Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace: Where the Line Actually Sits

I was talking to an HR consultant recently, and she gave me a great example of how confusing psychosocial hazards in the workplace can get.

An employee had raised a concern that they didn’t have enough control over their job.

Fair enough. Low job control is one of the recognised psychosocial hazards, so the business looked into it.

When they finally asked what enough control would actually look like, the answer was basically total control. What they did, when they did it and how they did it.

That was never going to work either.

I think this is where a lot of the conversation around psychosocial hazards gets a bit lost.

Nobody’s saying these hazards aren’t real. They are, and employers have a responsibility to manage them. Low job control just doesn’t mean total job control. High job demands don’t mean work can never get busy. Poor change management doesn’t mean everyone has to agree with every change.

So I wanted to look at what some of these hazards actually mean, and just as importantly, what they don’t. If you want the full list, I’ve covered all 17 here. This one is about the eight I hear the most confusion about.

What are psychosocial hazards in the workplace?

In plain terms, they’re the parts of work that can harm people psychologically, and sometimes physically. Things like workload, how much say people have, the support they get, how change is handled, how fairly people are treated, and how people behave towards each other.

Most workplaces will have conditions that could become psychosocial hazards. What matters is the level of exposure, how often it happens, and what else is going on around it.

How do you tell normal work from a hazard?

Not every exposure carries the same level of risk. The regulators ask you to look at three things:

• How serious is it?

• How often does it happen?

• How long has it been going on?

And you look at them together, because hazards “can interact or combine with other psychosocial hazards to increase the risks.” (Commonwealth Code of Practice, 2024)

So one hard week probably isn’t high job demands. One decision you don’t agree with probably isn’t poor organisational justice. And simply being told what your job involves isn’t low job control.

There are exceptions. Some things can cause serious harm in a single hit, with no build-up at all. Violence, aggression, harassment and traumatic events are in that category.

Stress on its own isn’t automatically harm either. Work can be challenging. Deadlines exist. People get hard feedback sometimes. That’s different from the conditions slowly wearing someone down. (People often mix this up with psychological safety, which is a different thing again. I’ve explained the difference here.)

8 psychosocial hazards that get misunderstood most

Quick note: different Australian guidance groups the hazards slightly differently. Safe Work Australia’s current guidance identifies 14 common psychosocial hazards, while the Commonwealth Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice 2024 identifies 17, including fatigue, job insecurity and intrusive surveillance. The definitions below line up with both.

1. Low job control

What it means: people have little say over how or when their work gets done.

What it isn’t: total control. The regulator guidance actually says low job control is “more than being given work to do.” Managers still set priorities, expectations and standards.

When it becomes a problem: I’d picture a capable team leader who has to get sign-off for routine, low-risk decisions that are supposedly theirs to make. Or an experienced person being micromanaged like it’s their first week.

Going back to that complaint, I reckon the better question was never “how much control do you want?” It was “how much say does this role need to be done well?”

2. High job demands

What it means: work that needs intense or sustained high effort, whether that’s mental, physical or emotional.

What it isn’t: a busy week or a tight deadline. The guidance puts it nicely: it’s “more than sometimes being a little busy.” (Safe Work Australia)

When it becomes a problem: an understaffed team working through lunch and staying late, month after month, because the work just doesn’t fit into the hours. Or someone dealing with upset or aggressive customers all day with no break from it.

3. Poor support

What it means: not getting enough practical or emotional support to do the job. That includes information, training, tools and people to ask.

What it isn’t: your manager not being on call every minute. Having to wait for someone to get out of a meeting to answer a non-urgent question doesn’t count.

When it becomes a problem: someone keeps getting handed complex work with no training and nobody to go to. Or they flag a problem, and then flag it again, and nothing happens.

4. Poor organisational change management

What it means: change that gets planned or rolled out without proper consultation, or without anyone thinking through what it does to people’s work.

What it isn’t: a change people don’t like. Businesses have to change. The guidance describes this hazard as more than an unpopular change at work.

When it becomes a problem: a restructure lands by email on a Friday, starts on Monday, and nobody asked how it would affect workloads or who reports to who.

On consultation, there’s a common misunderstanding. Consulting people means giving them a real chance to have their say and actually considering what they tell you. It doesn’t mean every suggestion has to be taken up.

5. Inadequate reward and recognition

What it means: very little positive feedback, or a gap between the effort people put in and the recognition they get.

What it isn’t: missing out on employee of the month. The guidance says it’s “more than not winning an award at work.” (Safe Work Australia)

When it becomes a problem: someone carries the team for months, picks up everyone else’s slack, and nobody says a word. Or the credit keeps landing with someone else. I’ve written more about getting rewards right if that one hits home.

6. Poor organisational justice

What it means: decisions or policies that are inconsistent, unfair, discriminatory, or applied to some people and not others.

What it isn’t: a decision you disagree with. Not getting the shift you asked for every now and then doesn’t make a workplace unjust.

