In the latest edition of our researcher profile series, we meet Dr Charlotte Brakenridge, a research fellow at the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing in the Griffith Business School. With a multidisciplinary background in public health and psychology, Charlotte is passionate about improving worker health and wellbeing. We explore her journey into academia, the projects she’s currently leading and her advice for emerging researchers.
What path led you to becoming a researcher?
I’ve always been fascinated why people make certain choices and behave in certain ways, so it made sense that I studied psychology as my undergraduate degree. I also really enjoyed the whole research process: planning studies, recruiting and talking to participants, collecting and analysing data, and writing up results, and this motivated me to seek research assistant positions after completing my undergrad. I was lucky to secure a research assistant role in public health research, working across trials to improve physical activity and diet in people with diabetes and breast cancer. I continued in this role for four years, from 2010 until 2014.
I then started my PhD, completing it in 2018. For my PhD, I co-designed and evaluated a workplace health promotion program for office workers to reduce sitting time and increase activity. I discovered unique supporting factors and challenges in delivering interventions in workplace settings. Workplace factors are so important! This inspired further postdoctoral research with workers improving their physical and mental health. During my PhD, I also had many other positive experiences, such as great supervision, supportive colleagues, opportunities to go overseas and present my research, and the thrill of having my work published, all of which motivated me to continue along this path.
What sparked your passion for your research area?
‘I want to ensure that my research can be impactful in workers that may be overlooked […]. This potential for broad impact keeps my passion going’.
My passion for workplace health commenced during my PhD when I realised the behaviour changes workers made weren’t just about individual choice, but about the entire organisational systems around them. When Covid-19 happened a short while later, it was evident that existing intervention approaches would need a rethink due to the challenges of remote and hybrid work. I was really taken by these two thoughts: How can we make workplace interventions work better and be more sustainable in organisations? And are we reaching the workers who need these interventions most?
My first thought resulted in me returning to study a Master of Organisational Psychology. I felt I had a good understanding of how to conduct a health promotion intervention in a workplace, but not of how more business-related topics, such as job design and leadership, may facilitate or hinder these interventions. This degree was invaluable and really complemented my existing knowledge and experience.
My second thought motivates me to ensure my work is applicable and relevant across multiple industries and settings. I’ve had the opportunity to work across multiple industries including both white and blue-collar workers, and across multiple research areas including health promotion, return to work, and diversity and inclusion. I want to ensure that my research can be impactful in workers that may be overlooked or may miss out on feasible intervention strategies. This potential for broad impact keeps my passion going.
Can you tell us a bit about the projects you are currently working on?
One of my major research streams explores this question: Do workplace cultures and job characteristics influence whether workers sit all day or find opportunities to be active during their workday? We know poor psychosocial work environments are bad for worker mental health, but little is known about how these environments impact on workers’ sitting time and physical activity. This research involves a systematic review and a study using ecological momentary assessment. Ecological momentary assessment is the capturing of repeated real-time data allowing exploration of associations within individuals, as well as between individuals.
I have also conducted related research in the call centre industry, where workers experience high work demands and sit for most of their workday. A detrimental outcome of this environment is that they can gain almost one kilogram a month and experience high rates of depression and musculoskeletal problems. To explore the impact of work characteristics on the health of these workers, I conducted a systematic review and focus group study, collaborating with industry partners. My research in this industry has uncovered that detrimental psychosocial work environments are associated with poor physical and mental health, creating barriers to engage in health promotion efforts. Thus, it is important for workplace health promotion programs to address psychosocial work environment issues.
I’m also diversifying my workplace research into blue-collar industries. I’m currently investigating how cultural diversity and inclusion practices impact employee wellbeing in meat processing facilities—an industry facing unique challenges in recruitment, high turnover and a multicultural workforce. The aim is to explore the benefits and challenges of diversity and inclusion across culture, gender and neurodiversity, and the impacts on attraction and retention. Preliminary findings suggest that supportive leaders, co-workers and networks outside the organisation can improve employee outcomes. It’s also meant I’ve expanded my knowledge of an industry that I was previously unfamiliar with, allowing me to flex my research skills in a different workplace context.
Overall, what’s emerging across all these studies is a pattern—poor psychosocial work environments create a cascade of associated problems, harming not just mental wellbeing but also physical health and workplace inclusion. For workplace health interventions to be truly effective, they must address organisational culture, not just individual behaviours.
Do you have any advice for researchers just starting out?
‘One of my colleagues used to keep party poppers in her desk to celebrate any small win […]. Any moment of joy matters’.
This is the advice I have learnt along the way in my career so far:
- Find your niche: Having a clear research identity helps others understand your value and leads to more collaboration opportunities.
- Be versatile: I’ve found that being skilled in both quantitative and qualitative approaches makes you invaluable to research teams and allows you to tackle questions from multiple angles.
- Choose collaborators carefully: Research projects can take years, and toxic team dynamics can derail both your motivation and your wellbeing. It’s important to find collaborators that respond in reasonable time frames, communicate openly and are encouraging of each other’s achievements.
- Gain experience early: Research assistant roles give a preview of research life, helping you to build skills and contacts, identify good supervisors, and contribute to papers and start building your CV before committing to a PhD.
- Maintain perspective: Every researcher’s worth goes beyond publications and citations. Your research skills developed in your PhD will be valuable across many contexts, including industry and government.
- Celebrate small wins: For example, don’t wait until a paper’s been accepted or published—this may be a long time down the track and you may not feel as excited as you once were. One of my colleagues used to keep party poppers in her desk to celebrate any small win—paper submission, finishing data collection or a difficult analysis. Any moment of joy matters.
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