Employee health and wellbeing
Australian Public Service employees have increasingly positive views of the support offered within their agencies to sustain their health and wellbeing, as reported in the 2025 Australian Public Service Employee Census (Figure 9). The overall Wellbeing Policies and Support Index score for 2025 is 72, up from 70 in 2024.
Strong employee wellbeing drives employee engagement, collaboration and the high performance of individuals, teams and organisations. Employees who feel their health and wellbeing are supported at work are less likely to seek other employment.
Figure 9: Wellbeing policies and support (2024 and 2025)
Source: APS Employee Census
The APS Academy consolidates evidence-based resources on a single platform to promote a One-APS approach to supporting health and wellbeing. As well as tools and resources on its website supporting mental, physical, financial and psychosocial health, the APS Academy offers these learning programs:
- APS Mental Health Capability Hub Program
- Compassionate Foundations: Suicide prevention capability suite
- Connections: Core capabilities for workplace peer supporters
- Thrive@Work
- courses supporting the wellbeing of employees working away from the office and in hybrid teams.
Under the Mental Health Capability Hub, the APS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit launched the ADDRESS APS Psychosocial Hazard Suite of resources to support identifying and responding to psychosocial hazards in the APS workplace.
In 2025, the suite was updated in line with the Work Health and Safety Commonwealth Code of Practice 2024, which identifies 17 psychosocial hazards, including new ones relating to job insecurity, fatigue and intrusive surveillance. These inclusions reflect growing awareness of how work design, organisational practices and technology can affect mental health.
Updated guidance ensures the ADDRESS suite covers all 17 psychosocial hazards. The updates include:
- new questions and evidence-based example controls added to the Census Psychological Hazard Screener and Hazard Identification tool
- a brief on the differences between psychosocial and psychological safety
- a facilitator’s guide to support employee consultation processes
- an implementation guide for agency consideration.
ADDRESS tools support agencies to comply with Work Health and Safety legislation, and promote safer, healthier, and more productive workplaces.
Other resources the unit has released in 2025 under the Mental Health Capability Hub include text-based and audio-visual learning bites designed by clinical psychologists and human resources practitioners. Topics cover recognising and managing burnout, balancing work with other life demands, the mental health continuum, and psychological safety for employees and team leaders.
Prioritising mental health capability in the APS is essential to building a workforce that is resilient, engaged, and equipped to navigate ongoing uncertainty. Prioritising health and wellbeing and fostering psychologically safe and supportive environments helps employees to thrive and enables the APS to deliver effectively for the Australian community.
See also in this report
APS agency benchmarking – Perceptions of wellbeing policies and support
Appendix 2 – State of the Service additional data
Find out more
Australian Government (2023) Health and Wellbeing, APS Academy website, accessed 2 September 2025.
Comcare (2024) New Commonwealth Code of Practice in force, Comcare website, accessed 29 August 2025.
Australian Public Service Commission (2024) ADDRESS Suite: An APS model for responding to psychosocial hazards, APSC website, accessed 29 August 2025.