Helping someone return to work takes more than just signing off on physical readiness. It’s about rebuilding confidence, supporting mental well-being, and preparing them to thrive in the real demands of their job — both physically and emotionally.
SuperFriend’s Indicators of a Thriving Workplace Survey 2024 offers powerful insights that speak directly to the challenges our clients — and our systems — face every day. It’s the most comprehensive look at workplace mental health in Australia, with data from 13,341 workers across all 19 ABS industries. When it comes to supporting individuals back into the workplace, this data can help guide decision-making and strengthen return-to-work outcomes.
Here’s what stood out to us — and how exercise physiology can support clients to reach successful, long-term outcomes when returning to work.
One Size Doesn’t Fit All — Industry Context Really Matters
The Indicators of a Thriving Workplace Survey 2024 reinforces the fact that mental health experiences vary significantly between industries, and these differences directly impact return-to-work planning and outcomes.
The results may surprise you. Construction workers reported some of the highest levels of connectedness, lower rates of loneliness, and were the most comfortable discussing mental health at work. In contrast, workers in Education, Health Care, and Retail are facing escalating psychosocial risks. These sectors showed higher burnout, more harmful workplace experiences (including harassment, discrimination, and secondary trauma), and a sharp decline in workplace well-being scores compared to previous years.
Supporting someone back to work means offering industry-specific rehabilitation — meaning that the intervention needs to be tailored to the physical, cognitive, and emotional demands of the client’s work environment. Whether it’s restoring functional capacity for manual labour, mental capacity for cognitive tasks, or resilience for emotionally demanding roles, the support provided needs to be reflective of real-life return-to-work needs. Our programs offer more than just exercise – they look at the bigger picture and find ways to address the cognitive, social and emotional aspects of the job too.
⏰ Stress Spikes in June and December — Let’s Be Proactive
One of the most practical and actionable findings from SuperFriend’s 2024 report is that June and December are consistently the most stressful months of the year for Australian workers. The reasons? A perfect storm of EOFY deadlines, reduced staffing levels, public holiday disruptions, and even the impact of colder, unpredictable weather.
These pressure points show up in the data across all industries. For example:
- In Retail, pressure spikes dramatically in December, with nearly 1 in 2 workers at risk of burnout during the holiday rush.
- Health Care and Social Assistance workers report increased psychological distress in December due to heavy workloads and high rates of staff on leave.
- In Education, June is a known bottleneck, driven by end-of-term workloads like assessments and planning — with 30% of educators identifying it as their most stressful time of year.
- Even Construction, typically a high-performing industry in mental health scores, experiences a drop in well-being during December.
For stakeholders planning a graded return to work or work trial during these months, this insight is critical. A return that looks achievable in March might require significant adjustments in June or December — not because the client’s condition has changed, but because the environment has. Whether it’s shifting timelines slightly, integrating stress management components, or preparing the client for reduced team support, these small changes can prevent setbacks and support long-term success.
Fatigue Is a Common Barrier — Especially in High-Demand Roles
Fatigue has been identified as a new psychosocial hazard by the Work Health and Safety (Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work) Code of Practice 2024. Psychosocial hazards are defined as “aspects of work that have the potential to cause psychological harm and may lead to physical harm”. The Superfriend report found that nearly one-third of workers aged 25–44 reported regular mental exhaustion!
In the rehab world, fatigue can be one of the biggest barriers to progress — especially when it’s linked to psychological distress. What makes fatigue so challenging in a return-to-work context is that it doesn’t present like a traditional injury. It’s invisible, variable, and complex — impacting not just energy levels, but also:
- Motivation and confidence to engage in rehab activities,
- Decision-making and memory, which affects performance and safety,
- Emotional regulation, which influences how clients respond to stressors at work.
Fatigue is a hallmark symptom of burnout and depression, demonstrating the impact of mental health on physical symptoms. The relationship goes the other way too – by improving how we feel physically, mental health often improves too! For this, we present Headstrong — our fixed-fee mental health program. Just like our well-known fatigue management program Bounce, Headstrong combines personalised exercise prescription with biotechnology. By leaning into the insight provided by heart rate variability tracking, clients learn strategies to regulate their nervous system more effectively, improving their well-being as a result.
Learn more about our Headstrong program here!
Thanks SuperFriend!
SuperFriend’s 2024 report provides data about mental health across different industries and seasons. As with most things, knowledge is power, and these insights allow for proactive planning and support that is tailored to the real-world pressures of each role. Exercise physiology can support this process, helping clients return not just to work, but to life — stronger, more confident, and more resilient.
You can check out the full Superfriend report here:
https://www.superfriend.com.au/research/workplace-mental-health-statistics
Author: Yolanda van Vugt
