Tailoring Wellness Programs for Diverse Workforces

Australian businesses are battling a burnout problem of epic proportions.

In response, more leaders are investing in corporate wellness programs and mental health initiatives.

So why aren’t they working? Why is employee well-being still declining and engagement stagnating?

If your business has a corporate wellness program but you’re not seeing the benefits, you might be asking these same questions.

The answer is not that your wellness programs are missing the mark. Some people are likely benefiting. Just not enough.

The problem, according to the latest research from Australia and internationally, is that the wellness programs aren’t tailored to the diverse needs of your workforce.

With an increasingly diverse workforce, a one-size-fits-all approach to corporate wellness won’t cut it.

In this guide:

Understanding diversity at work
How a tailored corporate wellness program benefits everyone – and your business
Assessing employee needs and designing effective wellness programs
Accessing inclusive wellness training programs
Implementation tips and evaluating success

More than words: The data behind diversity, inclusion and well-being at work

One in five Australians (19%) don’t feel connected, valued and included at work, according to the latest Diversity Council of Australia (DCA) data from 2023-24.

Even with businesses investing almost $1.5 billion in workplace well-being in 2022 – a 10%
increase over 2020 and the same as 2021 – employee engagement and satisfaction
continue to decline.

However, there’s one cohort that repeatedly bucks the trend.

Businesses with active diversity and inclusion (D&I, also diversity, equity and inclusion or
DEI) programs report above-average employee well-being and engagement rates.

The DCA’s Inclusion@Work Index shows that Australians in an inclusive workplace are four
times as likely to report that work has a positive effect on their mental health. They are also:

8.5x more likely to collaborate with colleagues
4x more likely to provide great customer service
9.5x more likely to bring innovative solutions to tough problems
2.5x more likely to give extra effort at work

These businesses have discovered that the key to employee well-being is the intersection of D&I programs and corporate wellness.

For your business, accessing those benefits starts with a corporate wellness training
program that puts people’s needs first.

Understanding workforce diversity

“Diversity” refers to the rich tapestry of individual differences that make up modern workplaces.

This includes age, gender identity, race, cultural background, physical abilities and mental health needs. It also includes personal and family attributes such as religion, politics, marital status, pregnancy and carer responsibilities.

Recognising and appreciating diversity is essential for creating a truly inclusive workplace.

This is where businesses that are strong in D&I stand out. They demonstrate empathy and ensure individual needs are considered in every decision affecting employees, including corporate wellness programs.

The benefits of tailored corporate wellness programs

Tailored wellness programs are one of the most effective ways to maximise the benefits of diversity at work.

As well as addressing universal concerns such as burnout and financial stress, an inclusive wellness program shows employees that their leaders acknowledge and consider their specific needs and preferences.

That’s good for employees – and for businesses.

Improved employee engagement
When programs address individual needs and preferences, employees are more likely to
participate and derive value from them.

Enhanced productivity
A healthy and well-supported workforce experiences reduced stress and increased energy levels, improving productivity and performance.

More inclusive workplace culture
Tailored programs demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity, fostering a sense of belonging and respect for all employees.

Assessing employee wellness needs
Understanding the unique wellness needs of your employees is the first step in creating an effective program.

By gathering detailed insights, you can design programs that truly address your workforce’s specific challenges and preferences.

Survey staff to understand their unique needs
Run focus groups to confidentially gather data and feedback
Analyse data on employee demographics, health claims, and absenteeism
Consult with wellness program providers to get a sense of current best practices

Confidentiality and trust are paramount in this process. Employees must feel comfortable sharing their needs and concerns, and you must clearly communicate the measures in place to keep their data confidential.

Addressing business needs

Given the strong link between employee well-being and business success, it’s helpful to
establish performance benchmarks before rolling out a wellness program.

We recommend focusing on three key outcomes:

1. Employee engagement, measured through absenteeism, job satisfaction surveys and
financial outcomes
2. Customer satisfaction, which directly correlates to employee satisfaction
3. Collaboration and innovation, evidenced in outcomes like new product or service
developments, project delivery metrics and cross-departmental projects

Taken together, these measurable metrics paint a picture of employee well-being in your organisation.

Designing inclusive wellness programs

Once you have a grasp of your employees’ needs and the business’s challenges, you can
begin designing an inclusive program.

Step 1: Make it holistic
Effective wellness programs address your employees’ physical, mental, and emotional
health. However, the risk here is that “holistic” becomes “catch-all” and you miss out on the benefits of a tailored program.

