'Good work' is good for mental health

What is ‘good work’?

‘Good work’ refers to concepts that aim to optimise people’s experience of work and promote the physical and mental health of the working population.

The Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (AFOEM) of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) outlines ‘the health benefits of good work’ citing evidence that good work is beneficial to people’s health and wellbeing. In contrast, long-term work absence, work disability and unemployment generally have a negative impact on health and wellbeing.

The International Labour Organization defines ‘decent work’ as work that:

• is productive and delivers a fair income
• promotes economic security and social protection for families
• provides prospects for personal development and social integration
• encourages freedom for people to express their concerns, organise and participate in the decisions that affect their lives
• ensures equality of opportunity and treatment.

Create safe and fair working environments

First and foremost, ‘good work’ is safe for both physical and psychological health. Research shows work with poor psychosocial working conditions—e.g. low control, excessive demands and low security—is more harmful to mental health than unemployment.

The broader concept of ‘job quality’ includes employment conditions such as paid leave for recreation, parenting, illness and/or caring, security of employment and flexible work arrangements. Job quality can be enhanced by assessing and managing psychosocial hazards, and by negotiating in good faith with workers to offer the best paid leave benefits, security and conditions of employment that your organisation can. 

Promote the positive

Good work goes beyond preventing work-related harm to mental health, in the same way that wellbeing is more than the absence of illness. Good work is often described as promoting ‘flourishing’ or ‘thriving’. A great job and positive work environment not only help to keep well people well, they also help people living with mental ill-health. 

‘Good work’ is more than just avoiding physical and mental harm. It’s about actively promoting job satisfaction.

Focus on PERMA

Good work can be enhanced through job design and job crafting processes that maximise work-related psychological health benefits. Positive psychology research suggests focusing on PERMA.

PERMA involves 5 things—Positive emotions, Engagement, positive Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment at work.

Here are some questions that might help your organisation apply PERMA principles to work design:

• Do people feel positive emotions as part of their everyday work?
• Are people engaged in their work?
• Are people given adequate time to build relationships at work?
• Do people find sufficient meaning in their work?
• Can people regularly feel a sense of accomplishment in their work?

Enjoying the content or process of work promotes mental wellbeing. The ‘flow state’ is a “hard-to-describe feeling of being so in the zone that everything else falls away”. People in a flow state feel totally immersed in whatever they are doing to the point they often lose track of time or ignore outside distractions. This flow state is associated with experiencing positive mental wellbeing.

Use SMART work design

Job design approaches that promote mental wellbeing suggest creating work that is SMART—Stimulating, allows for Mastery or a sense of knowledge or skill, provides Agency or autonomy, is Relational and has demands that are Tolerable.

Worker survey research shows the following 3 questions are very strongly associated with measures of performance, engagement, retention, resilience and inclusion:

• To what extent was I excited to work every day last week?
• Did I have sufficient opportunities to use my strengths every day?
• At work do I get a chance to do what I’m good at and something I love?

While it may not be possible to achieve these states every day at work, these ideas and questions can help guide a deliberate approach to promoting the positive aspects of work.