Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace Regulations

In this special episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss psychosocial hazards in the workplace and the newly introduced Victorian Occupational Health and Safety (Psychosocial Health) Regulations 2025, which came into effect on 1 December.

They explain that the new regulations largely re-states existing Occupational Health and Safety legislation requirements to identify, eliminate, and reduce such hazards as far as reasonably practicable. They also note that psychosocial hazards can manifest in various ways, such as aggression, bullying, exposure to traumatic events, and high-demand jobs. However, they argue that many of the hazards listed in the regulations are failed controls. 

They recommend that organisations break down psychosocial issues into specific mechanisms, such as vicarious trauma, workload stress, and occupational violence, and then develop targeted controls to address those mechanisms, and highlight how high-risk industries, such as marine pilotage and emergency services, that have long-standing practices for managing psychosocial risks.

For further information on Richard and Gaye’s consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au, where you’ll also find their booklets (store) and a sign-up for their quarterly newsletter to keep informed of their latest news and events. 

Gaye is also founder of Australian women’s safety workwear company Apto PPE https://www.aptoppe.com.au.

Transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this special episode, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss psychosocial hazards in the workplace and the new Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 introduced in Victoria on the 1 December.

(00:23):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please give us a rating and subscribe on your favourite podcast platform. If you'd like more information on R2A's work or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:40):

Hi Richard, welcome to a special podcast session today.

Richard Robinson (00:43):

Indeed, Gaye.

Gaye Francis (00:45):

What we're going to do, we're going to talk about psychosocial issues and the reason for that is the timely release (today), the 1st of December, and the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Regulation around psychosocial issues has come out and takes effect as of today. And in our consulting work, we seem to be being asked a lot more questions.

Richard Robinson (01:10):

The last couple of courses we've done for different people, psychosocial stress has popped up as a significant component, people asking what we knew about it, basically.

Gaye Francis (01:17):

That's right. And I guess as a bit of a disclaimer, Richard and I are both engineers. We certainly don't work in specifically in the psychosocial space, so apologise in advance if we use some incorrect terminology. It's not intentional at all and there's nothing behind it. So I guess that's just a disclaimer from our viewpoint.

(01:40):

But in the work that we see and the work that we've done around psychosocial issues, it's been one of many issues that we've considered for organisations. It hasn't been the only issue. And I think what we've seen is the rise of this has seen it as the key issue that organisations have to deal with. I don't think I necessarily agree with that. I think there's still some pretty serious physical issues and hazards that need to be dealt with. But what we thought we'd do is just go through the Regulation and then a little bit on what we think and how you can break it down and deal with how you can identify and control some of these psychosocial issues.

Richard Robinson (02:23):

Yeah, I was just reading the Regulations and at one level I find this a bit odd because all they're really doing is re-stating what the legislation already says.

Gaye Francis (02:32):

Which is Occupational Health and Safety Legislation.

Richard Robinson (02:33):

Occupational psychosocial stress had always been an aspect of that.

Gaye Francis (02:36):

Correct.

Richard Robinson (02:37):

For some reason it seems to peculiarly have its own regulations. But I mean just from a very practical point of view, once you get into the thing in detail, it actually does summarise the SFAIRP (So Far As Is Reasonably Practicable) proficiency of the WHS legislation. And from our point of view it's a bit strange. I mean, as we've said, we've done some consulting work for this sort of thing, but it's always been one hazard amongst many. And the way you sort of talked about the breakup and the way we went around it, it's probably worth explaining. I suppose just from my point of view, we find the regulation a bit confusing.

Gaye Francis (03:10):

Just before you go there. So when Richard says that it's really the same as the Occupational Health and Safety legislation that is you have to eliminate psychosocial hazards or issues so far as is reasonably practicable.

Richard Robinson (03:23):

Well, you've got to identify them first.

Gaye Francis (03:24):

Identify them first and then eliminate them so far as is reasonably practicable. If you can't eliminate them, they have to be reduced so far as reasonably practicable. Which is the same obligation as the OHS and WHS legislation.

Richard Robinson (03:36):

Yeah, and this regulation just re-states that at a number of number levels you've got to consult widely and all the rest of it and how you go about it. But the issue has not changed. And I suppose what I find a bit odd, just for example, they talk about what a psychsocial hazard means and that the fact it can be created in various ways, then it gives some examples. And we find that it's got the same confusions we come across in lots of places and lots of risk registers.

(04:00):

It's got aggressional violence, bullying, exposure to traumatic events or content, high demand jobs. Then it starts talking about controls and in effect what they're talking about is failed controls: low job control, low job demands, low recognition reward, low role clarity, poor environmental conditions, poor, poor organisational change management and poor organisational justice, poor support, poor workplace relationships, remote or isolated work, and sexual harassment. But a lot of those are actually failed controls. If you are trying to make sure certain things are done, manage aggression or violence, well then you actually have to have ways of identifying where that might occur, to whom it might occur, what controls you can put in place.

Gaye Francis (04:39):

And then you quality assurance system.