When it becomes a problem: the rules clearly apply to some people and not others. The same few get the good shifts every roster. Decisions get made with no explanation, and asking for one goes nowhere.

7. Job insecurity

What it means: people don’t have any real assurance their job will stay stable.

What it isn’t: a business not being able to promise every role will exist forever. No business can promise that.

When it becomes a problem: rolling short-term contracts with no clarity about what’s next. Rumours of cuts with no information. People coming in when they're sick because they worry about how it looks if they don’t.

8. Intrusive surveillance

What it means: monitoring workers more than the job reasonably needs.

What it isn’t: keeping an eye on performance. Things like call recording for quality, sales dashboards and normal supervision aren’t automatically intrusive surveillance. How they’re used matters.

When it becomes a problem: tracking toilet breaks, monitoring far beyond what the work needs, or using the data to punish people rather than help them improve. The Commonwealth Code suggests a clear monitoring policy that’s “not excessive or punitive.”

Can performance management be a psychosocial hazard?

Performance management isn’t automatically a psychosocial hazard. Managers are allowed to manage.

Fair Work is clear that “reasonable management action that’s carried out in a reasonable way is not bullying.” That covers addressing poor performance, taking disciplinary action and directing how work is done. (Fair Work Ombudsman)

How it’s done matters.

A reasonable conversation sounds something like: “You’re not meeting the standard we agreed on. Let’s work out what’s getting in the way and what needs to change.”

Humiliating someone in front of the team is a different story. So are impossible targets, holding one person to a standard nobody else has to meet, threats, ridicule, or holding back what someone needs to do the job.

Workers have responsibilities too

The employer carries the main duty here. They have to identify hazards, consult their people, and get rid of or reduce the risks as far as is reasonably practicable.

Workers have duties as well, which doesn’t get talked about much. They have to take reasonable care of their own psychological and physical health and safety, take care not to harm others, and follow reasonable health and safety instructions. (Model Code of Practice)

So when someone raises a concern, brushing it off is the wrong move, and so is accepting it without asking a single question. Take it seriously and look at what’s actually happening.

Why a checklist misses the point

Think about two people with exactly the same workload.

One has a good manager, a fair bit of say over how they work, clear priorities, the tools they need, and knows they can speak up when something isn’t working.

The other is micromanaged, gets conflicting priorities from three different people, can’t get help when they need it, and only hears from their manager when something goes wrong.

Same workload. Completely different job.

And that’s probably why two people can have completely different experiences in workplaces that look identical on paper.

That’s why I think treating psychosocial hazards as a checklist misses something important. The hazards don’t sit in separate boxes. They stack on top of each other.

The Code points the same way. It says controls should mostly sit at the level of how the organisation and the work are designed, rather than relying on people to be more resilient. It’s a big part of why wellbeing programs aren’t enough on their own.

If you want to see which conditions in your own team are working for you and which ones are quietly stacking up, our Team Culture Diagnostic is a good place to start.

So where does the line sit?

The point isn’t to create a workplace where nobody is ever stressed, challenged or uncomfortable. I’m not sure that workplace exists, and I’m not sure it would be much good if it did.

The point is to understand the conditions people are working in. Is the workload sustainable? Do people have the right amount of say? Can they get help when they need it? Are expectations clear? Are decisions made fairly? And when a few of those aren’t working, what happens when you put them together?

Most workplaces will have psychosocial risks they need to keep an eye on.

The real question is how well you’re managing them.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Requirements vary between states and territories, so check with your local WHS regulator for your specific obligations.

Frequently asked questions

What are psychosocial hazards in the workplace?

Psychosocial hazards in the workplace are parts of how work is designed, managed or experienced that can cause psychological or physical harm, such as high job demands, low job control, poor support, poor change management, inadequate recognition, unfair treatment, job insecurity and intrusive surveillance. Employers in Australia have a legal duty to identify and manage them.

Is a busy workplace a psychosocial hazard?

Not automatically. High job demands means intense or sustained high effort, which regulators describe as more than sometimes being a little busy. How serious it is, how often it happens and how long it goes on all matter, along with whether it combines with things like low control or poor support.

Can performance management be a psychosocial hazard?

Performance management isn't automatically a psychosocial hazard. Reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable way is not bullying, including addressing poor performance, disciplinary action and directing how work is done. How it's done matters: humiliation, impossible targets, inconsistent standards, threats or ridicule can create risk.

How many psychosocial hazards are there?

Different Australian guidance groups the hazards slightly differently. Safe Work Australia’s current guidance identifies 14 common psychosocial hazards, while the Commonwealth Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice 2024 identifies 17, including fatigue, job insecurity and intrusive surveillance.

Want a clearer picture of your own workplace?

Base State helps businesses understand the conditions driving how their people work, and build practical systems that lower psychosocial risk and lift performance at the same time. Get in touch and we’ll take a look.

Culture that drives performance.