CHANGING THE WAY THE ENERGY AND RESOURCES INDUSTRY LOOKS AT MENTAL HEALTH

By Rebecca Todesco, Assistant Editor, Mining Magazine

Safeguarding the physical health, safety and wellbeing of employees is crucial for organisations in the Australian energy and resources industry. However, the mental health and wellbeing of employees can be hard to assess, which is why the landmark mental health research study facilitated by the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association (AREEA) is so consequential for the industry.

Mental health problems are harder to recognise, understand and manage than issues relating to physical health and, in conjunction with the stigma associated with help-seeking behaviour, employees are less likely to reach out for help. For these reasons, organisations often struggle to recognise and understand the signs and symptoms.

In 2021, AREEA partnered with Mindshape, a specialist psychology research firm, to undertake an Australian-first, industry-specific national research program with the results published as the Resources and Energy Workforce and Leaders Mental Health Research.

The study sought to investigate employees’ mental health, wellbeing, service intervention usage and satisfaction, psychological safety, and coping mechanisms with the aim of identifying areas of need, patterns of strength and to help the development of focused interventions.

The research program was made possible by the 1,102 consenting resources and energy employees who participated, from companies from various sub-sectors including mining, energy, contractors and service suppliers.

The research program has three stages, the first of which was the National Industry Survey (NIS) carried out by Mindshape, which provided crucial data for employers about the current mental health state of their workforces.

The findings delivered ongoing bench-marking capability, key performance indicators for industry and enhanced opportunities for knowledge sharing and were used to inform the development of tailored interventions in stages two (which took place in 2022) and three.

Survey participants were asked questions covering a variety of topics, including depression, anxiety and stress, sleep, alcohol use, distress, resilience levels, and coping approaches, with the results then compared to other normative population reports and comparative general population samples taken both pre-pandemic and during COVID-19.

Recognising the signs and symptoms of depression

The depression scale measured symptoms like dysphoria, despair, self-deprecation, lethargy, anhedonia, despair and loss of interest, while the anxiety scale focused on situational anxiety, autonomic arousal, and skeletal muscle reactions.

The results showed higher depression scores for males than females, with those in operations roles also rating higher than those in managerial or team leadership roles. Additionally, participants working mixed day/night shifts also recorded higher depression scores than those exclusively working day shifts.

When it came to anxiety, the proportion of participants with mild anxiety scores was higher than the normative population results, but the proportion of participants who indicated severe or extremely severe anxiety was slightly below that of the comparative general population samples.

The results also showed that participants in FIFO roles reported significantly higher anxiety scores than their non-FIFO role colleagues.

The stress scale asked participants to rate stress symptoms, including difficulty relaxing, agitation, irritability, nervous arousal, and impatience. Similar to the outcome of the anxiety results, the proportion of participants with mild stress scores was higher than the general population samples, while the proportion who selected severe or extremely severe stress scores was lower.

Hazardous alcohol use and dependency symptoms

To collect alcohol use statistics, participants were asked to complete a ten-item self-questionnaire about hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption, with three subscales that assess hazardous alcohol use, dependency symptoms and harmful alcohol use.

10.1 per cent of males and 5.5 per cent of females flagged that alcohol dependence is likely, with more than half of participants disclosing alcohol use two to three times a week, or more.

In relation to alcohol risk level, a higher proportion of male participants scored ‘low’ and a lower proportion scored ‘hazardous’ than the comparative mining sample. In contradiction to this, a lower proportion of female participants scored ‘low’ and a higher proportion indicated a hazardous risk level than the comparative mining sample.

Alcohol use in males was significantly higher than in females, and survey participants in operations roles also reported higher alcohol use than those in professional, administration and support, and executive/manager roles.

Participants working in mixed day/night shifts and FIFO roles also reported significantly higher alcohol use than their day shift and non-FIFO role counterparts.

Issues with sleep and resilience levels

Employees’ sleep issues were measured using a seven-item, self-report questionnaire evaluating insomnia symptoms, with higher scores indicating more sleep issues.

More than 40 per cent of participants reported no sleep issues – on par with non-industry data – with the proportion scoring ‘moderate’ and ‘severe’ lower than the general population. Even so, the proportion of participants reporting ‘moderate to severe’ sleep issues was more than 20 per cent.

Unsurprisingly, participants working mixed day/night shifts had significantly higher sleep issue scores than day shift workers.

The survey method employed to calculate resilience categorised scores into three groups: poor resilience, normal resilience, and high resilience, with male participants indicating significantly higher resilience levels than females, and 19.9 per cent of all survey participants reporting low resilience.

FIFO-role participants displayed notably higher resilience than those in non-FIFO roles, and those working in operations, administration and support roles had much lower resilience scores than supervisor/team leader and executive/ manager roles.

The impact of COVID-19 on person, work and home

Participants were also questioned on a range of other topics, with the results providing invaluable insights into employees’ coping mechanisms, quality of life, decision-making styles, and impact of life events, including COVID-19.

COVID-19 was an extremely difficult time for the industry and this is reflected in the survey responses. Nearly half of all participants (45 per cent) noted negative personal changes from COVID-19. Furthermore, 28 per cent of participants reported negative changes at work and 25 per cent at home.

The response rate for this section was especially high, with fewer than ten per cent of participants opting not to submit a response.

Some of the negative workplace themes indicated by participants included roster changes or FIFO disruptions, more time offshore and away from family, and management and HR team resentment. On the other hand, participants listed working from home and flexi-working as positive workplace changes due to COVID-19.

Among the negative impacts to home and personal life were relationship breakdowns, concern for family’s health overseas, and stress on family and self caused by work relocation. On the contrary, positive personal and home themes included good relationships with family, work-life balance, and realising what is important in life.

