ian:And more often than not, where you land is this where's the balance of it? It's probably unreasonable if you've allowed it to happen for a while to go straight to a 5 days a week to back in the office. But if an employee has told you, well, this is the situation that we've got, we kind of need for me to be at home because of my parental or carers responsibilities, the expectation on the, employer would really be, well, how can we potentially accommodate that in a way that gets that balance?
Pia:And that's an interesting because I don't think that conversation even existed before lockdown. You know, that it's so interesting you raised that. We, you know, we we took it for granted that we just automated into a long commute, long hours, didn't see our family, and and that's what was. And then the world was asked to go home when lockdown happened, and that changed the, you know, the balance of power. But I think it also allowed it allowed the vulnerabilities and the load, actually, that individuals have to bear at home, in the community.
Pia:And it's that I think is interesting to see that it's a bit of a tussle that's playing out between particularly more senior executives and a slight concern that productivity is not gonna be as high if it's done from home. And then these needs that I think have surfaced in a stressed society. It's I find it fascinating because we've probably never had you said about 1 in 5 suffering mental health issues. We've probably never been quite as fragile as we are right now.
Ian:I think that's right. And, I mean, I just think as well that a lot of the advances that we've seen that have so many positives, there is quite often a potential downside. Like, I really enjoy travelling, so I really like my job. Most of our court is have gone online now. So I was in Hong Kong last week and did a fair work commission conciliation from Hong Kong because they don't really care where you are.
Ian:It's all possible. But that the downside of that is, is that you're always contactable, you're always on your phone and trying to have that, I suppose, ability to actually force yourself to have downtime. I think that's really where people struggle. And, yeah, even just the way that we work. So my team that I've got, we've got a couple of us here in Sydney, in Perth, and then a couple in Sydney as well that report to me.
Ian:And one thing that I'm always really conscious of is that giving feedback on documents to people that aren't physically in the same location to you, it runs the risk that even just sending back an email that's very sort of, yes, fine, send it, could be perceived as really sort of like, why does why is he angry at me? Like, am I bothering him with this particular and, I mean, I think that's like, I really love that we have that flexibility and that it works really well, but it is a real sort of turning your mind to, well, how is this interaction potentially gonna impact someone? Doesn't mean you've done anything wrong in the interaction, but it's being mindful of that as something that you need to keep in the account in the way that you deal with your team and support them.
Dan:So, Ian, you've given us loads of tips along the way. But if we imagine what our listeners, a team leader who can well, who cares about this stuff, but also is aware they have new new legal responsibilities, what's a baby step that they could take to sort of move them forward on this and not get stuck?
Ian:I think being present and being curious about the team that you work with. So listening to them in terms of what's maybe going on with their workload, what's maybe going on with them outside of work. I'm, again, not suggesting that you need to pry or expect all of your colleagues to necessarily give you the warts and all accounts of their week ends. But I think just sort of being able to have that positive dynamic with your colleagues where they feel safe, if there is something that's potentially bothering them or that they need support with so that you can actually be there to assist them. I think also just adopting an example that I always use from the safety perspective is that the duty of what applies to you is just a standard risk management process.
Ian:And the downside of risk management being legislated here in Australia and our safety laws is that everyone thinks as soon as the lawyers are involved, you have to document everything. So it's all going to be really onerous. But, you know, if you drive a car, you do a risk assessment a 100 times before you even get to the shops because it's like, well, I need to change lanes. I've identified the risk is that there might be another car and I might collide with with them. So the controls that I have is I have an indicator, I have a mirror, I hopefully have my driver's license.
Ian:You know, there's gonna be police there if I'm breaching the laws that apply there. You know, it doesn't mean that there won't be an accident that could eventuate because of things around you that are beyond your control. The same sort of analogy applies when you're talking about the psychosocial safety of your colleagues and your workers is that you're really about how do I stay alive to the potential risks and what's going on with them? How do I potentially control that and make sure that we're doing what we reasonably can to support each other?
Dan:It's great stuff. And as I said earlier, I just think it's really heartening that your answer to this is to be a leader that pays attention to their team, which seems like a very, just a brilliant remedy rather than swatting up on the law and particularly for someone who is self professed black and white person. Very impressive, Ian. As you know, we always ask our guests for a media recommendation, a book, a podcast, or a series. What, Ian, has, interested you or, entertained you recently that you'd like to share with our listener?
