Workplace Profiles

2021 Thriving workplace score

Rank

#2

of 19

Financial and insurance services

68.3/100

+0.7

68.3

+0.7

0
100

The financial and insurance services industry includes banking, building society, health or life insurance and superannuation.

Graph – Thriving Score and Domain Scores for the Financial and Insurance Services Industry over time

Industry Thriving Score: Progress over Time

The Financial and Insurance Services industry is ranked 2nd (out of 19) in terms of workplace mental health and wellbeing with a score of 68.3 out of 100. This is above the national average of 65.6, however still there is still room to improve to get to a thriving score of 80 out of 100.

In 2021 improvements were seen in three of the five domains; connectedness, culture and capability. In the other domains policy dropped slightly and leadership showed no change.

This graph depicts the Thriving Score for the Financial and Insurance Services Industry over time
This graph depicts the Thriving Score for the Financial and Insurance Services Industry over time

Graph – Thriving Score and Domain Score for the Financial and Insurance Services Industry over time

What’s working well

Connectedness continues to be the highest scoring domain in the industry with workers reporting they are part of a team with a shared purpose and have colleagues that trust and respects them. Connectedness is one of the key contributing protective factors for good mental health, so this a great achievement to be proud of. The majority of worker of workers feel their workplace supports their mental health and wellbeing, and plan to stay with their employer for the next 12 months (61.6% and 72% respectively).

Areas to focus on

Help workers find purpose and meaning

The lowest scoring indicator for the industry in 2021 relates to the Culture domain where workers reported feeling an effort has been made to help them experience purpose and meaning in their work.

What you can do?

Leaders can help workers find meaning in their roles through positive leader strategies such as strengths-based leadership, motivations, and supporting job crafting. Applying positive leadership at work has wide-ranging benefits for an organisation and has been shown to improve productivity, satisfaction and wellbeing.

Checking in with workers is important in building trust and connection, as well as sharing bigger picture ideas that help them see their purpose and meaning. Read SuperFriend’s blog, The Art of Checking in for some tips you could try.

Read The Art of Checking In

Your leaders can complete SuperFriend’s Elevate Your Leadership: Positive Strategies for Successful Teams to learn about these strategies and how to use them with their team.

Elevate Your Leadership: Positive Strategies for Successful Teams
Learn more about this course

Embed mental health training as a policy

Having a policy for leaders to complete mental health and wellbeing training regularly can improve leadership capability and show workers the organisation prioritises their wellbeing. There was a 2.8% drop in the indicator where workers reported that all leaders model the values of the workplace and a 1.7% drop where they feel they are listened to by their leader, when they approach them with a concern.

What you can do?

As the leader sets the tone for the team, learn more about how you can be a visible, approachable leader via the blog Leadership as action.

Read Leadership as action

In support of individuals and reflecting policy and mandated guidelines, leaders can complete regular mental health and wellbeing training to build their knowledge and skills through SuperFriend’s Workplace Mental Health Essentials for Leaders course.

SuperFriend’s Workplace Mental Health Essentials for Leaders course

Another great resources to make sure your leaders have the skills they need is with SuperFriend’s Leading Teams Well package. It provides training, coaching and resources to build leader capability and promote mental wellbeing.

Leading Teams Well package
Learn more

Create clear and transparent policies

Making sure decision making is transparent and communicated effectively is another area the industry can focus on. Workers reported a 2.6% drop in the return to work policies and practices in their workplace showing leaders can do more in this area.

What you can do?

Good leadership is underpinned by transparent, clear and accessible policy for all team members. Policies form an important part of a workplaces mental heath and wellbeing approach. If you’d like support developing, or updating your policy, you can sign up to get an obligation-free call from one of our Workplace Wellbeing Consultants.

Book a 15 minute Chat
Learn more about how SuperFriend can help

Within this industry…

47.1%

of workers have experienced a mental health condition* in the last 12 months
*Refer to Technical report notes

61.6%

of workers feel their workplace is highly supportive of workers’ mental health and wellbeing

72.0%

of workers plan to stay with their workplace for the next 12 months

Psychosocial Risk Profile

Psychosocial risks are workplace operations that increase stress and reduce mental wellbeing.
Read more

Inappropriate workload

2.5

Low recognition

2.3

Poor change management

2.4

Poor management support

2.2

Low job control

2.2

Poor role clarity

2.2

Poor workplace relationships

2.0

Poor working environment

1.8

Traumatic events

1.9

Key:

Table – Psychosocial Risk Profile for Financial and Insurance Services industry

Highest Psychosocial Risk

The highest psychosocial risk facing the Financial and Insurance Services Industry is inappropriate workload and poor change management.

How can you manage this risk?

Change can be challenging, particularly when workloads are also high. As these are the top two risks for this industry, leaders can focus on taking small steps to manage them.

You can implement good job design and alleviating time pressures to support workload pressures. For example:

  • Ensure adequate work breaks are taken where possible and prioritising the most important tasks to be completed where workload is too high
  • Regularly review workloads and leaders, ensuring employees have the skillset to complete the tasks assigned
  • Team up workers where workload is low to support (and build connections) and perhaps learn new skills to add to your own skillset, or share some of your skills with others
  • Rotate tasks that are highly repetitive or monotonous
  • Provide ongoing training and support to employees who interact directly with customers and clients
  • Encourage employees to speak up and have input into the timing and order of work within the boundaries of deadlines, and
  • Make sure targets are realistic and achievable and allow for employee feedback which is respected and acknowledged.

As a leader, some tips to improve change management are:

  • Realistic exploration of the organisation’s history, readiness and ability to change
  • Explore who is best placed to help co-design and facilitate change
  • Involve every layer of the organisation and seek to include all leaders with the company vision, equipped to manage change and motivated to support the change
  • Create ownership and buy-in in all levels through identifying solutions to a shared vision
  • Increase communication and clarity to ensure all workers feel supported, and
  • Remember that although process is important, people matter. In-person and one-to-one conversations are supportive and appreciated.

Some ways workers can support themselves throughout change are:

  • Manage what is in your control and actively seeking clarification from senior leaders or other experienced staff either in a one-on-one conversation or via written communication where you can properly digest and explore concepts
  • Learn to leave stress at work and detach through learning about our own stress response or stress in general
  • Engage in practices such as mindfulness, yoga or another method that supports you, and
  • Clearly defining how your values, strengths, and passions connect to what you do on a day-to-day basis and exploring job crafting to align to these.

Learn More

Read more about the principles of good job design below.

SafeWork Australia: Principles of good job design

Listen to Amy Wrzesniewski, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Yale School of Management speak about ‘Job Crafting’ and creating meaning in your own work here.

YouTube: Amy Wrzesniewski on Job Crafting

Explore a TED Talk by Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction. Learn more at: Make Stress your Friend.

TED: Make Stress your Friend

Financial Services Council have a resource for the industry related to psychosocial risks you can download below.

Financial Services Council: Psychosocial risk factors and their implications in life insurance

The Corporate Mental Health Alliance Australia (CMHAA) have a range of resources to support mental health and wellbeing. Click below to check them out.

CMHAA: Support Resources

Read this article by the Corporate Mental Health Alliance Australia (CMHAA) on psychosocial risk assessment.

CMHAA: Psychosocial risk assessment

Read about a case study from the Commonwealth Bank.

CMHAA: Commonwealth Bank Case Study

Check out The Wellbeing Conversation from ANZ.

ANZ: The Wellbeing Conversation