We know it’s a tricky balance. You want to offer a range of support that targets individual
needs. You want all employees to benefit, but it’s impractical to design a program that
addresses each data point collected in the assessment stage.

This is why we, at ATI-Mirage, offer a variety of specialised, streamlined courses. Our
interactive courses include:

The @Work series: Avoid Burnout, Change Fatigue, Mindfulness, Resilience, and Psychological Safety
Collaborations with Lifeline WA: Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and Talking About
Sexual Harassment
Skills development: Emotional Intelligence, Self Confidence and Assertiveness, and
the new Emotional Intelligence for Teams course

Each course focuses on building individual toolkits that empower employees. They provide practical skills and knowledge to manage stress, develop resilience and foster a supportive work environment.

Step 2: Make it accessible
We offer flexible training options, including in-house, at our CBD training centre in Perth or in a virtual classroom.

This ensures all employees can access the wellness courses they need at a time that works for them.

In other words, employees tailor their own wellness program. This empowers anyone who participates, creating a truly inclusive program that meets individual needs.

It also allows for confidentiality. In our experience, many employees prefer to keep their
well-being challenges private until they develop the confidence to raise concerns.

Step 3: Measure success
Regular evaluation is key to ensuring your program remains effective.

Revisit the benchmarks you established before implementing your corporate wellness
program.

Has employee engagement improved? Are customers reporting receiving better service? Are departmental silos coming down?

We also recommend collecting employee feedback (confidentially) to support these data points with anecdotes and personal evidence.

Implementing a positive feedback loop, where data and employee surveys lead to wellness program improvements, will ensure your organisation keeps moving forward.

Contact us today to learn more about our wellness training courses and how we can help your people thrive at work.

Unleash Productivity With Microsoft Lists Training

If you’ve come across the newest tool in the Microsoft 365 suite, Microsoft Lists, you can be forgiven for thinking it ‘does what it says on the tin’.

The truth is that behind the unassuming name is a versatile tool that streamlines how
information is organised, tracked, and shared.

Lists is much more than lists. It’s a way to keep your team in sync, track projects, assets and share information in a way that works for your team.

But like any new tool, getting the most out of Lists requires some know-how. That’s where our Microsoft Lists training comes in.

In this guide:

What is Microsoft Lists
Key features
Benefits for your business
Getting ahead with Microsoft Lists training

What is Microsoft Lists?

Microsoft Lists is an application within Microsoft 365 that lets you centralise and manage
information through user-friendly, collaborative lists. Lists can be projects, tasks, events, routines, contacts, inventory – essentially anything that needs to be tracked and talked
about.

If you’ve ever used SharePoint lists, the new Lists app will feel like an evolution of the
functionality you’re familiar with. If you aren’t familiar with SharePoint, then Lists might look like a project management tool at first.

It does have project management functionality. It’s also an inventory tracking tool. It’s also an asset tracker, event planner, calendar, scheduler and interactive database.

Lists is all these things and more because it’s not one thing specifically. It’s intentionally
flexible, which makes it incredibly powerful – and a little daunting.

Here are a few key features that will help you get your head around what Lists is capable of:

Create Lists for almost anything

Microsoft Lists is a supercharged spreadsheet for modern teams. It has the simplicity of an Excel spreadsheet with the capabilities of a SharePoint list, meaning you can manage all kinds of information in a way that works for you.

The app offers ready-made templates for common scenarios such as issue tracking, asset management, project planning and calendars.

However, in our experience, a blank list is the best place to start. Creating a blank list is
more efficient and effective unless your use case and data structure is perfectly aligned to the template.

Don’t worry – our Microsoft Lists training covers creating a new blank list so you can get
started confidently.

Our Microsoft Lists course also teaches you how to import Excel spreadsheets so you can
view and interact with data in a more dynamic and collaborative way.

Customisable information structure
Microsoft Lists supports various column types, including text, number, choice, date and
more. You can also create calculated columns and use advanced formatting to customise how your team sees and interacts with data.

You can view your Lists in various formats, including:

Grid
Cards
Calendar
Gallery
Kanban board

This flexibility means you can visualise your information to suit your particular use case.

You can customise the form elements to ensure good data is coming in and apply conditional formatting so the outputs are clear at a glance.

Integrations and automations
Lists functions in a similar way to SharePoint lists, but the average user doesn’t need
advanced knowledge. This means it integrates seamlessly with SharePoint, Teams and
Planner, another Microsoft 365 app with dedicated project management functionality.

You can also automate workflows and processes with Power Automate. For example, you
might set up automatic notifications, reminders and triggers based on actions within a List.

