A South Australian Newspaper (The Advertiser, 20th Sept 2024) reveals a recent Freedom of Information request into South Australia's Dept of Education shows they paid $169m in workers compensation claims over the last 10 years, with a third of the top 20 claims being for stress related events.
Some individual claims were in the $1m range.
The average payout was $22,963.
This is mind blowing!
In addition to the human suffering, this is wasting taxpayers money and, arguable, maladministration.
When will senior leaders start taking psychosocial safety risk seriously?
I see more and more senior leaders struggling with making a decision to take the first step. Many are fearful of finding out 'bad' news.
Rest assured, doing nothing is a bad strategy. You will hurt more people, your workers compensation levy will sky rocket and you will attract the attention of the Regulator.
If the Regulator comes, doing nothing is a poor idea.
Remember, you have a duty to provide a safe system of work. That includes physical and psychosocial risks.
Your duty is to eliminate risk, or reduce to a level that's reasonably practicable.
You should monitor control strategies to ensure they are effective.
All this must be done in consultation with the workforce.
This is the minimum the Regulator will expect. Burying heads in sand through fear of finding bad news isn't good enough, neither is paying $169m dollars in compensation claims.
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