Free Psychosocial Risk Assessment Tool for Workplaces Released

Australia’s “only validated psychosocial risk assessment tool” has been relaunched on a new free digital platform as part of an initiative from the nation’s health and safety regulators and leading researchers.

People at Work provides a way for workplaces to identify their psychosocial risks, benchmark them and track improvements over time. Organisations follow a five-step process to identify, assess and control risks to psychological health at work.

Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA) Chair, Martyn Campbell, said workplaces have a duty to protect the psychological health of workers in the same way they protect their physical safety.

“People at Work helps organisations identify, assess and control risks to psychological health and safety. Previously a paper-based survey, with onerous and time-consuming manual data entry sheets, People at Work is now accessible through a much more user-friendly digital platform.”

“Put simply, People at Work is free for Aussie businesses and workplaces to help them identify and manage work-related psychosocial hazards and factors AND which doesn’t need an expert to interpret the psychosocial risk assessment results.”

A jointly funded initiative led and managed by Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, People at Work was developed along with SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Victoria, Comcare, Safe Work Australia, SafeWork SA, NT WorkSafe, WorkSafe ACT, WorkSafe WA, WorkSafe Tasmania, and the WorkCover Tasmania Board.

“Industry has been crying out for an easy to use psychosocial risk assessment tool and People at Work is just that,” Mr Campbell said.

Through People at Work, workplaces have access to:

• the online People at Work survey on a digital platform that helps workplaces identify and risk assess psychological hazards such as job demands; job resources; workplace bullying; psychological health; work-related violence and aggression; sprain and strains; and worker intentions.
• all materials required to administer and report on the People at Work Survey, including access to automated and customised reports, interactive learning modules, and resources to assist in implementing a psychosocial risk management approach and evaluating the effectiveness of chosen interventions.

There is also additional access to automated live reporting of de-identified data, where organisations can monitor trends across industry, location, sector, and other demographics.