Speaker 1: Coming up to thirteen minutes past five I have on
Speaker 1: the phone this morning two GB commentator doctor Tanvia Ahmed.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the psychological compensation claims about being about
Speaker 1: justice and not about health. That's the story that we
Speaker 1: want to wear lambrade on and can you tell us
Speaker 1: more details about that.
Speaker 2: Look right across the country and probably across the western world,
Speaker 2: probably the last decade or two, these sort of psychological
Speaker 2: claims in the workplace have gone up a great deal,
Speaker 2: most specifically in New South Wales. They've quad rupled in
Speaker 2: the last five years and that's really where it ruds to.
Speaker 2: So there's currently a bill in New Southwest Parliament essentially
Speaker 2: trying to stick a pin in this, try and really
Speaker 2: cut down on the huge growth which is effectively bankrupting
Speaker 2: the state to some extent, like they're kind of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars in the red. But what I'm getting at
Speaker 2: it's something I have to assess. I've never to assess
Speaker 2: these claims. And by the claims, there's usually someone saying
Speaker 2: I felt bullied or i felt mistreated, or I've been
Speaker 2: harassed or I've got looked over in a promotion for
Speaker 2: personal reasons. So it's all these sort of things. And
Speaker 2: now I'm not saying these things aren't happening, but there's
Speaker 2: a few trends that are driving this. So one mental
Speaker 2: health awareness, so yes, people are much more conscious of
Speaker 2: mental health problems. There's also our relationship with work people.
Speaker 2: We have more service oriented work, so it's work where
Speaker 2: we're sitting in on front of a computer, we're interacting
Speaker 2: with teams. The psychosocial side of work, you could argue,
Speaker 2: is more pronounced. It's more about kind of online interactions.
Speaker 2: It's more it's how you get on with the team,
Speaker 2: a lot more subjective stuff. So that's another dynamic. And
Speaker 2: in line with that, you've had this huge growth with
Speaker 2: these types of claims. You've had also argue there's been
Speaker 2: a change in our relationship with adversity. So even the
Speaker 2: way we view adversity, it's probably more people thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: the problem, somebody's done this to me. So people have
Speaker 2: some sort of issue work and they're like, somebody's done
Speaker 2: this to me. I'm just building up these broader cultural
Speaker 2: trends because I think they feed into these workplace claims. Now,
Speaker 2: when we assess the reality with these claims, even though
Speaker 2: they're mental health claims. They don't respond to treatment like
Speaker 2: mental health claims. So you might have to get a
Speaker 2: diagnosis out of the police of post traumatic stress disorder,
Speaker 2: but the usual portion of people with that diagnosis, you know,
Speaker 2: there might be half the people might respond to treatment. However,
Speaker 2: when you have these sort of claims coming out of
Speaker 2: the workplace, suddenly the claims and the treatment responses are less.
Speaker 2: They don't respond quite as well. Now it's a variety
Speaker 2: of reasons, but what I'm arguing here is what's really
Speaker 2: going on here is often people feel wrong at work
Speaker 2: in some ways, you know, they feel mistreated in some form,
Speaker 2: and then it really becomes the dynamic is one about justice, resentment,
Speaker 2: even honor and shame. I feel you don't really think
Speaker 2: talk about honor shame in Western societies much. You know,
Speaker 2: it feels really ancient. You know, it's kind of warrior
Speaker 2: or kind of romans or tribes and this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But in some ways that's sort of what's going on.
Speaker 2: People feel they've been dishonored in a way and they
Speaker 2: just get stuck. They're kind of in exile. They go
Speaker 2: into a self imposed exile, and then it almost doesn't
Speaker 2: matter you're throwing them treatments, you're doing counseling, all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But till they feel they get some
Speaker 2: sort of resolution, and again that's a kind of a
Speaker 2: justice type thing, they just don't get better. So really,
Speaker 2: what I'm arguing here, Phil is we need to think
Speaker 2: about these claims differently. So a lot of the debate
Speaker 2: that's going in early access to treatment. Yes they do
Speaker 2: to some extent. If they do get in to see
Speaker 2: a psychologists, it can help them reappraise what's going on
Speaker 2: for them, Like whatever issue happened to work, what does
Speaker 2: it mean to them? Can they readjust can they think
Speaker 2: of it differently? So that is useful, But what you
Speaker 2: really got to work on is can we find interesting
Speaker 2: ways of mediating workplace disputes rather than it go down
Speaker 2: this real combative route. What tends to happen is back
Speaker 2: they go to some industrial relations commission and it becomes
Speaker 2: a combat straight away. So initially somebody might come out going, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm a bit pissed off that they didn't do X
Speaker 2: y Z for me, and they'll go on leave, go
Speaker 2: on to workers comp claim and then bang, before you
Speaker 2: know it, it's turned into a kind of all out
Speaker 2: legal combat. Like both sides have got lawyers. It's gone
Speaker 2: to some sort of commission. It's a fair work claim,
Speaker 2: and what began is something relatively mild turns into kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, like some David Goliath sort of mettle.
