Small business self assessment tool

About this tool

This free self-assessment tool is designed for small businesses. It has been developed to provide a quick and useful way for you to:

understand what your business is doing well to support a mentally healthy workplace
identify areas for improvement for a more mentally healthy workplace
make informed decisions on actions and initiatives to drive a mentally healthy workplace.

This tool is a survey designed to assess key behaviours/observations related to six areas of focus:

leadership and accountability
education and capability
culture
inclusion
policies and practices
risk prevention.

The six areas of focus listed above, shown with accompanying icons.

The six areas of focus relate to key characteristics within a workplace that help make it mentally healthy. The content within this tool has been designed based on existing evidence-based resources, including:

Workplace Wellbeing Assessment – News South Wales Government
Mentally Healthy Workplaces during COVID-19: Small Businesses - National Mental Health Commission
Small Business and Mental Health – Through the Pandemic – The Australian Government the Treasury
Work and Mental Health – Beyond Blue

Who this tool is for

This tool should be completed by your workers at any time that suits your business to give you a deeper understanding, as a small business owner, about where to focus attention and what to do next. It is recommended that you also engage with the tool and self-assess, using the Small Business Owner section of the tool. Further guidance around useful approaches is provided below.

How to use this tool

The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete for small to medium businesses, and approximately five minutes for sole traders. Scores are assessed on a 5-point scale, then added to provide an overall score for each domain. Prepare and send introductory communication to workers to provide them with details about the survey and why it is being implemented. Below, you can find guidance on how to communicate this to your workers. Once introductory communications have been shared with your staff, the following steps should be taken:

1. Send the survey out to all workers (aim for at least 10 per cent representation). To help ensure that survey responses are collected anonymously, send out the questions via online platforms such as Google Forms or Microsoft Teams Forms.
2. Request that participating workers independently rate each of the items below on a 5-point scale from 5= Always to 1 = Never depending on how advanced they believe a certain behaviour/observation is experienced in the workplace.
3. Send a reminder to complete the survey.
4. Collate responses and add up scores for each domain (see below for more details about scoring).
5. Assess strengths and weaknesses based on results.
6. Share and discuss findings with workers or in focus groups.
7. Refer to the guidance at the end of the section for specific action to implement (as required) for each domain.
1. Prepare and send introductory communication to workers (see below for guidance on how to do this).
2. Have workers complete the anonymous survey and score these.
3. Assess strengths and weaknesses based on results.
4. Share and discuss findings and next steps with workers.
5. Refer to guidance at the end of the section for specific actions to implement (as required) for each domain.
You can use the following guidance to help introduce your workers to the survey:
- Speak with your workers about the survey, what it is, why you are using it, how you intend to use the information. You may wish to do this during a team meeting and/or as part of regular communication channels (email, newsletter etc.)
- Encourage your workers to participate and be honest about their responses. Reassure them that this process will be confidential and that you are not able to know who has responded (anonymity). Be clear about how the results will be used.
- Commit to sharing the results, and driving discussion and action through what you find.
- Set a time limit for completing the survey. While five days should be sufficient, consider your business and worker needs.
Additional resources to help you understand how to identify a psychosocial risk in your workplace are available below:
- Psychosocial Hazards – Australian Government Comcare
- Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work – Safework Australia
- Managing Psychosocial Risks at Work – Safework Australia
- Psychosocial Hazards Contributing to Work-Related Stress – WorkSafe Victoria
In addition to the links available above, the below resources may be useful in helping you to support your business to be mentally healthy:
- WorkWell Toolkit for small business, that offers access to the full suite of WorkWell resources – WorkSafe Victoria
- Small Business Guides to Mentally Healthy Workplaces – National Mental Health Commission
- Create a Mentally Healthy Workplace – Australian Government Business