Collaboration features
Lists is impressively collaborative.

As a native Microsoft 365 app, it works seamlessly in Teams (you can add your List as a
Teams tab). This enables team members to work together in real-time while keeping all
relevant information in one place.

There are also customisable permission levels when sharing Lists. You decide who can view, edit, comment on or change the information to ensure data security.

The benefits of Microsoft Lists for businesses

Reading through the list of features above, you probably have a sense of what Lists can do for your business. Here are some more benefits we see for busy teams:

Increased efficiency and productivity: Streamline workflows, reduce manual data entry and automate time-consuming tasks.
Central source of truth: Because Lists works from SharePoint data, you don’t risk multiple data entries or missing records.
Better data organisation: Structure Lists to suit your specific needs, making
information easy to find and manage.
Seamless collaboration: Work together in real-time, with conversations, assets
and action items and side-by-side in Teams.
Farewell spreadsheets: Lists is intuitive and highly collaborative, with
transparent records for better data organisation and visibility.
Reduced IT costs: Lists has the potential to replace some third-party tools like
inventory management, visitor sign-in software, asset management and project
management, without any additional subscriptions (assuming your business uses
Microsoft 365).

Use cases for Microsoft Lists

These benefits apply to teams of all types, in all industries. Since the first version rolled out to target users in 2020, we’ve been closely tracking the ways it’s used:

Project management
Lightweight Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Social media management
Inventory management
Employee onboarding
Visitor records
Device asset manager

All these use cases have one thing in common. They rely on clear, accurate, up-to-date
information that’s organised to make managing work more efficient.

Getting started fast with our Microsoft Lists course

Microsoft Lists doesn’t require an IT degree. Still, it is a Microsoft 365 tool. That means
surface-level features are fairly intuitive, but a little training goes a long way to helping you access all the benefits.

Our one-day Microsoft Lists for End Users course gives you a working knowledge of Lists
and a great understanding of best practices.

Here’s a quick look at what’s covered in our Microsoft Lists training

Introduction to Microsoft Lists: Understand what Microsoft Lists is and how it
integrates with other Office 365 services.
Creating Lists: Learn to create lists from templates, Excel files and from scratch.
Managing data: Add, edit and manage data in your lists using List Forms and Grid
View.
Advanced features: Explore advanced columns, formatting options and how to use
Power Apps to customise forms.
Automating workflows: Use Power Automate to create and manage workflows,
improving your processes.

Armed with this knowledge and hands-on expertise, you’ll be able to create effective Lists, collaborate better with colleagues, control projects and assets more effectively and get more work done.

Book your spot in the course today to get organised for tomorrow’s challenges

Why Statutory Supervisor Training Is Essential

The Critical Importance of Statutory Supervisor Training and Site Executive WHS Training

Since the Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022 came into effect, all
explorations and operations have been required to appoint statutory supervisors.

People in these positions play a vital role in safety, operational continuity and compliance. Their responsibilities are broad, covering task management, hazards and safety interactions for all staff in their appointed area.

Thankfully, there is a transition period that gives miners until April 2026 to organise statutory supervisor training for people in these positions.

But we know from experience that 2026 will arrive sooner than expected. When the deadline comes, statutory supervisors must be trained, qualified and registered under the new legislation.

Ensuring statutory supervisors and site senior executives complete WHS training is not just a legal obligation but a crucial element in safeguarding the well-being of all employees.

Our comprehensive training will help you meet the requirements. But first, let’s examine your legal obligations and explore how site management safety training helps cultivate a strong safety culture.

Meeting the legal obligations of site management safety training

Statutory supervisors must be prepared to handle heightened risk levels within their work areas. The Regulations helpfully lay out what this means in practice in black and white.

Miners must appoint a statutory supervisor for each key working area, including:

Processing plant
Laboratory
Quarry
Workshop
Anywhere else the position is necessary to reduce WHS risks

A statutory supervisor must be present in these areas whenever work is in progress. For
example, if there are two shifts in the processing plant, a statutory supervisor must be
present for both.

What qualifications and training are essential for statutory supervisors?

A person can be appointed as a statutory supervisor if they:

Have 2+ years of experience in a supervisor position or as a worker in a similar
operation
Complete an approved WHS risk management Unit of Competency for statutory supervisors
Pass the applicable Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DEMIRS) legislation
exam

These responsibilities dovetail into the requirements of the Work Health Safety Act (2020) and the subsequent WHS (Mines) Regulations 2022. Under these legislations, all mining and exploration operations must establish a functional Mine Safety Management System (MSMS).

What does statutory supervisor training entail?

