Background and Diagnostic Framework
Projects in the infrastructure, mining and construction sectors are complex. They bring together multiple stakeholders to deliver high stakes initiatives, often in difficult conditions.
Success requires a high performing ‘human system’, where deep collaboration, creative problem solving, open leadership and new forms of teamwork are the norm. These ingredients of success require a healthy psychosocial environment in which to flourish.
Psychosocial health in the workplace is now clearly on the agenda in Australia and internationally. And, about time too. Psychosocial hazards are any occupational hazard connected to the way work is designed, organised and managed. The psychological harm from such hazards may include anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleep disorders. A healthy workforce can only be sustained in an environment that supports wellbeing, resilience, flexibility, and with career and growth opportunities.
Since the beginning of this century, increasing attention has been paid to how work environments affect both mental and physical health, and productivity of workers. Rather than individual stress management programs, we now appreciate that a healthy psychosocial workplace begins with a focus on the design and structure of the work system itself (Cox et al., 2000).
The focus on psychosocial health was brought into Australian law with the introduction of Work Health and Safety (WHS) obligations for people conducting a business. These obligations aim to ensure that workplaces are healthy and safe for all workers by managing risks to psychosocial hazards. Leaders are now required to measure risks, manage hazards, and optimise the psychosocial factors that underpin healthy projects.
What we Measure and why
Projects in the infrastructure, mining and construction sectors are complex. They bring together multiple stakeholders to deliver high stakes initiatives, often in difficult conditions.
How the mix of distinct stakeholder teams interact and intersect on projects
What level of success confidence or success stress exists on the project
Whether the culture is collaborative or conflict oriented
Diagnostic Framework
The PHIX™ diagnostic framework is illustrated in this image
Project Culture
Project culture refers to shared values, behaviours, and assumptions on a project. It forms the ‘way we do things around here’ (Martin 2006). A healthy project culture engages and binds people together in a shared enterprise, providing alignment with organisational goals while also supporting the well-being of individuals. An unhealthy culture does the opposite, fragmenting bonds and alliances, creating adversarial relationships, and diminishing personal well-being. Ultimately a poor culture erodes project timeframes and goals. A bad culture is bad for business, and bad for the mental health and wellbeing of employees.
Supervisor Support
Support is “that which enables” (Jacobs 2006). Appropriate support from supervisors is essential for effective work. Supervisor support is the degree to which leaders offer emotional support, care, and value the contributions of their people. Supervisor support may involve providing advice, assisting with tasks, resolving issues, and simply listening to people’s concerns. If a worker is struggling, the common admonishment to “drink a can of harden-up” is an example of extremely poor support. Poor social support has been linked to feelings of isolation, alterations in brain function, depression, loneliness, excessive alcohol use, cardiovascular disease, and in extreme cases, suicide (Cherry 2023). Gone are the days when “throw them in at the deep-end” to see if they survive was a common maxim and method to test the resilience of staff. People can drown if they struggle and are not given assistance.
Co-worker Support
Co-worker support shares many of the elements of supervisor support, without the reporting line relationship. Co-workers can support each other by providing advice, assisting with tasks, helping resolving issues, sharing resources, and simply listening to other team members about their concerns. Historically, cooperation and support have been identified as key in ensuring the sustainability of the human species (Hrdy 2009). This is no less the case on projects that it was in ancient times. Poor social support has been linked to feelings of isolation, alterations in brain function, depression, loneliness, excessive alcohol use, cardiovascular disease, and in extreme cases, suicide (Cherry 2023).
Reward and Recognition
Reward and recognition are simply the acknowledgement of peoples’ contribution to shared team or project goals. The need for our contributions to be recognised and appreciated by our fellows is fundamental to human psychology. As William James (1890) put it: “The deepest principle of human nature is a craving to be appreciated.” Being appreciated for our efforts results in feelings of pride, confidence, and being valued. Appreciation is a motivator. Insufficiencies in this area include unfair negative feedback, a lack of constructive feedback, or simply no recognition. The implications of poor reward and recognition for workers include: decreased motivation; increased stress; low morale; and burnout. For organisations, this translates into: poor engagement; low staff retention; no discretionary effort; and stymied creative and innovation.
Project Fairness
Project fairness refers how organisational processes for decision making, resource allocation, and complaint resolution are perceived to be impartial, objective and just. It includes perceptions fairness of both the quality of processes used, and the outcomes of administrative decision making on projects. Project fairness is optimal when workers perceive they have been treated with dignity and respect; were given a voice; decisions made were fair and neutral; and if the decision maker was seen as trustworthy. This can be complex in project environments where different stakeholder organisations have varying administrative processes. A lack of project fairness is a psychosocial hazard that results in worker stress, low morale, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, depression, rumination and negative thought patterns, and decreased engagement.