Richard Robinson (04:40):

Some of these ones are these things, the fact that you leave somebody out in the sticks where they can be attacked and you don't have any way of following up with them or consulting with them or having controls to assist them, I just find that a bit strange.

Gaye Francis (04:55):

So I guess that leads on to the work that we have done in this space and it's around if you just have a catch-all for psychosocial issues, we've seen that not work very well because you need to actually break it down to the mechanisms that we're talking about. And the key ones that we've seen is that vicarious trauma - the content of a particular job, workload stresses, third partner threatening scenarios, sexual harassment, bullying, negative behavior, all of those sort of things, and then occupational violence within the workplace. And if you can break it down into those, the controls really then match into those different mechanisms.

Richard Robinson (05:34):

That's your duty under the OHS Act because the idea, I mean you're going to try to eliminate and that's your objective.

Gaye Francis (05:41):

Absolutely.

Richard Robinson (05:42):

And we've sort of talked about that before with, it's like saying the police commissioner's objective is to eliminate child molestation in the city. And we say, yeah, we agree with your objective. Is it going to happen? Probably not. But what you want to do is to demonstrate you've done every reasonable practical thing you can to manage it. And that's the due diligence part. So you're not saying you're going to prevent it totally, but you're going to make sure that obviously egregious failures are going to be prevented.

Gaye Francis (06:08):

And you've got mechanisms in place to, as you said, identify them. Follow our why model again: What are all the credible critical issues? What are the controls that you could put in place to do it? What are reasonable in the circumstances? And then as you said, the quality assurance system to follow up to make sure those controls that you have agreed to are sustained.

Richard Robinson (06:27):

And the Act already says you've got to consult widely and give people the opportunity to express their concerns in a constructive and useful manner. There's nothing new or novel in that. That's why when you read this, obviously it's been done so that people can have a more focused target or something. But it doesn't actually change anything. It says identification of psychosocial; you must so far as is reasonably practicable identify psychosocial hazards. You must so far as is reasonably practicable eliminate any risk. And if you can't eliminate, you must so far as reasonably practical reduce.

Gaye Francis (07:04):

I think we just add one more thing. There's also a little bit of confusion around mental health issues associated with it, and I'm not sure that psychosocial issues and mental health are one and the same. I think that it is an aspect that can contribute to psychosocial issues and how that plays in and that may affect the types of controls that you put in place, for example, or some of the pre-employment checks that get done. The other example that we had up in the discussion that we've had in the last week around psychosocial issues has been with the marine pilots and them able to be -- one of the psychosocial issues is they've got the pressures of bringing large ships in on environmental conditions and weather conditions that may not be...

Richard Robinson (07:53):

With strange ship crews that they don't know.

Gaye Francis (07:55):

So there's all of those pressures that come in, but then there's also the pressure of getting the ship in and getting it unloaded for the efficiency of the port as well. So all of those things come in and we were sort of talking that through and they were saying that some of the things that they've started to do, which I think are really interesting, are pre-employment psychological checks and tests.

Richard Robinson (08:19):

That you're capable working in a high stress situation, and you won't go into a panic and freeze or do various things.

Gaye Francis (08:25):

You've got a very, very big ship under your control. And the other thing that they were talking about was some peer support network that they're trying to set up that you actually don't talk to somebody that's not in the industry. You've talked to somebody who does the job, and what would you do? So it's sort of taking the decision away, I guess, from you making the decision by yourself.

Richard Robinson (08:47):

Well you're sharing responsibility, but the marine pilots have always done that and the air pilots do it and the surgeons do it. I would not have thought this was new or novel. I think that's what's got me bit puzzled.

Gaye Francis (08:59):

I think because it's been expanded out to a wider industry, but there is some really good (examples), the emergency services deal with all of this sort of stuff on a regular basis. So I think there's some things that we can learn and certainly not reinventing the wheel here.

Richard Robinson (09:14):

Well, that's what this regulation suggests, that the wheel needs reinventing.

Gaye Francis (09:17):

Correct. And I dunno that it does.

Richard Robinson (09:19):

I don't know that's what this (regulation does). There's nothing particularly new and novel in here that I can detect. And it is very frustrating. I like the examples I just gave where they're confusing fail controls with hazards in themselves.

Gaye Francis (09:31):

Then the mechanisms are different mechanisms that relate.

Richard Robinson (09:33):

That's just very difficult.

Gaye Francis (09:34):

So our advice would be that everyone needs to consider psychosocial and you always have, it's always been part of OHS ACt. It's not new or novel. But go to a level of detail that you pull out what the actual mechanisms are and then the controls that you can put in place to affect those mechanisms or deal with those mechanisms.

Richard Robinson (09:55):

But safety due diligence, again, which our OHS Act in Victoria does not call up in itself, but it obviously is the fact that you've identified the issue and you've demonstrated all reasonable practical controls are in place. And if you've done those things, the question then is: What else can you do? Which is what the legislation is testing you for.

Gaye Francis (10:13):

And as I would always say to our clients, document why you're not going to do something that's just as important to document why you are going to do something. So thanks for joining us today, Richard, on our special podcast session and we hope you listen next time. Thanks everyone.

Richard Robinson (10:28):

Thanks everyone.