Psychosocial Hazards 101: What They Are, What They Look Like and Where to Start
Psychosocial Hazards 101: What They Are, What They Look Like and Where to Start
When we think about workplace safety, we often think about the things we can see — cables across a floor, unsafe equipment, excessive noise, heavy lifting or someone working at height.
But not every workplace hazard is physical or immediately visible.
The way our work is designed, managed and experienced can also affect our health and safety.
These are called psychosocial hazards.
And while the term can sound a little technical, the idea behind it is actually pretty straightforward:
Is there something about the work, or the way the work is happening, that could cause someone psychological or physical harm?
In creative workplaces, that might mean unreasonable workloads, constantly changing expectations, long hours, poor support, unsafe behaviour, exposure to confronting material, difficult interactions with patrons or audiences, isolation on tour, or simply not knowing who to turn to when something isn't right.
Understanding psychosocial hazards gives us a way to notice these things earlier — and do something practical about them.
First things first: what is a psychosocial hazard?
Safe Work Australia puts it simply:
“A psychosocial hazard is anything that could cause psychological harm (e.g. harm someone’s mental health).”
Safe Work Australia also explains that psychosocial hazards can sometimes cause physical harm and can arise from the design or management of work, the work environment, workplace plant, or workplace interactions and behaviours.
In plain English:
A psychosocial hazard is something about work that has the potential to negatively affect someone's psychological or physical health.
The important part here is work.
We're not asking whether someone is personally resilient enough, whether they're good under pressure or whether they simply need to learn to cope better.
We're looking at the conditions people are being asked to work within.
For more of the national guidance, visit Safe Work Australia – Psychosocial hazards.
What does a psychosocial hazard actually look like?
There isn't one single list that will describe every workplace, but commonly recognised psychosocial hazards include:
high or excessive job demands
very low job demands
low control over how or when work is done
poor support from managers or colleagues
unclear or conflicting roles
poorly managed organisational change
inadequate recognition or reward
unfair or inconsistent workplace processes
poor workplace relationships or conflict
bullying
sexual and gender-based harassment
other harmful workplace behaviours
aggression or violence
exposure to traumatic events or distressing material
remote or isolated work
poor physical or environmental conditions.
Safe Work Australia's current guidance identifies these as common psychosocial hazards, while WorkSafe Victoria's Psychological Health Compliance Code gives 16 examples and practical examples of controls.
The important thing to remember is that hazards often interact.
A busy week might be manageable.
A busy week combined with 12-hour days, inadequate staffing, unclear responsibilities, difficult workplace relationships and no opportunity to influence the schedule is a very different situation.
The frequency, duration and intensity of exposure all matter.
What might this look like in the creative industries?
Creative workplaces don't always look like traditional workplaces.
Our workplaces might be theatres, stages, studios, galleries, rehearsal rooms, festivals, touring vans, workshops, film sets, community spaces, recording studios or temporary production sites.
Teams may include employees, contractors, freelancers, artists, volunteers, crew, producers and collaborators — sometimes brought together for only a few weeks or even a few days.
That creates some very particular workplace risks.
On a production
Crew regularly work extended hours because the schedule doesn't realistically account for setup, pack-down, delays or adequate recovery time.
The hazards might involve high job demands, fatigue and low job control.
At a festival
Front-of-house workers regularly deal with intoxicated or aggressive patrons without adequate staffing, security, escalation processes or supervisor support.
The hazards might involve aggression, violence and poor support.
In a rehearsal room
Performers repeatedly work with emotionally intense or traumatic material without appropriate preparation, boundaries, support or opportunities to decompress.
The hazards might involve exposure to traumatic material and high emotional demands.
On tour
Long travel days, disrupted sleep, changing environments, limited privacy and extended periods away from people's usual support networks start taking their toll.
The hazards could include fatigue, isolation, environmental conditions and high job demands.
On a short-term project
A freelancer isn't clear about who they're accountable to, where they can raise a concern or whether speaking up could affect future work.
This can involve low role clarity, low job control and poor support.
During organisational change
Funding changes, restructures, project cancellations or leadership changes are communicated inconsistently, leaving workers unsure about what is happening and what it means for their roles.
This can involve poor organisational change management and low role clarity.
This is where Creative Workplaces' psychosocial hazards guidance is particularly helpful. It translates these concepts into real creative-industry situations, including film production, theatre, festivals, galleries, touring and performance.
And sometimes these working conditions have become so familiar in the creative industries that we stop noticing them.
Being common doesn't necessarily make something safe.
Hazard, risk and stress aren't quite the same thing
These terms can get mixed together.
A hazard is the thing or situation with the potential to cause harm.