Ian:I don't know if you've ever read. One of my friends actually recommended it to me. And again, it was during the COVID times where everyone was locked down and whatnot. But one of the recommendations that I got was a book by Natasha Lunn called Conversations on Love. And she's a journalist that, she spends essentially just a series of interviews where she interviews people from different walks of life, different background, and just asks them very similar questions about what is your greatest love in life?
Ian:How did you find it? How did you maintain it? How have you dealt with it? If you've ever had something come about that's impacted you. And it's just really it's really sweet and really insightful in the way that it's written because she talks to people about their love for a sibling, their love for their parents, their love for a friend, their love for their work.
Ian:And it's just really interesting to hear all the different similarities between what people consider to be love and how they've sort of nurtured and really capitalized on that, which I've probably read it about 3 times. Because if ever I'm having a tough time, I'm like, I wanna read something that just makes me feel really positive and that it's actually got some real sort of, like, nice lessons that resonate with you.
Pia:Yeah. That that sounds like that. That's appealing to your psychological side, not the lawyer side.
Ian:And not only that, I feel as though that if ever I get put with, Bestman or MC duties again, I'm just gonna go and get that and just steal some of the the excerpts there. So, you know, a lot of good quotes there that I can probably leverage. But the other one that I was going to recommend is I love podcasts. Like, I I think I probably spend a good 5 hours a day, whether it's going to the gym or going for a walk from the station to work, that I just will always have one on. Ant Middleton, who's the ex marine from the UK, but I think he also does the SAS reality show in Australia.
Ian:He has a podcast called Head Game, where you just interview people that have had really challenging personal circumstances and how they've used that for a positive sort of turnaround in their life. And so it can be anything from, someone that's been attacked by a shark and then has become a a motivational speaker and things like that. I think the one that I listened to this morning was someone that got lost in the Amazon, then managed to survive. But it's, it's just really interesting the way that they sort of take something that's a real sort of negative catastrophic experience, but pretty much the upshot of all of them is that this has been something that was really difficult at the time, but I've gotten through it and become a better person as a result.
Dan:Ian, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing with us not just the law and the black and white or if we go back to your wine, the red and white viewpoints that you have. But it's been really heartening to hear your approach to this and, fascinating to think about where we might be going to towards a safer workplace from a mental standpoint.
Ian:Definitely. Thanks so much for having me.
Dan:You know, you mentioned in passing there, this 1 in 5 Australians have mental health issues. You know, you I don't know the data on this. I'm sure it's out there. I did have a little Google search of this, but what proportion of those mental health issues are caused by work? And that really brought it home to me how important this movement is, this change in the law, and what organizations can do to reduce the impact of those those mental health crises that many people are having.
Pia:And being aware too. I think this puts quite a lot of responsibility on the manager to be aware that this is safety hazards and psychological safety is there is a responsibility of the manager, that unit of the team. And that they need to put in some simple ways to ensure that people are okay. And I think that you know, we're not sort of asking people to be psychologists here or to go in deep, but they do have to have enough care and some processes of check ins and to see when things are escalating. And just to take notice of, I think, is really important.
Dan:Sometimes as managers, we can sort of think we're we have a role of steering work but the organization looks after everything else. You know, HR will do all the people stuff and I'm sort of covered. That's not the case. And it never has been. But I think weirdly, strangely, this legislation, I think, will make that very clear.
Dan:And to be honest with you, it's an opportunity for managers to be more human, to look out for that side of things which which is really important for the people but actually ultimately also really important for the organization and their performance. So you need healthy people and you want healthy people as well. So, yeah, that that manager role, I think, is a is something that everyone needs to look out for. But equally, it doesn't sound too scary. It sounds like are you making taking steps, you know, to to reasonable steps to mitigate these these factors.
Dan:Yeah.
Pia:And I think too that HR has got a lot on their plate at the moment and has traditionally, they've been the sort of the go to people to do these things. And they're too they're stretched, they're having they're burnt out as it is, trying to deal with a lot of restructures and reorganizations and changing of systems and other things. So they can't managers can't abdicate that responsibility to them. It is theirs, for their unit, their adoption. And there are just really simple practical ways that Ian talked about to do that.
Pia:So I think most most important is seeing yourself as being critical to that role.
Dan:Yes. Spot on. And serenaded by a beautiful Australian bird there in the background. That is it for this episode. You can find show notes where you're listening and at squadify dotnet.
Dan:If you've enjoyed the show, please share the love and recommend it to your friends. And if you'd like to contribute to the show, just email us at we not me pod atgmail.com. We're Not Me is produced by Mark Stedman. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.
Pia:And it's goodbye from me.