University HR teams in Australia have the data. They just need to act on it.
The 2025 Australian University Census on Staff Wellbeing surveyed nearly 11,500 staff across 42 institutions. Every single ranked university scored in the high or very high risk category for psychosocial safety. Seventy-six percent of staff work in those risky environments, more than double the national average. Emotional exhaustion hits 82 percent of university workers, again nearly twice the broader workforce rate.
Psychosocial safety climate explained
Psychosocial Safety Climate measures whether senior leaders treat psychological health as seriously as productivity. It tracks commitment, communication, consultation and workload control. Low scores predict higher rates of depression, burnout and turnover. In this census the top score reached just 34.9 against a healthy benchmark of 41. The bottom sat at 23.9. No campus cleared the low-risk line.
Staff also reported 71 percent regularly working unpaid hours, with the sample alone estimating $271 million in free labour annually. Twenty-seven percent said they plan to leave their university within twelve months. Senior executives rated their own workplaces safer than every other group.
Photo by Marcus Reubenstein on Unsplash
These numbers come from an independent survey run by the Psychosocial Safety Climate Global Observatory at Adelaide University. The National Tertiary Education Union has called the results a system failure and pushed for Psychosocial Safety Climate scores to become core management KPIs.
HR and People and Culture teams sit at the centre of the response. They manage policy, workload systems, consultation processes and leadership development. When those systems fail, staff pay the price in health and institutions pay in lost talent and productivity.
What actually works
You already know the legal duty under Australian work health and safety laws. Universities must prevent and manage psychosocial risks. The census gives concrete benchmarks and a roadmap. Here is how HR leaders close the gap.
- Publish your institution’s Psychosocial Safety Climate score every year and tie it to executive KPIs.
- Run regular, independent staff surveys that feed straight into workload reviews and management training.
- Build consultation into every major change process so staff see their input shape decisions before rollout.
- Track unpaid overtime as a leading indicator and adjust staffing models before exhaustion spikes.
- Train middle managers on early warning signs and give them authority to adjust workloads without endless approvals.
Charles Darwin University, UNSW and the University of Queensland ranked highest in the census. Their results still sit in the high-risk band, but they demonstrate that leadership attention moves the needle.
Photo by Eriksson Luo on Unsplash
Adelaide University’s new vice-chancellor has already committed to embedding these practices from day one, citing the census as evidence that staff wellbeing must sit at the heart of institutional strategy. The same report notes that productivity pressures and repeated restructures have driven the current numbers. HR cannot fix funding shortfalls alone, yet it controls the internal systems that either amplify or buffer those pressures.
Common habits waste everyone’s time. Endless policy reviews that never reach the floor. Surveys that disappear into reports no one reads. Training that focuses on individual resilience instead of fixing organisational drivers. Staff notice when management values output over the people delivering it. Sixty-nine percent in the census said senior leaders do not value psychological health as much as productivity.
The fix starts with ownership. Treat the census findings as a baseline, not a one-off report. Set measurable targets for the next survey round. Report progress to council and staff alike. Link improvements to the Higher Education Standards Framework recommendations already on the table.
One practical action this week: book a 30-minute meeting with your vice-chancellor or chief people officer to table your institution’s specific census ranking and the three highest-impact changes you can deliver before the next survey cycle.