Address psychosocial hazards to create a safe and productive workplace
Managing and preventing the spread of psychosocial risks has become a prominent concern for all Australian workplaces today. The obligation to foster workplace cultures free of psychosocial risks was a secondary focus compared to physical risks until new laws on psychosocial hazards, under the model WHS laws, highlighted by SafeWork Australia changed this.
The laws require a preventative approach from leaders. Despite not being legally binding, the code assist employers in establishing a good standard of practice in the workplace.
"Psychosocial hazards are reasonably foreseeable hazards which may cause psychological and/or physical harm, and which arise from the design or management of work, the work environment, equipment at the workplace, or interactions and behaviours of people at work."
"The phrase may cause harm is very important because it tells us that while psychosocial hazards may cause harm, they don’t necessarily or always do so," says Steven Booker, Consulting Psychologist and Facilitator
The 14 psychosocial hazards recognised by Safe Work Australia
- Job demands
- Low job control
- Poor support
- Lack of role clarity
- Poor organisational change management
- Inadequate reward and recognition
- Poor organisation justice
- Traumatic events or material
- Remote or isolated work
- Poor physical environment
- Violence and agression
- Bullying
- Harassment, including sexual and gender-based harassment
- Conflict or poor workplace relationships and interactions
What we can help you with
The Australian WHS laws have placed the responsibility on employers to proactively prevent risks to workers' psychological health. While some organisations have been proactive in prevention before these new laws, the majority of interventions were reactive in nature. This implies that action was taken only when a complaint or incident came to light.
Identify the prevalence of existing psychosocial hazards in your organisation, and ensure the processes, working environment, team dynamics and other internal factors are not activating new hazards in the workplace
Design (or rewrite) highly tailored policies that are specific to addressing psychosocial risks, existing and potential, to ensure that they are not only compliant with Australian employment law (WHS Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards) but also align with your business’ objectives
Assess and review the nature of your workplace culture, including HR policies and procedures, complaints handling processes, active and upcoming intervention strategies, and identify gaps and opportunities in leadership behaviours
Supervise (or assist with) the implementation of policies and procedures throughout your organisation, which involves providing guidance on areas requiring special attention, communicating policies to employees, addressing considerations related to changes in working conditions, enhancing leadership practices to ensure and revising or updating policies and procedures with a focus on psychosocial risks.
Coach, train and mentor executives and leaders on how to reinforce and monitor the effectiveness of the chosen strategies to eliminate psychosocial risks. View Lead a psychosocially compliant and productive team training.
Who is this for?
Organisation with a serious intent to eliminate both physical and psychological risks to facilitate a healthy workplace environment will receive our assistance to navigate the terrain of psychosocial risks in the workplace.
The elimination of psychosocial risks is a leadership priority as it comes down to protecting people, their health and safety as well as enhancing the employer brand.
Business leaders
Persons conducting or undertaking (PCBUs)
Workplace safety and health officers
Line managers
HR professionals
How we do it
From start to end, the full process consists of 6 integral steps, but we can work around your organisation's needs
Initial consultation
We understand your business, people and help to determine the signs of psychosocial risks in employee performance, communication and engagement, and how to conduct supportive early intervention
Identify psychosocial risks
We conduct (or coach you to conduct) a globally validated and benchmarked employee risk survey and/or focus group to understand the risks in your business.
Analyse the perceptions between employees and managers
We analyse existing gaps between an employee's expectation of a highly functional workplace and a managers' risk perception.
Priortise risks
Propose risk assessment strategies (relevant to industry type, organisation size and job roles) to eliminate, as far as reasonably possible, the negative health impacts of psychosocial hazards in the workplace
Action
Go a step beyond annual employee satisfaction surveys to practically implement tailored strategies into a structured, documented system for managing psychosocial risks. This includes strengthening complaints handling processes like incident notification, data gathering, intervention evaluation and ongoing improvement
Monitoring
Regularly review the control measures to ensure they remain effective, relevant, and are preventative in nature. This helps reduce potential legal and health risks, and improves employee retention rates
Why choose us
With iHR Australia, you are choosing a partner that:
Understands that your approach to people matters needs to be appropriate to your business objectives and desired workplace culture.
Values proactive leadership to cultivate a psychosocially-risk free workplace culture.
Ensures that you are not just compliant with employment laws but continue to check-in with your business and people.
Guarantees a commitment to understand your business to provide tailored advice and support to design safer workplaces.
Utilises the expertise of a highly qualified and supportive team of Australian based senior consultants with over 20 years of industry experience.
Understands HR regulatory compliance relevant to your business, industry, and location.
Our pricing structure
Our pricing structure is customised and based on the type of expertise you need.
Service as needed
Pay by the hour based on number of hours the project needs.
Service on retainer
A monthly retainer fee based on the number of hours you regularly need.
Start the conversation
To start, select 'Enquire now' below to fill out the form or contact us 1300 671 340