EUDOXIA (APR – 3008)

Can EAP data serve as an early-warning system for psychosocial hazards?

Education, Humanities and Social Sciences

ABOUT THE INDUSTRY PARTNER

Eudoxia is an Australian-owned and operated Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider, delivering confidential counselling, critical incident response, training and workplace wellness services to organisations across Australia, New Zealand and beyond. We support both employees and management to resolve workplace challenges, maintain morale and sustain productivity, with a responsive service model operating 365 days a year.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?

• Hands-on experience with real, de-identified workplace data to solve a live commercial problem — directly relevant to Australia’s new WHS psychosocial hazard regulations.
• Mentorship and supervision from experienced EAP clinicians, workplace psychologists and HR professionals, with exposure to how research translates into practice.
• The opportunity to help shape a tool or framework with genuine potential to be adopted across the organisation’s client base, and to be published or presented at industry conferences.
• A chance to build a professional network in the workplace health, safety and wellbeing sector — valuable experience for careers in psychology, HR, public health or data science.

RESEARCH TO BE CONDUCTED

This project will investigate whether de-identified Employee Assistance Program (EAP) data can act as a leading indicator of workplace psychosocial hazards, rather than only serving its traditional role as a reactive, tertiary support.

The intern will begin with a literature review of psychosocial hazard frameworks (e.g. ISO 45003, Safe Work Australia’s Model Code of Practice) and existing approaches to EAP outcome measurement, to establish how “hazard signals” might be defined and detected in counselling data. They will then work with de-identified, aggregated EAP data (such as presenting issue categories, call volumes, and industry/site-level trends) to explore patterns that may correlate with known psychosocial hazards — for example, spikes in workload-related or bullying-related presentations within a particular sector or client group.

Depending on the student’s discipline and skills, the analysis may involve quantitative methods (trend and correlation analysis, basic predictive modelling) and/or qualitative thematic analysis of de-identified case summaries. The project will conclude with an assessment of the feasibility, limitations (including privacy, data quality and generalisability) and practical value of using EAP data this way, and recommendations for how such an approach could be piloted with client organisations.

SKILLS WISH LIST

If you’re a postgraduate research student and meet some or all the below we want to hear from you. We strongly encourage women, indigenous and disadvantaged candidates to apply:

• Background or postgraduate study in psychology, organisational psychology, human resources, public health, or a related behavioural/social science field.
• Strong research skills, including literature review and critical appraisal of academic and industry sources (e.g. WHS/psychosocial hazard frameworks).
• Quantitative data analysis skills (e.g. Excel, SPSS, R or Python) and/or qualitative thematic analysis skills, depending on project direction.
• Sound understanding of data privacy, confidentiality and ethical handling of sensitive workplace and health-related information.
• Clear written communication skills, with the ability to translate data and findings into practical recommendations for a non-academic audience.
• Self-motivated and comfortable working semi-independently with remote supervision.

RESEARCH OUTCOMES

• A clear assessment of whether, and how, de-identified EAP data (e.g. presenting issue categories, call volumes, site/industry trends) can be used to identify early signals of psychosocial hazards such as bullying, excessive workload or burnout.
• A draft framework or set of indicators that could be used to flag emerging psychosocial risk at a client or industry level, including its practical limitations (data quality, privacy, sample size, generalisability).
• Evidence-based recommendations on how such an approach could be piloted with client organisations, and how it could support employers in meeting their proactive WHS psychosocial risk-management duties.
• A written report suitable for internal use and, where appropriate, adaptation into a conference presentation, whitepaper or journal submission co-authored with Eudoxia.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

The intern will receive $3,300 per month of the internship, usually in the form of scholarship payments.

It is expected that the intern will primarily undertake this research project during regular business hours and maintain contact with their academic mentor throughout the internship either through face-to-face or phone meetings as appropriate.

The intern and their academic mentor will have the opportunity to negotiate the project’s scope, milestones and timeline during the project planning stage.

Please note, applications are reviewed regularly and this internship may be filled prior to the advertised closing date if a suitable applicant is identified. Early submissions are encouraged.

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