Evaluating psychosocial risk in the workplace

Through diligent evaluation, businesses can ensure they are not vulnerable to serious litigation and, most importantly, that their team is as safe as possible from psychosocial risks, fostering positive mental health, writes Nick Croser.

With psychosocial hazards now legislated in Australian work safety law, many businesses are starting from ground zero to build risk mitigation strategies. Psychosocial hazards are dynamic and complex in nature, bringing a unique set of evaluation challenges to HR teams.

Here are four tips to set up psychosocial work safety evaluation for success.

Setting a baseline

Commonly, our first instinct when learning of a psychosocial safety issue in the workplace is to find a solution; however, it is vital we capture a baseline for ongoing trend analysis before triggering an intervention.

Psychosocial hazard baseline assessment features two primary streams: understanding the risks of harm at the individual level, followed by the risk to the organisation from lost productivity and duty-of-care litigation. We are often met by businesses two or three years into a program, but unable to demonstrate these elements despite their admirable efforts to improve safety.

A non-existent or poorly recorded baseline could result in increased risk for employee safety (as problems are not adequately identified or addressed), wasted time and budget, and the potential for lower engagement in future interventions.

HR teams and leaders should implement a robust assessment process combining qualitative and quantitative employee consultation. Due to the dynamic nature of psychosocial hazards, this data should be captured over time rather than as a snapshot.

This will ensure the HR department and senior leadership have a clear view of psychosocial risk to make informed decisions throughout every stage of the safety intervention.

Identifying the right metrics

It’s important to recognise that correlation does not equate to causation. For example, by educating employees on psychosocial hazards and implementing a reporting system, an organisation may see increased safety reports. This doesn’t mean things are necessarily getting worse; it’s just giving the key stakeholders a better understanding of what is going on, which can be a positive.

There is a range of data sources that could be suitable to track, such as unplanned leave, employee engagement survey responses, or, in fact, hazard reports. The key is the context around these metrics and how they give perspective on what’s happening in the work environment.

These metrics should provide rich and accurate insights that are of high value for senior leaders to inform control effectiveness.

Removing biases and creating safe spaces for evaluation

One of the most difficult barriers to overcome in psychosocial risk evaluation is bias. Many elements of psychosocial safety can be intangible, which creates room for interpretation.

Some of the common pitfalls include:

• Sunken cost fallacy – where organisations persist with an intervention because a significant amount has already been invested.
• Reputational risk – often, a team member will be spearheading an initiative and may have fears that if it does not succeed, there will be negative consequences.

Well-implemented evaluation should provide clear and accurate data on what is working and what is not, helping to eliminate interpretation and inform decision making with the best information available.

What’s important is that the business supports a culture of honesty and empathy to quickly address issues, understand the why, and continually seek improvement in psychological safety.

Meeting psychosocial evaluation standards

The regulators in this space are sophisticated and highly active. When assessing psychosocial hazard prevention, they will require evidence of information used to identify risks and demonstration of the effectiveness of proactive controls implemented.

The regulator is looking for action. What steps has the organisation taken to understand and mitigate the risks? What data can they provide to quantify the outcomes?

Every team is at a unique stage of the psychosocial risk journey; some will have comprehensive prevention programs, while others will be in their infancy. The regulator is not expecting perfect systems but rather a concerted effort to understand and mitigate these risks.

Through diligent evaluation, businesses can ensure they are not vulnerable to serious litigation and, most importantly, that their team is as safe as possible from psychosocial risks, fostering positive mental health.

Nick Croser is the head of business operations at Sonder.