What Does NZ’s New Mental Health Strategy Mean for Workplaces?

New Zealand’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2026–2036 has just been released.

At almost the same time, we have WorkSafe guidance telling workplaces how to identify and manage psychosocial risks.

So why aren’t we connecting these two documents?

And there’s one part I’m particularly interested in:

“Strengthen the focus on prevention and early intervention.”

Absolutely...but if we’re serious about prevention, workplaces need to step up.

The Strategy explicitly recognises workplaces as places where mental wellbeing is nurtured,  alongside families, whānau, communities, schools, marae, sports clubs and other settings.

It says that, in the future, people’s mental health and wellbeing will be “actively promoted” in the places where they live, learn, work and connect.

So here’s my question: What does that actually mean for workplaces?

Because we already have a framework for this.

WorkSafe’s Managing Psychosocial Risks at Work Guidelines makes it clear that work itself can contribute to psychological and physical harm through things like excessive workloads, high work pace, long hours, low job control, poor role clarity, bullying, poor workplace relationships and the way work is designed.

And these risks aren’t hypothetical.

WorkSafe reports that 60% of New Zealand workers experience work-related stress, while 30% report a work-related mental health or wellbeing issue.

So I’m curious Matt Doocey:

Why isn’t there a stronger connection between the Government’s Mental Health Strategy and WorkSafe’s Psychosocial Risk guidance?

Because if we genuinely want to prevent mental ill-health and intervene early, we need to look upstream.

Not just:

→ How do we help people cope?

→ How do we build resilience?

→ How do we get people access to support when they’re struggling?

But also:

→ What about how the work itself is creating the risk?

→ How are workloads designed?→ What behaviours are being tolerated?

→ How much control do people have over their work?→ Are people actually able to switch off?

→ Are leaders creating psychologically safe conditions?

This is the shift in mindset and practice I think we need desperately.

From treating mental health as an individual issue…to treating healthy work as part of prevention.

Workplaces have an enormous opportunity to become places that protect and promote mental wellbeing - not places people need to recover from.

And importantly, this isn't just about doing more wellbeing initiatives.

It's about changing the conditions and culture in which people work.

If the Government is serious about prevention and early intervention, I’d love to see workplaces much more explicitly positioned as part of the solution.

Because healthy work and sustainable performance is mental health prevention.