Speaker 1: I've got two schools of thoughts on this. One is
Speaker 1: that having been in a situation where I've been bullied
Speaker 1: at work, and I know that PTSD gets bandied around
Speaker 1: a lot. We've talked about HR on this show, and
Speaker 1: how HR is there to essentially protect the employer. There
Speaker 1: should be some recourse if you've been bullied and you've
Speaker 1: actually walked away and you know that you have some
Speaker 1: form of issue as a result of it. But there
Speaker 1: are also people who are the architects in the workplace
Speaker 1: of their own circumstances, who are trying to claim that
Speaker 1: they're the victim. I guess the thing is to differentiate
Speaker 1: between what's actually true and what is their version of
Speaker 1: the truth.
Speaker 2: Now, that's an awfully hard thing to do because it's
Speaker 2: often one person's perception versus another, and they try and
Speaker 2: we try and get some sort of objective reality, which
Speaker 2: isn't always which isn't always easy, and there is. My
Speaker 2: profession does probably add to it because we've got all
Speaker 2: these diagnoses, and sometimes they're fairly loose criteria, so people
Speaker 2: can latch onto a diagnosis. You mentioned PTSD. I think
Speaker 2: increasingly the growth of PTSD is linked to lacking language
Speaker 2: for at city, and that can be useful sometimes it
Speaker 2: can help them make sense of it seek treatment. But
Speaker 2: obviously people have to have recourse. Like you know, all
Speaker 2: sorts of things go wrong in work and nobody's arguing
Speaker 2: the worker shouldn't have rights, but something's going wrong in
Speaker 2: these disputes that they're just getting completely stuck and framing
Speaker 2: them purely as a health sort of dispute. I think
Speaker 2: just misses a trick. It just doesn't quite get the
Speaker 2: dynamic in these disputes.
Speaker 1: But I also think sometimes you just want to be heard,
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want some kind of compensation. You know, most
Speaker 1: people just want someone to hear their grievances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're spot onto. I think that people need to
Speaker 2: feel acknowledged. So again trying to think of processes where
Speaker 2: and again the legal thing can make it hard where
Speaker 2: they're so fearful of admitting some sort of liability that
Speaker 2: modern organizations often can't even allow space where someone gets
Speaker 2: acknowledged where they're feeling of you being you know, mistreated
Speaker 2: in some way or just being disrespected. Often it's a
Speaker 2: feeling of disrespect and yeah, what you said is exactly right.
Speaker 2: Is there some way we can acknowledge that they felt wronged?
Speaker 2: We need some sort of ritual that allows them to
Speaker 2: come back to work save face. But I don't think
Speaker 2: we're doing that well. That things are turning into real
Speaker 2: big legal battles.
Speaker 1: I get the impression that HI will panic if somebody
Speaker 1: goes to them with a complaint about you know, it's
Speaker 1: usually a boss, but also a fellow employee. First thing
Speaker 1: they're going to do is think, well, okay, where's this
Speaker 1: going to leave us? And I think that mentality has
Speaker 1: got to go out of the equation that you're going
Speaker 1: to have to have someone whose job is not just
Speaker 1: to protect the company, but to protect the mental health
Speaker 1: of the company.
Speaker 2: That's true. I think there's a much more awareness of
Speaker 2: that psychosocial risk bield. So you're right, and I think
Speaker 2: we can handle it better. But in the most fundamental
Speaker 2: thing now, arguably the government's going too far in New
Speaker 2: South Wales. Whether they're kind of almost trying to shut
Speaker 2: this out altogether, which all I heard a lot of
Speaker 2: people who are genuinely suffering. But it does just raise
Speaker 2: this issue that you and I are talking about. Well,
Speaker 2: I think this can be handled better, and much of
Speaker 2: it is exactly what you said, that there's a legal
Speaker 2: pathway that is not allowing it's not giving space for
Speaker 2: just ordinary acknowledgment, you know, just kind of letting someone
Speaker 2: feel heard, just acknowledging their distress of feeling wronged, and
Speaker 2: that could potentially save gazillions of dolls absolutely and improve
Speaker 2: all sorts of suffering.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking as a layman here. I don't think that
Speaker 1: you're legally obligated to say to the employee, Okay, you
Speaker 1: were wronged. That's minefield, which is your terrain. But I
Speaker 1: think that again, the acknowledgment to the employee going you
Speaker 1: actually were wronged here, this person is going to apologize
Speaker 1: to you. We just want you to feel safe in
Speaker 1: your workplace.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, Phil. So there's room for new rituals here,
Speaker 2: new kind of workplace rituals, new kind of legal rituals
Speaker 2: that marry the mental health with the law, and I
Speaker 2: think is the ideal space of it. Consider what that
Speaker 2: might look like.