Workplace Wellbeing Assessment toolkit

Survey checklist

Use this checklist to get the best experience using the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment.

Before you start

Business size: you need a minimum of six employees.
Leadership support: get executive support to survey your staff and act on the results.
Communications plan: plan how you will tell your staff about the Assessment, why you’re doing it and what you’ll do with their responses. Use the template materials provided. Link them to questions from employees.
Account and user profile: you need at least one person in your organisation to create an account and user profile.
Minimum participants: you need a minimum number of participants to make sure results are deidentified and you capture a variety of perspectives and experiences. Minimums vary based on business size. See the minimums.

Start survey

Dates: plan when you will survey your staff. Avoid times when staff are likely to be on leave, have high workloads or deadlines, or are doing other consultations. Your survey can be open for a maximum of eight weeks.
Number of surveys: decide whether you wish to run one survey across your whole organisation, or multiple surveys. If you have a large organisation, you may wish to run a survey within each team or department so you can compare their results and get more meaningful insights.
Email addresses: get the email addresses for all staff you wish to survey. Sort the email addresses into three categories: business leaders, team leaders (optional) and workers. If you are running multiple surveys, repeat this sorting for group that you are surveying. Email addresses need to be in a CSV file or a manual list that you can copy and paste.
Prepare survey: login to your account. Navigate to the ‘Surveys’ menu, click ‘Create new survey’, follow the prompts and save. If you are creating more than one survey, repeat for each survey group.
Prepare staff: tell your staff about the survey, including when they should expect to get it in their inbox. Use the template materials provided.
Activate survey: log in to your account and navigate to ‘Survey’ menu. Click the ‘survey name’ to open your survey details. Click the ‘Activate survey’ button at the end of the page. An automated email will be sent to each email address inviting them to do the survey. If you have more than one survey, repeat this step for each one.

Monitor survey

Check responses: you will get an automated email each week with a summary of your survey’s progress. You can also check progress any time by logging into your account and navigating to the ‘Survey’ menu. Check you are on track to meet the minimum number of responses needed to generate a report.
Remind staff: remind your staff to participate in the survey before the closing date. Once you close your survey you will not be able to reopen it, so aim to maximise your responses.
Close survey: your survey will close automatically on the date you selected during set up. If you wish to close the survey earlier or later than the date you chose during set up, you can do this so long as your survey is still open. Navigate to ‘Survey’ menu, click on the survey name, then click on the ‘extend survey’ or ‘close survey’ buttons.

Analyse data

Download your report: login to your account, navigate to the ‘Surveys’ tab, and download the report.
Review results: share the report and discuss the findings with your leadership team.
Identify other data sources: access any other data in your organisation that will help you understand more about any risk factors or areas for improvement identified in your report. e.g. information available from staff advisory groups, staff leave balances, workers compensation claims, complaints registers.
Access coaching: access NSW Government’s workplace mental health coaching program if you need help understanding your results and how to act on them.

Make a plan

Prioritise improvements: using your report and other findings, prioritise your areas for improvement. Set realistic timeframes to complete your goals.
Meet your legal duties: consult the Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work for guidance and examples of how to manage any hazards or risks that you have identified via your Assessment. The Code aims to help you comply with work health and safety legislation.
Consult with surveyed groups: share the results of the Assessment with the people who took part. Ask for their feedback and suggestions for your action plan.
Put your plan into action: consult your workers at each step.
Evaluate and improve: repeat the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment to track your progress against your goals.

Email templates

Use the email templates to tell your workplace about the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment.
Copy the suggested messaging and tailor to your workplace.

Get leadership support to do the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment

Below is a suggested email to send to your leader or decision maker, to get endorsement to run the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment in your organisation.

Dear [DECISION MAKER],

Please approve [ORGANISATION NAME] to run the NSW Government’s free Workplace Wellbeing Assessment in our workplace and develop a mental health action plan based on the results.

About the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment
This is a free digital tool we can use to survey our staff.

It will give us:

an understanding of how well our organisation is going providing the foundations of a mentally healthy workplace e.g. in critical areas like leadership and culture
insights into the experiences people are having with mental health in our workplace e.g. taking time off for mental health reasons.