Conflict or Collaboration
Collaboration is the act of producing something together, something greater than could have been achieved alone. Collaboration brings us together to build things. Anthropological research (Hrdy 2009) reminds us that human success and survival is fundamentally based in our capacity for collaboration and cooperation. Conflict, on the other hand, is about unresolved differences, it is about arguments, it is about disagreement. Successful projects have never been built though conflict. Successful projects, perforce, are built through collaboration. Collaboration also feels better than conflict. It's healthier. Healthy collaborative project cultures mitigate against workplace stressors. Conflict cultures expose people to high levels of emotional strain, diminishing motivation, engagement and effective working relationships. PHIX™ measures the amount of collaboration or conflict on a project. While differences are inevitable, conflict is not.
Success or Distress
Everyone knows that success feels good, and that distress feels bad. The word morale signifies the level of confidence, enthusiasm, optimism and discipline of a group of co-workers with common goals (ie, a team). High morale feels good, its motivating. Low morale feels bad, its demotivating. Morale is significantly impacted by the perceived level of success on a project. When milestones on costs, program, safety and culture are on track, morale and optimism are high. Failure to meet milestones can result in reduced confidence, pessimism and low morale. Projects experiencing the latter are referred to as 'distressed projects'. Projects traditionally track trends in costs, schedule, safety, quality, and innovation. These measures provide indispensable hard data for project leaders, and help predict progress toward success. A complimentary measure, often missed in the focus on these essential technical progress metrics, is success confidence. Inevitably, the level of success confidence will impact team morale. The success confidence measure pin-points the departments and teams where confidence is shifting, allowing for timely interventions
Bullying and Harassment
Bullying and harassment in the workplace is against the law. It is as simple as that. Yet, they still exist, often in the shadows. Bullying is repeated behaviour by an individual or group that intimidates, humiliates, offends or degrades a person.
Harassment is a pattern of behaviour or conduct designed to intimidate, offend or distress another person. It is both unwanted and unwelcome, and often targets differences in gender, race, age, sexual orientation, or disability. The negative health consequences of both bullying and harassment can be profound, including: anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, low self-esteem, adjustment disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and even work-related suicide. Bullying and harassment is very bad for people and bad for business. PHIX™ offers the opportunity for workers to confidentially report any experience of the bullying and harassment on projects, enabling leaders to respond appropriately.
Outcome Measures
PHIX™ measures the project specific psychosocial hazards outlined above. Importantly PHIX™ also provides three key outcome measures. These three outcome measures are important workplace factors that impact overall project success. They are :
Project engagement
Psychological safety
Wellbeing
Project Engagement
This is a measure of peoples’ psychological and emotional connection to the project. Engaged staff have greater motivation, commitment, and active involvement on a project. Engaged staff also have greater capacity for discretionary effort. Psychosocial hazards have a significant impact on this measure. PHIX™ allows leaders to discover the levels of engagement on projects and the relationship to the psychosocial environment.
Psychological Safety
Gallo (2023) defines psychological safety in the workplace as a “belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to take risks, to express ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, to admit mistakes – all without the fear of negative consequences”. Psychological safety on projects occurs at a group level. It affects learning behaviour, which affects team performance, and ultimately project performance. It is not a ‘fluffy’ concept. It’s as real as steel. The level of psychological safety impacts motivation, engagement, decision making, innovation, and productivity. Low levels of psychological safety have negative impacts on worker stress, retention, and burnout. Research (Edmonson 2011) found that teams where it was safe to speak up about mistakes did better than teams that did not. Feeling safe to ‘speak up’ without negative consequences is key. PHIX™ provides leaders with actionable metrics about psychological safety on their projects.
Wellbeing
Wellbeing is the state of being comfortable, healthy and happy. It is a complex combination of mental, physical and social health factors, and is closely linked to work/life satisfaction. PHIX™ defines psychosocial wellbeing as a combination of mental health status, burn out risk, physical activity and engagement. Healthy and happy staff are more motivated, more satisfied, and more productive at work. They are also more likely to stay long term. High levels of staff wellbeing correlate with harder work, and greater chances of project success. High levels of staff wellbeing are good for people and for business. Full stop. PHIX™ provides insight for leaders about staff wellbeing.
