Roundtable Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Queensland Police Service (QPS) ‘Healthy Workplaces’ Program Delivers Increased Leader Wellbeing, As Well As Halving Workplace Stress Compensation Claims Across The Organisation. (#314)

Lyndal J Hughes 1 , Colin Anderson 2
  1. Treacle Consulting, Wollstonecraft, NSW, Australia
  2. People Capability Command, Queensland Police Service, Brisbane, Qld, Australia

QPS was actively working to improve the quality of working life, with a trigger being significantly high worker’s compensation claims and high sickness.

 The program approach was based on the growing evidence that links positive well-being with job performance and bottom line benefits (Donald, 2005; Donald, Taylor, Johnson, Cooper, Cartwright, Robertson 2005).  The implemented Executive Leadership Program used a combination of psychometric assessment, workshops, individual coaching and action plans to help each leader to:

  • Understand their impact on individual staff and teams, and pressure in the workplace
  • Define desired values and behaviours
  • Understand the strong causal link between their behaviour and team performance outcomes.
  • Commence an action plan to improve quality of workplace experiences.

 The starting point for the program was the Robertson Cooper Leadership Impact model, which proposes that, to maximise challenge pressure and minimise hindrance pressure, every leader needs to provide those in his or her workgroup with both Challenge and Support.(Flint-Taylor & Robertson, 2006).

 QPS augmented the program with physical health initiatives and middle management initiatives.  An overall reduction in workers compensation claims of tens of millions of dollars was the overall evidence of program success. 

 T-tests showed significant improvement in leader resilience, goal attainment, work satisfaction.