Findings and recommendations in relation to gender and operational interest

Where males had higher depression and alcohol use scores and lower social and environmental quality of life scores, female participants noted lower resilience scores and higher scores on avoidant coping styles than their male counterparts.

A critical aspect employers should keep in mind for malefocused programs is the working to remove stigma associated with mental health that is often a barrier to help-seeking behaviour in males. Launching preventative actions to reduce depression and suicide, including the provision of social connectedness facilities supporting targeted awareness and help-seeking behavior was also flagged as crucial for maletargeted programs.

Psychoeducation materials for males, including mental health education to understand and recognise depression symptoms, and alcohol use workshops, should place emphasis on signs that are often greater indicators of depression than withdrawal, such as anger, substance use, irritability, and risk-taking behaviour.

AREEA’s recommendation for female-targeted assistance is for employers to provide psychoeducation material for employees, unpacking coping styles and increasing awareness and promoting positive change.

Such materials should also increase awareness of decisionmaking styles, and explore the influence of mental health and wellbeing on behaviours like positive styles of self and others.

Although material should focus on and be available for all employees, featuring advice for groups identified as adopting more negative decision styles (i.e., females) is especially critical.

Mixed day/night shift workers reported higher levels of depression, sleep issues, alcohol use and avoidant coping styles. AREEA recommends employers employ targeted interventions in the following areas:

♦ Mental health education to identify, understand and control the signs and symptoms of depression

♦ Workshops and education on sleep

♦ Alcohol use workshops and targeted education

♦ Psychoeducation material for employees, focusing on coping styles, increasing awareness and promoting positive change

Similarly, FIFO workers noted higher scores in anxiety, alcohol use and dependent style of decision-making. However, FIFO workers also reported higher resilience than their nonFIFO colleagues.

Providing interventions tailored to FIFO staff and their needs is recommended by AREEA.

Examples of these are interactive education material focusing on promoting positive styles of self and others, including the influence of mental health and wellbeing on behaviour.

Additionally, targeted alcohol use education and workshops for staff in FIFO-roles would be beneficial, AREEA recommends.

When taking into consideration the different positions held by survey participants, several key differences were revealed. Leaders reported less mental health problems, higher resilience and better coping skills than their workforce. This comes in stark contrast to participants in operation positions, who reported higher depression, distress and alcohol use scores, lower quality of life and lower levels of resilience and helpful coping and decision-making skills than other groups.

AREEA recommends employers increase leaders’ knowledge of the mental health issues faced by workers, while simultaneously increasing leaders’ empathy for workers in distress. A key method of doing so is communicating the results of the survey to employees and employers alike to advocate for more effective communication.

In addition to this, providing mental health education for leaders and supervisors, designed to help them recognise, understand and manage the signs and symptoms of stress in their workforce, and to promote early intervention and helpseeking behaviour is also recommended.

Furthermore, providing interventions specifically tailored to suit staff in operations roles and their needs is also recommended by AREEA. Some examples include:

♦ Webinars or workshops for depression, exploring coping skills, seeking help and how to access treatment

♦ Mental health education teaching staff to recognise, understand and manage the signs and symptoms of depression as well as building effective coping skills

♦ Evidence-based interventions on stress management, regular physical activity, onsight coaching and mentoring

♦ Alcohol use education and workshops

♦ Peer and community programs to encourage and boost employees’ social connectivity

♦ Psychoeducation material to manage fatigue, sleep and work balance

The next step in the process

Utilising the results of the National Industry Survey (NIS) to develop and introduce a range of programs, interventions and psychoeducation materials targeting key problem areas identified in each group is a great move towards addressing mental health problems in the industry.

But offering these programs is only the first step to helping employees; improving employee awareness and the accessibility of these programs is crucial.

The NIS explored employees’ use of corporate mental health and wellbeing services and resulting satisfaction, collecting data on service intervention uptake, preferred modes for interventions and barriers to utilising Employee Assistant Programs (EAP).

93 per cent of respondents were offered EAP services and 64 per cent were offered industry counselling, 23 per cent of participants accessing employer-provided support in the 12 months prior to the National Survey.

Mindshape found that survey participants prefer to receive services that were (in order of preference) in person, by phone or video conference, contrasting the way services were provided: by phone call, email or in person.

73.3 per cent of respondents indicated their preference to receive services in person despite this method ranking third in how they were provided. 45 per cent of participants reported receiving EAP services via email even though less than 17 per cent of participants indicated email as their preferred method of EAP service provider.

Survey participants were also asked to judge various delivery of services methods, scoring them as not helpful, somewhat helpful or very helpful. Using this rating scale, the highest rated services were EAPs, presentations and workshops – receiving 29 per cent, 24 per cent, and 19 per cent of ‘very helpful’ votes, respectively.

On the other hand, the services that rated lowest were mental health phone lines, online applications, and online programs, with 51 per cent, 46 per cent, and 33 per cent (respectively) of participants classifying them as ‘not helpful’.

A key recommendation of AREEA is to tailor psychoeducation material to suit employee preferences in an attempt to increase uptake of material and the potential for greater help seeking behaviour.

Other recommendations include addressing barriers to EAP uptake at an organisational level – such as the poor quality of the service and the perceived lack of confidentiality, trust and privacy – and the development of long-term strategies to reduce the stigma associated with EAP programs.

Phase 2 of the NIS was scheduled to take place in 2022 and it is expected that the new results will provide further insight and recommendations for the Australian energy and resources industry on how employers can better support the mental health, wellbeing and psychological safety of employees.