A risk considers how likely it is that someone could be harmed and how serious that harm could be.
Stress can be one response to exposure to a psychosocial hazard.
Experiencing some pressure at work isn't automatically unsafe. Creative work can involve deadlines, performance, responsibility, uncertainty and challenge.
But stress that is frequent, prolonged or severe can contribute to psychological and physical harm. Safe Work Australia identifies potential psychological and physical consequences of psychosocial hazards, while Creative Workplaces highlights issues including anxiety, depression, burnout, PTSD, sleep disorders, fatigue and physical injury.
Why is this important?
The first reason is the simplest:
People deserve to go to work without their work making them unwell.
Unmanaged psychosocial hazards can also contribute to:
psychological or physical injury
burnout and fatigue
increased absence
staff or contractor turnover
deteriorating workplace relationships
mistakes, incidents and near misses
people becoming reluctant to speak up
loss of organisational knowledge
workers disengaging from their organisation or industry.
WorkSafe Tasmania notes that work-related mental health injuries generally involve longer recovery times, higher costs and more time away from work than other workplace injuries.
For creative organisations, there's another dimension.
Creative work relies on people contributing ideas, experimenting, collaborating, asking questions and being able to raise concerns when something isn't working.
If people don't feel able to do that safely, the impact isn't only on wellbeing.
It can affect the work itself.
Supporting people matters — but we also need to look at the work
Counselling, EAP, mental health training, peer support, wellbeing initiatives and individual strategies can all be incredibly valuable.
They give people somewhere to turn when they need support.
But they are only one part of good psychosocial risk management.
If a team is chronically understaffed, the solution can't only be giving people stress-management training.
If someone is repeatedly experiencing harassment, providing counselling doesn't remove the harassment.
If crew are routinely working unreasonable hours, encouraging self-care doesn't fix the schedule.
Psychosocial risk management asks us to look further upstream:
What can we change about the work itself?
This is an important principle in current WHS guidance. For example, NSW's 2025 Regulation explicitly requires businesses to apply the hierarchy of controls where psychosocial risks cannot reasonably be eliminated, prioritising higher-order controls such as redesigning work before relying primarily on training or coping strategies.
WorkSafe Victoria's current framework similarly requires employers to first eliminate psychosocial risks so far as reasonably practicable and otherwise reduce them through changes to work design, systems, environments and other controls.
So, how do we manage psychosocial hazards?
You don't need to solve everything at once.
A useful starting point is the same risk-management thinking we use for other workplace hazards.
1. Identify what's happening
Start by understanding how work actually happens — not just how a policy says it happens.
Talk to people.
That might include employees, freelancers, contractors, crew, Health and Safety Representatives and others doing the work.
You might also look at:
workloads and schedules
overtime and extended working hours
incidents and near misses
complaints and grievances
turnover
absenteeism and leave
worker feedback and surveys
supervision arrangements
recurring conflict
particularly demanding periods of work.
Creative Workplaces specifically recommends regular conversations with staff, contractors and collaborators because the people doing the work often have first-hand knowledge of risks that others may not see.
2. Understand the risk
Consider:
How often is this happening?
How long are people exposed to it?
How intense is the exposure?
Who could be affected?
What could happen if nothing changes?
Are multiple hazards happening together?
Creative Workplaces suggests considering frequency, intensity and duration and, importantly, how those factors interact.
3. Change what you can
This is where we move from identifying a problem to changing the conditions around it.
Depending on the hazard, that might mean:
redesigning unrealistic workloads
increasing staffing during demanding periods
building adequate breaks and turnaround times into schedules
changing rostering practices
clarifying roles and reporting lines
giving workers appropriate control over their work
improving supervision
creating clear behavioural expectations
establishing safe and accessible reporting pathways
changing how emotionally demanding work is approached
reducing unnecessary exposure to traumatic material
strengthening security and escalation processes
improving communication during organisational change
improving physical working environments
building better systems for people working remotely or on tour
strengthening cultural safety
making it easier for people to raise concerns early.
4. Add good support around the work
This is where individual and team support becomes valuable.
Depending on the workplace, this might include:
confidential counselling or EAP
mental health education
supervisor and leadership development
reflective practice or clinical supervision
peer-support programs
appropriate debriefing processes
clear information about where people can seek help
additional support following difficult incidents.
These supports can be incredibly important.
The key is that they sit alongside measures that address the underlying work-related risk, rather than replacing them.
5. Check whether it's working
Psychosocial risk management isn't a one-off risk assessment that gets filed away.
Ask people again.
Have things improved?
Is the workload actually manageable?
Do people understand their roles?
Do people know where to raise concerns?
Are the systems being used and trusted?
