Psychosocial safety is a critical yet often overlooked dimension of occupational health, focusing on the mental and emotional well-being of employees. Creating a favourable psychosocial climate in the workplace can improve productivity, reduce absenteeism, and increase engagement levels.
What is it, exactly? Psychosocial safety aims to protect employees from psychosocial hazards like work-related stress, harassment, and poor work-life balance. Acknowledging this concept is the first step toward fostering a culture that values employees’ psychological health.
Managing psychosocial risk involves several steps:
1. Risk Identification
Utilise surveys, interviews, or work design technology to identify factors causing psychological harm, like high workloads or poor work conditions.
2. Risk Assessment
Evaluate the impact and level of risk each hazard poses, considering factors like role fit, work health, sick leave, staff turnover, and performance dips.
3. Risk Control
Take tailored actions to mitigate risks, such as introducing flexible work culture, adopting employee support programs, or introducing technology to give role clarity and mitigate role overload.
4. Training & Education
Increase awareness among employees, upskill management to recognise and manage psychosocial hazards, or provide tooling to limit ambiguity and enhance job control.
5. Monitoring & Review
Continuously assess the effectiveness of implemented controls via employee check-ins, Beamible pulses, or data reviews.
But managing risks is only part of the equation. Safe Work Australia emphasises the critical role that good work design plays in establishing a safe and healthy working environment. As a “person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU),” there is a duty to incorporate good design elements into the workplace. They state that the “most effective and durable means” to ensure a safe workspace is by “eliminating hazards and risk during the design or redesign of work, structures, plant and substances.” In essence, proactive design or redesign measures are not only an obligation but also the most sustainable way to mitigate workplace hazards and risks. Effective work design, clear policies, and regular monitoring further contribute to a psychosocially safe environment.
Benefits of Considering Psychosocial Safety for your Workplace
The benefits of a psychosocially safe workplace are not only for employees but for organisational performance.. Employees are more productive, engaged, and have higher morale. Reduced staff turnover and absenteeism save costs, and a reputation for valuing employee well-being attracts top talent. Additionally, promoting psychosocial health ensures legal compliance and prevents potential lawsuits.
Tools like Beamible can help position the positive elements to the workforce, while highlighting hot spot teams to leaders. Using technology means you can scalably address those hot spot areas before they become costly problems. This is done by offering visibility across organisational levels, and is a critical tool in the toolkit for HR managers.
Psychosocial Safety: A Business Imperative
Psychosocial safety is not only an HR issue but a business imperative. Addressing it holistically can significantly enhance performance while safeguarding employee well-being, making it a win-win for all stakeholders. Interested in implementing an efficient psychosocial risk management system? Consider having a discussion with the Beamible team.
About Beamible
Beamible is a Work Design platform helping HR leaders solve resourcing challenges in the modern world of work. By capturing what people are really spending time on, HR leaders can effectively identify inefficiencies, risks and missed opportunities. Then, through interactive scenario planning tools, implementing changes and repeating as new challenges emerge becomes easy.
With Beamible, HR leaders can help their teams achieve:
• Sustainable workloads
• Increased productivity
• Increased employee engagement
• Seamless flexible work at scale
Learn more about how Beamible can help your organisation today.
