Psychosocial hazards at work

The fourteen on Safe Work Australia’s list

Safe Work Australia names these as common psychosocial hazards at work, in these words:

• “Job demands”
• “Low job control”
• “Poor support”
• “Lack of role clarity”
• “Poor organisational change management”
• “Inadequate reward and recognition”
• “Poor organisational justice”
• “Traumatic events or material”
• “Remote or isolated work”
• “Poor physical environment”
• “Violence and aggression”
• “Bullying”
• “Harassment, including sexual and gender-based harassment”
• “Conflict or poor workplace relationships and interactions”

Safe Work Australia says the model WHS Regulations “define a psychosocial hazard as a hazard that may cause psychological harm (whether or not it may also cause physical harm).” These hazards come from, or connect to, four things: how work is designed or managed, a work environment, plant at a workplace, or the ways people interact and behave at work. So the list reaches well past behaviour between people: a workload, unclear reporting lines or badly managed change can be a hazard, just as high noise can.

When ordinary pressure becomes a hazard

Most of Safe Work Australia’s hazard pages draw the line in the same way: the hazard is more than an ordinary moment at work, and it becomes a hazard when it is severe, prolonged or frequent.

Its examples of what falls short are small, everyday ones: sometimes being a little busy, an occasional slow afternoon, a lift with no mobile reception, an office that is a little chilly first thing on a cold morning.

In Safe Work Australia’s account, the harm comes through stress. It says stress itself is not an injury, but stress that is frequent, long-lasting or high can cause harm. The psychological harm may include anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep disorders, and the physical harm may include musculoskeletal injuries, chronic disease or fatigue-related injuries.

Hazards also combine. Some may create no risk on their own but may do so alongside others: high workloads, for instance, carry more risk when workers cannot take breaks or there is no one around to help. Safe Work Australia says it matters to look at the full set of psychosocial hazards workers could face.

What each hazard looks like at work

Ten of the fourteen, summarised from Safe Work Australia’s page for each. Bullying, harassment, and violence and aggression have pages of their own, and the fourteenth, conflict or poor workplace relationships and interactions, is named in the list above.

Hazard	What it means	One control Safe Work Australia gives as an example
Job demands	Physical, mental or emotional effort that is too high, or for long stretches too low: long hours without enough breaks, or long idle periods and highly repetitive tasks.	Schedule enough time for difficult tasks; new or junior workers may need more time, supervision or support.
Low job control	Little say over how or when the work is done, such as needing permission for routine, low-risk tasks.	Match each worker’s autonomy to their role and skills, and streamline decisions on routine or low-risk tasks.
Poor support	Not enough help from supervisors or co-workers, or not the tools and information needed to do the job well.	Make sure supervisors have the skills and the time to manage, and set the workplace up so help is easy to get.
Lack of role clarity	Unclear jobs, responsibilities or expectations: overlapping tasks, unclear reporting lines, priorities that keep changing.	Clear position descriptions, clear reporting lines, and an induction that explains the role and its expectations.
Poor organisational change management	Change that is poorly planned, communicated, supported or managed.	Consult the workers affected, as a PCBU must, and allow extra time while people learn new tasks.
Inadequate reward and recognition	An imbalance between the effort people put in and the recognition or reward they get back.	Feedback that is prompt, specific, practical and fair, and performance management focused on what workers can control.
Poor organisational justice	A lack of fair decision-making, of keeping people in the loop, or of treating them with dignity and respect.	Transparent processes, a way to raise concerns or appeal decisions, and protection for workers who raise safety concerns.
Remote or isolated work	Work cut off from help by its location, time or nature, such as cleaning an office after hours.	Effective communication with the worker; the model code on the work environment covers communication systems, buddy systems and movement records.
Poor physical environment	Unpleasant, poor quality or hazardous conditions, including high noise, uncomfortable temperatures or poor lighting.	Eliminate or minimise both the psychosocial and the physical risks; some, such as plant, carry specific duties of their own.
Traumatic events or materials	Witnessing, investigating or being exposed to traumatic events or material, such as an online moderator seeing evidence of a crime.	Limit each worker’s exposure, for example by rotating roles, and increase breaks, recovery time and support.

Bullying gets its own room in this guide: workplace bullying. Fatigue, which long hours and poor rosters feed, has another: fatigue and shift work.

Four steps, done with the people who do the work

Safe Work Australia says psychosocial risks should be managed using the risk management process, and that each step must be done in consultation with workers and any health and safety representatives.

1. Identify the hazardsWorkers may describe them in their own words: saying they feel stressed, burnt out, worried or unmotivated, or raising concerns about workload, tasks or timeframes.
2. Assess the risksThe longer, more often and more severe the exposure, the higher the risk that someone is harmed.
3. Control the risksEliminate them if reasonably practicable; if not, minimise them so far as is reasonably practicable.
4. Review the controlsReview them regularly: check they work as planned, and change any that are not managing the hazard or are creating new risks.

Records help with the first two steps. Safe Work Australia suggests looking at overtime, time off, injuries, incidents and workers’ compensation, watching how work is actually done (people rushing or making a lot of mistakes may point to demands that are too high), and having a way for workers to report concerns that treats them seriously and respectfully.

When choosing controls, the model Regulations require regard to all relevant matters (regulation 55D(2)). Among them: how long, how often and how severely people are exposed; how hazards interact; the design of the work and of the workplace, including facilities for workers’ welfare; workplace interactions or behaviours; and the information, training, instruction and supervision workers receive. The legal frame behind all of this, the primary duty of care, is the next room along: the WHS duty of care.

Safe Work Australia’s model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work sets the process out in full. A model code has legal effect in a jurisdiction only once it is approved there, so the page suggests checking with the local WHS regulator.