Our survey results will be available in a confidential report that will include:

recommended actions to improve mental health in our workplace
insights into how we compare to other workplaces in our industry and NSW
a robust way of measuring and tracking changes in our workplace mental health over time.

Why we should do it
As well as our legal obligation to provide a psychologically safe workplace, we should use this tool to take action on mental health because:

[INSERT reasons specific to your workplace. For example, consider if your workplace currently has risk factors for poor workplace mental health that you need to address, like organisational change or big workloads. Consider whether you have data that will help you make your case e.g. rates of sick leave, staff turnover, reports of bullying or workers compensation claims]
Nearly 1 in 6 workers experience poor mental health every month – so our business is likely being affected, whether we can see it or not.
Research shows benefits of a mentally healthy workplace include: attracting and keeping good staff; reduced absenteeism; increased productivity because workers are more committed to the organisation and doing their best work; and a competitive advantage due to having a good work culture and becoming an employer of choice.

More than 8000 employers and 16,000 workers have been surveyed using this tool to date. I hope you agree we should join them. There is no cost to use this tool and you can preview the survey questions that our staff will be asked in the appendix of this sample report (PDF 533.39KB).

For more information available about the tool, please go to the NSW Government’s website.

Kind regards,
<ORGANISATION CONTACT>

Inform staff and encourage participation

Below is a suggested email to send to your team to encourage them to participate in your Workplace Wellbeing Assessment.

<ORGANISATION NAME> is committed to creating a positive work culture and supporting our team’s wellbeing.

We invite you to take part in a workplace wellbeing survey to help us understand where we are supporting you well, and where we can do better. The survey link will be emailed to you on <INSERT DATE>.

About the survey:

10-20 minutes long
confidential - does not ask you for any identifying data
asks about how our organisation handles areas critical to workplace mental health, such as leadership and culture, and your personal experience of mental health at work.

Why should you do it?
This is your chance to help us improve our workplace. We will share the results of the survey with you. We commit to using the findings to make a plan to improve wellbeing.

The survey is a scientifically validated way to measure how well we promote, manage and support mental health. It has been developed by the NSW Government with researchers. Over 8000 employers and 16,000 workers in NSW have been surveyed to date.

What about confidentiality?
The survey does not collect any identifying information such as your name, age, gender or job title. A minimum number of people must do the survey, otherwise we can’t access the results.

What do you need to do?
Look out for an email from no-reply@workplacewellbeing.nsw.gov.au and do the survey before <INSERT CLOSING DATE>.

To learn more about the survey, including confidentiality, see Your Questions Answered or contact <ORGANISATION CONTACT>.

Kind regards,
<ORGANISATION CONTACT>

Remind staff to do the survey

Below is a suggested email to send to your team to remind them to do the survey.

Have you done the workplace wellbeing survey yet?

We invite you to take part in our workplace wellbeing survey to help <ORGANISATION NAME> understand where we are supporting you well, and where we can do better.

Look out for an email from no-reply@workplacewellbeing.nsw.gov.au and do the survey before <INSERT CLOSING DATE>.

The survey takes 10-20 minutes and is confidential. It is your chance to give feedback so we can improve our workplace. Thank you to everyone who has already done it.

To learn more about the survey, see Your Questions Answered or contact <ORGANISATION CONTACT>.

Kind regards,
<ORGANISATION CONTACT>

Print assets

Flyer

Target audience: employers
Purpose: tell employers the benefits of the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment
Size: A5 double sided - 148.5mm x 210mm

Artwork can be printed professionally, or by using an office colour printer.

A5 flyer - in-house print (PDF 368.07KB)

A5 flyer - professional print (PDF 349.02KB)

Page 1 of the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment flyer.

Page 2 of the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment flyer.

Poster

Target audience: employees
Purpose: encourage employees to do the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment
Size: A3 - 297mm x 420mm

Artwork can be printed professionally, or by using an office colour printer.
We've included text boxes for you to write your survey closing date and contact details.

A3 poster - in-house print

A3 poster - professional print