How To Report Pyschosocial Hazards At Work

Key Take-Aways

• Psychosocial hazards stem from various sources, such as workload, workplace interactions, and management practices and can lead to both psychological and physical harm.
• Effective hazard reporting systems are crucial for compliance with safety regulations. Businesses must implement processes to ensure that all reported hazards are documented and addressed systematically.
• Overcoming barriers to reporting, such as lack of awareness or fear of repercussions, is essential to promoting a culture where employees feel safe to report psychosocial hazards.

Understanding Psychosocial Hazards

Psychosocial Hazards arise from the design or management of work, the working environment and workplace interactions or behaviour. According to The Model Code of Practice 2022.

Psychosocial hazards are hazards that arise from or in relation to:

• • the design or management of work
  • the working environment
  • plant at a workplace, or
  • workplace interactions or behaviours; and
  • may cause psychological and physical harm

Types of Hazards in the workplace

Psychosocial hazards may vary between workplaces and between groups of workers, depending on the work environment, organisational context and the nature of work. They can stem from various sources such as workload, lack of control over work, poor social support, and more. Unlike physical hazards psychosocial hazards can be hard to identify and can impact on different teams at different intensity’s, and can be in isolation, as well as on a global context.

Find out more about How To Manage Psychosocial Hazards at work.

How to Report Hazards in the workplace

Why Reporting Psychosocial Hazards Matters

Businesses have an obligation under the code of practice to ensure they have a process to identify hazards, with reporting being a key part of the obligations. Regulators will be checking that business have created safe systems of work, with process and procedures to identify, assess and manage psychosocial hazards. Business that have not taken any steps to manage this are at risk of non-compliance. Find out how non-compliance and mental health are costing businesses.

One of the easiest first steps to ensure compliance for psychosocial hazards is to ensure there is a way to report and record risks and hazards.

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Hazard reporting Systems

To ensure your business is compliant with your obligations under the code of practice your business must have processes for identify, assessing and controlling hazards. Many risks registers address only physical hazards, leaving a gap for the monitoring of psychosocial hazards. An internal system or risk tracker such as a spreadsheet or shared database is only appropriate if the key people have been identified as part of the information and escalation process, otherwise you risk hazards being reported but not actioned.

Hazards are often not reported in traditional ways, instead they may be discussed in team meetings, sent in an email, or brought up to a team leader. If there is no systematic process for documenting these issues then the information is lost and the opportunity to take preventative action is lost.

Foremind helps business to address this gap by providing a multi-dimensional way of managing your psychosocial health and safety needs. Our unique approach an incident management system, a reporting and tracking systems as well as your proactive mental health support all in one place.

Barriers to Reporting Psychosocial Hazards

Creating a culture that encourages open dialogue and however workers might not report psychosocial hazards for a number of reasons, such a lack of awareness or understanding of reporting procedures. In some workplaces perceptions of the hazards associated with the job may be seen as “normal” or unavoidable, however they still need to be identified and documented.

• they may see them as just ‘part of the job’ or the work culture,
• they might think reports will be ignored, or not handled respectfully and confidentially
• The might fear they will be blamed or believe reporting may expose them to additional harm, discrimination or disadvantage
• They do not know or understand how to report a hazard

Encouraging and Facilitating Reporting

If you are just starting out it is important consider strategies to encourage and to promote reporting of psychosocial hazards.

Start with providing training to leaders and managers on understanding psychosocial hazards and the process for reporting these hazards. Staff should also be provided training about identifying and reporting psychosocial hazards.

Communicate clearly with staff about your business commitment to psychosocial health and safety in the workplace. Use a variety of communication channels to share your message, and consider how to reach staff who may not have regular access to emails, or your casual workforce.

Encourage reporting by providing transparent feedback about actions taken and risks identified within the business. The best way to build a culture that promotes a safe systems of work is demonstrating a commitment to action and a desire for change.

Unlike physical hazards psychosocial hazards can impact on different teams at different intensity’s, and can be in isolation, as well as on a global context. Risk factors affecting the psychosocial safety of workers need to be identified at a number of levels, through a process of identification and assessment. Ensuring your business is accurately reporting, tracking and monitoring hazards organisations means able to identify trends and take preventative action.

To ensure your business is meeting its psychosocial health and safety obligations, Foremind has developed an easy to use solution. Our integrated platform easily manages of hazard reporting and risk management, as well as providing all your worker wellbeing needs.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Louise is the Clinical Director at Foremind, with over a decade of experience in the mental health sector, contributing to well-known Australian organizations like Beyond Blue, Lifeline, Headspace, and LivingWorks.

       Louise Thompson               Clinical Director      

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