Systems at Work - John Toomey

The PM Eleven team value our contribution to making a business process more efficient (saving time, money or just making it easier). At the end of the day, we design and deliver “systems of work”.

“Systems of work” are essentially a smooth-running business process where the design inherently optimises human performance, job satisfaction and productivity. Whether supported by our consulting services, SAP productivity solutions or our mobility solutions – good, clear and smooth running business processes also contribute to

protecting workers from harm to their health, safety and welfare
improving worker health and wellbeing, and
improving business success through higher worker productivity (1)

We all know that workers have a right to the highest practicable level of protection against harm to their health, safety and welfare. In most workplaces, the information and communication technology (ICT) systems are an integral part of all business operations. In practice, these are often the main drivers of work/process changes but are commonly overlooked as sources of workplace risks. In our view, opportunities to improve health and safety should always be considered when new ICT systems are planned and introduced.

Work-related mental health conditions take a huge toll on worker health and productivity, with the negative impact felt by individuals themselves, their families, and colleagues. (2)

In a recent PM Eleven Stand-Up discussion, we discussed our mining experiences, FIFO rosters and the mental health stresses on those workers who sustain those rosters over long periods. The frightening statistic from the Safe Work Australia’s National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics (NDS), said that 92 per cent of serious work-related mental health condition claims were attributed to mental stress. And for FIFO workers, we would expect that stress from isolation and separation from families would be sky-high.

At PM Eleven, we have decided to do something about it!

One of our key industries we service is Mining, and we gain important personal relationships with those at the coal-face. We care about those people we know and wonder whether the FIFO lifestyle is causing any psychological distress to them!. In fact, as reported by the Medical Journal of Australia in 2018, of 1124 FIFO employees surveyed at remote construction, and open cut and underground mining sites 28% had scores indicating high/very high psychological distress, compared with 10.8% for Australia overall.

You put poor business processes or ICT systems on top of an already distressed workforce and the risks are huge.

We have collaborated with a Fatigue and Stress Management expert, John Toomey, who is writing a book with an aim to assist FIFO workers and families to better prepare for the Fly-in Fly-out experience and make it work, for everyone. This will be a valuable contribution to reduce the unacceptable levels of mental health issues impacting this workforce.

To help him gather the important information that will assist the next generation of Mining FIFO workers, we encourage you to contribute your stories to Johns SURVEY (and ultimately his book).

He has created a 35 question anonymous online survey. It takes only 10 minutes to complete, so we invite you to take a few minutes to follow the link below and complete the survey. With some genuine responses to this Survey, the data will contribute considerably to understand the issue even further. This will make the book even more relevant and useful to our customers, and hopefully, make the “systems of work” changes that we deliver flow on to improved productivity and work enjoyment.

Go to the Survey

Do you have experiences with FIFO work?
Do you think your abilities and productivity at Site was impacted by the distress of missing loved ones, missing important dates, isolation or any other factor?
When at site, do you think that frustrating or onerous business processes / systems contribute to your distress?

Thanks for helping with this cause…