According to SafeWork Australia's 2025 Key Statistics Report, mental health conditions accounted for 17,600 serious workers' compensation claims in 2023–24, a staggering 161% increase since 2013–14. Harassment and workplace bullying represent the largest single category of those claims at 33.2%. Mental stress claims cost, on average, four times more than other serious claims and result in five times more lost work time.
Most of it was preventable. Not with policies. Not with posters. Not with another tick-and-flick compliance module that people click through and immediately forget.
It was preventable much earlier, in the small moments where silence became permission. This blog explores why ‘Just Speak up’ is terrible advice and what to do instead.
An open door policy is not a speak up culture.
I've walked into a LOT of organisations over the last 13 years that were genuinely proud of their open door policy. Their survey scores. Their "we encourage feedback here" rhetoric.
And I've also walked into the same organisations and met the person who hadn't raised something in eight months because they had no idea how to say it without blowing everything up.
The door was open.
They just couldn't walk through it.
That's not a speak up culture. That's a really well-intentioned gap. This blog explores this concept in more detail, the cost of getting it wrong, what the neuroscience tells us and the three key ingredients to having a Speak Up Culture.
You know the cost of staying silent and that intervention is about skills, not just courage. This post breaks down practical steps to go from reader to upstander, including reflection, low-risk interventions, finding your language, training, and building a supportive network. Every action creates a safer, more inclusive workplace.
Witnessed something wrong and froze? Effective bystander intervention isn’t about courage alone — it’s about skills, practice, and having multiple ways to act. This blog explores the intervention spectrum, language that works, and how scenario practice builds real capability.
Culture isn’t shaped by policies — it’s shaped by what you permit. This blog explores how every choice, action, and intervention shapes workplace behaviour and creates the standard for others to follow.
