Mike Hagan Consulting Services

It was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who said, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” 

I spent many years in several Health and Safety leadership roles, trying to create workplace environments where the risks associated with work related mental health could be better managed and positive mental health cultures could thrive. However, I came to realised that most of the things that we were doing were just improving an organisation’s ability to pull survivors out of the river. 

I gained a much broader understanding of what could be done, and what needed to be done, when I became a senior HR executive in a multinational organisation. It quickly became apparent that while workplace Health and Safety have the tools, techniques, skills and experience to identify hazards and quantify risks; it's HR who always have more C- suite influence on 'how the work is planned and gets done'. 

Understanding what Health and Safety and HR can collaboratively contribute here is vital; the answer to developing and maintaining a mentally healthy workplace is much more about good ways to do the work, rather than having elaborate mechanisms to pull people out the river, only to throw them back in further upstream once they are feeling a tad better! 

I have developed and implemented combined HR and Health, Safety and Wellbeing strategies that, over a five-year period, achieved increased employee engagement, significantly lower attrition rates than industry averages, a fifty percent reduction in WorkCover claims and costs and year on year increase in employee satisfaction. This was through a period of significant organisational change and sustained business growth in terms of turnover, profitability, and headcount. 

My career path has enabled me to witness the impacts of mental health first hand and through a variety of lenses. I've been a shop floor ‘tradie’, an HSR and union rep, a supervisor, a plant manager, a safety manager on a nuclear plant and a senior HR/HSE executive in a multi-national organisation. 

I understand the negative impact of mismatches between capacity and resource, inappropriate workplace behaviours, poor change management and inadequate work design. These factors inevitably result in reduced efficacy, employee burnout, high attrition rates and significant additional costs to business. And let's not forget here, the debilitating impact upon employee's mental and physical wellbeing that these factors inevitably cause, at every level of an organisation. 

I know how to help organisations identify their own pain points. I know how to keep solutions simple. I know that the answer lies in a strategic but straight forward approach that creates better work while engaging, educating and supporting employees. 

I know what is required to help organisations prevent people falling into the river.