Explore psychosocial risk assessment, healthy work design, controls, consultation, ISO 45003 and the practical methods organisations can use to understand and improve work.
Explore Psychosocial Risk knowledge ↓
Psychosocial Risk.
Understand the work. Reduce the exposure.
Psychosocial risk management can become complicated quickly.
Surveys.
Hazard lists.
Risk matrices.
Action plans.
Wellbeing programs.
Policies.
Dashboards.
Standards.
Before any of those, there is a simpler question:
What is it about the work that could cause harm?
Then:
Who is exposed?
How are they exposed?
Under what conditions?
What is already protecting them?
What needs to change?
How will we know it worked?
That is the foundation.
Start here.
New to psychosocial risk?
Begin with these foundations.
WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL RISK?
Understand how work-related psychosocial hazards create exposure and potential psychological or physical harm.
WHAT IS A PSYCHOSOCIAL HAZARD?
Understand the conditions arising from work design, management, environment, interactions and behaviours that can create harm.
HOW DO YOU ASSESS PSYCHOSOCIAL RISK?
Learn how to combine data, consultation and understanding of work to determine where exposure exists and what needs attention.
HOW DO YOU CONTROL PSYCHOSOCIAL RISK?
Move beyond awareness and individual coping strategies toward changes in work design, systems and operating conditions.
WHAT IS ISO 45003?
Understand how ISO 45003 provides guidance for managing psychosocial risk within an occupational health and safety management system.
The Psychosocial Risk model.
A practical psychosocial risk approach connects the conditions of work with exposure, control and health.
WORK
How is the work designed and managed?
HAZARD
What aspect of the work could cause harm?
EXPOSURE
Who encounters it, how often and under what conditions?
RISK
What could result from that exposure?
CONTROL
What can eliminate or minimise the exposure?
EFFECTIVENESS
Did the conditions actually improve?
LEARNING
What should change next?
Start upstream.
What is psychosocial risk?
Psychosocial risk arises from exposure to psychosocial hazards associated with work.
The risk depends on more than whether a hazard exists.
Consider:
The nature of the hazard.
Frequency of exposure.
Duration.
Intensity.
Combination with other hazards.
Who is exposed.
Existing controls.
Individual and operational circumstances.
Potential consequences.
Hazard tells us what can cause harm.
Exposure tells us how the risk reaches people.
What is a psychosocial hazard?
A psychosocial hazard is a condition associated with the design or management of work, the working environment, workplace interactions or behaviours that may cause psychological or physical harm.
Depending on the workplace and applicable framework, these may include:
High job demands.
Low job control.
Poor support.
Lack of role clarity.
Poor organisational change management.
Inadequate recognition and reward.
Poor organisational justice.
Remote or isolated work.
Poor physical environment.
Violence and aggression.
Bullying.
Harassment.
Conflict.
Traumatic events or material.
Psychosocial hazards are conditions of work.
Hazard is not outcome.
Psychosocial terminology can become confused.
HAZARD
Something about the work capable of causing harm.
EXPOSURE
The person's interaction with that hazard.
RISK
The possibility and potential severity of harm arising from exposure.
CONTROL
Something that eliminates or minimises exposure or its consequences.
OUTCOME
The resulting effect on health or other organisational outcomes.
Stress, burnout, psychological injury and poor mental health may be important outcomes or signals.
They are not interchangeable with the hazard itself.
Name the condition you can change.
Mental health is not psychosocial risk.
Mental health is broader than work.
People's psychological health can be influenced by many factors inside and outside the workplace.
Psychosocial risk management has a more specific purpose:
Identify and manage work-related conditions that can cause harm.
This distinction helps organisations focus on what they can control without attempting to diagnose workers or explain every health outcome.