Statutory supervisor training prepares the appointed people with a deep understanding of their responsibilities and the skills to apply risk management knowledge in real-world
scenarios.

This training is a requirement under the Regulations and crucial to helping supervisors understand the full scope of their responsibilities.

Ultimately, it keeps people safe in a hazard-prone mining operation.

Introduction to statutory supervision

Gain a comprehensive understanding of statutory supervision in Western Australia, including legal requirements, obligations, and the overall scope of the role.

Roles and responsibilities

Clearly define a statutory supervisor’s critical duties and expectations, ensuring a thorough
grasp of their specific responsibilities within the mining industry.

Safety management

Master the fundamentals of safety management systems, including hazard identification, risk assessment, and developing effective safety plans.

Compliance with regulations

Navigate the complexities of relevant Western Australian WHS regulations. Learn best
practices for achieving and maintaining compliance, including monitoring and reporting procedures.

Documentation and record-keeping

Develop the essential skills for accurate and thorough record-keeping. The program covers the types of documents required, their significance, and practical exercises to solidify your understanding.

Communication and teamwork

Enhance your ability to communicate effectively with your team. The course explores methods for building and leading a safety-focused team, equipping supervisors to be able to address conflict and solve problems collaboratively.

Incident management

Become prepared to respond effectively to incidents and emergencies. The training covers crucial investigation techniques, reporting procedures, and essential follow-up steps.

Where do Site Senior Executives enter the picture?

Site Senior Executives have a broad and important remit. Under the Regulations, they control and manage the mine and mining operations, and manage emergencies at the site. They also fulfil the statutory supervisor function for areas where no statutory supervisor is explicitly required.

This means that a Site Senior Executive must hold the same two Units of Competency that are required for a Statutory Supervisor, as well as one Unit of Competency that is specifically relevant to their own role. The Statutory Supervisor training is comprehensive and up-to-date with the Regulations, ensuring site senior executives have the skills and knowledge to keep their team safe.

Choosing the right training provider
Site management safety training shouldn’t be a matter of checking the boxes. The
Regulations are clear about the requirements for statutory supervisor training – and Site
Senior Executive WHS training by extension – because proper training keeps people safe.

There are a few things you should look for when choosing a statutory supervisor training
provider.

Compliance

Appointed statutory supervisors are required to complete two compulsory Units of
Competence:

BSBWHS411 Implement and monitor WHS policies, procedures and programs
BSBWHS414 Contribute to WHS risk management

They must also pass the DEMIRS legislation examination, a mandatory online exam.

Ensure your training provider offers a Statutory Supervisor Pre-exam preparation course to help you prepare for the DEMIRS exam. Make sure it covers this content to a high standard and updates course material to reflect legislative changes, current best practices and emerging risks.

Accreditation and recognition

Only a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) can deliver and assess nationally recognised training and official qualifications in Australia.

Steer clear of non-RTO providers that offer statutory supervisor training but don’t mention certification. Always partner with an RTO like ATI-Mirage to ensure your training investment is backed up with accreditation.

Experienced trainers

In our experience, the ATI-Mirage model of small group workshops with hands-on activities is highly effective.

Participants don’t just gain a deep understanding of the WHS (Mines) Regulations and WHS Act, they also learn to apply knowledge in real-world scenarios and assess realistic risks.

Testimonials

Although the Regulations and requirements for statutory supervisor training are relatively new, a reputable training provider will have demonstrated experience in WHS training. Look for positive reviews and testimonials from past participants. Pay particular attention to reviews/testimonials mining industry courses to assess the provider’s effectiveness.

Conclusion
Are you ready to meet statutory positions safety training requirements?
Statutory supervisor training and site senior executive training is an investment in the safety of your workforce. The training is also essential to remain compliant under the WHS Act.

ATI-Mirage is a leading provider of WHS training in Perth.

We offer a range of WHS courses, including the Statutory Supervisor Course, Leading WHS for Supervisors and Managers, and Statutory Supervisor Pre-Exam Preparation.

Our experienced trainers and our practical learning approach will equip your appointed leaders with knowledge and hands-on practical skills, ensuring your operation meets the highest safety standards.

Stay informed, stay proactive, and invest in the safety of your workplace. See upcoming course dates or contact us to discuss specific training requirements.

Month: July 2024

Tailoring Wellness Programs for Diverse Workforces

Unleash Productivity With Microsoft Lists Training

Why Statutory Supervisor Training Is Essential

The Critical Importance of Statutory Supervisor Training and Site Executive WHS Training

Acknowledgement of Country