A psychosocial hazard is anything that could cause psychological harm to a person for example, bullying, harassment, working in a poor physical environment or unreasonable job demands amongst many other things. 

Today is the World Day for Safety & Health at Work. This is an important day to spread awareness about how essential mental health and wellbeing is to your safety at work.

While some workplaces might overlook psychosocial hazards, having to deal with these stress factors can be a concern. Coming to work doesn’t have to be fun but it should at least be fulfilling.  

Psychosocial hazards should be treated as importantly as physical hazards. If we continue to ignore our mental health in the workplace, over time the hazards can create stress that can that seep into your personal life resulting in anxiety, depression, PTSD or sleep disorders 

These harms may seem like exaggerated claims but nearly 2 million Australian employees report often losing sleep due to work-related stress and pressure (Allianz, 2026).  

Proper management of psychosocial hazards in the workplace can mean your work talks to workers, observes the work and behaviours of workers, ensures that there are enough breaks or reviews workplace information e.g. incident logs and overtime records.  

Essentially, your workplace should be looking out for where workers might be facing psychosocial hazards and trying to react before it gets worse.  

If your workplace is not prioritising managing psychosocial risks, then here are a few proactive steps you can take:  

• Identify the psychosocial hazards at your workplace so that you can address them 
• Raise your concerns with management 
• Plan for busy periods and assign lower priority work for quieter times  
• Ensure you have the required tools for your work 
• Consult with a health professional 

Although we may not have full control over the circumstances, we can try our best to make work just a little bit better for ourselves. For the sake of our own wellbeing.  

If you think that your workplace may be causing undue stress and not properly managing psychosocial hazards, you can contact WorkSafe Victoria on 1800 136 089 to report the hazard or request a visit.