Eliminating psychosocial risks must be a collaboration

A two-year research project conducted across four residential care facilities has wrapped up, providing strategies on how to eliminate or minimise psychosocial risks associated with increased job demands.

The aged-care sector was used as the case study for recent Safe Work Australia grant-funded research. The research identified effective and cost-efficient ways that organisations can reduce job demands, which are often a catalyst for psychosocial risks coming to fruition.

The research found a number of different strategies that can be applied, with involving workers in identifying psychosocial hazards and the redesign process proving to be the most important one.

Involve workers through participatory processes in all stages

Having a participatory approach among employees and organisational employees was noted in the report as being an effective strategy that can “positively contribute to better intervention implementation and outcomes”.

Some of the key reasons were:

• It improves the chances that solutions address relevant problems or root causes of experienced job demands.
• It facilitates the identification of tailored solutions to redesign, minimise or eliminate job demands that are rooted in the real needs and experiences of employees.
• Employing participatory processes represents in itself a work redesign intervention that can support employee wellbeing due to its effects on employee increased autonomy to deal with workplace inefficiencies, more opportunities to voice important workplace issues with the leadership team and increased participation in decision making regarding relevant work processes.

In this collaboration with employees, problem spaces within the workplace can be better identified, assuming that employees who are working day-to-day will be well accustomed to their environment. Discovering this kind of information through that collaboration will help target the intervention towards those specific areas where maximum potential for gains and impact can be made.

The key, however, is maintaining those communication levels throughout the duration of the implementation process, as constant improvements and modifications can be made to negate those risks.

There’s no one better to get that information off of than employees, especially in regard to job demands. According to the report, to see real change in this space, it requires “genuine support and endorsement from leaders and decision makers within the business for continuous and systematic processes that target improvements in work conditions”.

“In other words, work processes and practices should be continuously considered and scrutinised,” the report said.

Overall, the involvement of employees in decision-making solutions is always positive and will ensure that since their voices are heard, when implementation arrives, they will be far more willing to support the initiative than if they were neglected.