Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) refers to a climate for psychological health and safety. ... By extending the health erosion and motivational paths of the Job Demands-Resources model we propose that PSC within work organisations predicts work conditions and in turn psychological health and engagement.Workplace productivity is important for quality of life and standard of living in Australia. Yet concerns have been raised in recent times that national productivity has stalled.

In response, economically-focused solutions have been posed such as seeking greater performance from employees without additional resources (e.g., salary, job security; Blinder, 2011). What is not yet generally understood by policy makers and employers is that improving the human capital of the workforce has potential economic benefits for the organisation (e.g. through reduced sickness absence and presenteeism) and society (GDP), in addition to improving the health and wellbeing of workers, and is an important area of future development and further exploration (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2014). A very recent survey of 1126 Australian workers (including senior leaders, a mix of lower management, and other employees) revealed that most – over nine out of ten Australian workers – consider it important to safeguard psychological health in the workplace (beyondblue, 2015). Yet approximately half the workers surveyed believed that their workplace is not mentally healthy (beyondblue, 2015). A psychologically healthy workplace is an organisation where the psychological health of employees is valued and support is provided for those with psychological health problems – in other words these organisations have a strong Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC; Dollard & Bakker, 2010).

These workplaces have leaders that prioritise psychological health and establish policies and procedures that support psychological health. High PSC workplaces have manageable demands and working hours, adequate resources and are usually physically safe too. Given that 20 per cent of Australians experience a mental health condition each year (incidence rate; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008) with potentially serious outcomes associated with these conditions, tackling work conditions that negatively affect worker psychological health and providing support for these people is a critical area to address in order to improve their health, productivity at work, and the overall wellbeing, quality of life, and productivity of society.