Has something else changed?
Work changes. Projects change. Teams change.
Controls need to change with them.
What does the law say around Australia?
Psychological health is part of workplace health and safety across Australia.
Most Australian jurisdictions use legislation based on the national model WHS laws. Victoria operates under its own Occupational Health and Safety framework.
The precise legislation, regulations and codes differ between jurisdictions, so your local workplace safety regulator is one of the best places to find information relevant to your particular workplace.
Importantly, regulators aren't only places to go when something has gone badly wrong.
They also provide free guidance, codes, tools, templates, education and practical resources designed to help workplaces prevent harm in the first place. Some jurisdictions also provide direct advisory services.
The following is current as at September 2026.
Victoria — WorkSafe Victoria
Victoria operates under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 and Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025.
The Psychological Health Regulations and Psychological Health Compliance Code have been in effect since 1 December 2025. The Code provides practical guidance for employers on identifying hazards, assessing risks, controlling risks and reviewing controls.
Where to start:
WorkSafe Victoria – Psychological Health Compliance Code
For an easier practical starting point, the free WorkWell Toolkit provides a step-by-step approach to preventing mental injury and creating mentally healthy workplaces.
Small and medium-sized Victorian organisations can also explore OHS Essentials, which provides free, confidential and personalised advice from an occupational health and safety consultant. WorkSafe Victoria – Free tools and advice
New South Wales — SafeWork NSW
NSW operates under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025.
The 2025 Regulation strengthens the requirements for managing psychosocial risks, including explicit application of the hierarchy of control measures where the risk cannot reasonably be eliminated.
NSW also has an approved Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice.
Where to start:
SafeWork NSW – Psychosocial hazards
The SafeWork NSW hub brings together information on responsibilities, worker consultation, risk assessment, conversation guides and practical tools.
Queensland — Workplace Health and Safety Queensland
Queensland operates under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011.
Queensland's Managing the Risk of Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice 2022 provides practical guidance on preventing psychological and physical harm from psychosocial hazards. Consequential amendments to the Code took effect from 1 September 2026.
Where to start:
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland – Psychosocial hazards
Queensland also has a useful Mentally Healthy Workplaces Toolkit and dedicated small business resources, including a psychosocial risk-assessment template and People at Work.
South Australia — SafeWork SA
South Australia operates under the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 and Work Health and Safety Regulations 2012.
Its approved Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice commenced on 19 February 2026 and provides guidance on identifying hazards, controlling risks and meeting the standards required under South Australian WHS law.
Where to start:
SafeWork SA – Psychosocial hazards
The SafeWork SA hub includes introductory information, guidance on job design and harmful behaviours, remote work, webinars, e-learning and links to additional resources.
Western Australia — WorkSafe WA
Western Australia operates under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 and Work Health and Safety (General) Regulations 2022 for most workplaces.
The regulations include requirements for managing psychosocial risks, and WorkSafe WA publishes a Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace Code of Practice, alongside codes dealing specifically with workplace behaviour and violence and aggression.
Where to start:
WorkSafe WA – Psychosocial hazards overview
WorkSafe WA's resources are particularly useful for understanding hazards such as fatigue, stress, bullying, harassment, violence, trauma and the cumulative impact of repeated exposure.
Tasmania — WorkSafe Tasmania
Tasmania operates under the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 and Work Health and Safety Regulations 2022.
The Regulations expressly address psychosocial hazards, and Tasmania's Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice has been effective since 4 January 2023.
Where to start:
WorkSafe Tasmania – Psychosocial hazards
WorkSafe Tasmania also brings together practical resources including People at Work, Head4Work and a sample risk register.
Small and medium-sized businesses can also access WorkSafe Tasmania's Advisory Service for assistance with workplace safety, including psychosocial safety tools.
Australian Capital Territory — WorkSafe ACT
The ACT operates under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011.
Its Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice came into effect on 27 November 2023.
Where to start:
WorkSafe ACT – Psychosocial hazards
WorkSafe ACT has a dedicated psychosocial team and publishes free education and resources. Its practical risk-management scenarios are particularly helpful if you're trying to understand how identifying, assessing, controlling and reviewing a risk might work in a real workplace.
Northern Territory — NT WorkSafe
The Northern Territory operates under the Work Health and Safety (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2011 and associated Regulations.
The Regulations were amended to specifically address psychosocial hazards from 1 July 2023, and the NT's approved Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice was approved on 23 May 2024.
Where to start:
NT WorkSafe – Managing psychosocial hazards at work
NT WorkSafe also provides guidance on workplace mental health and access to the free People at Work risk-assessment tool.
Commonwealth workplaces — Comcare
Some organisations fall within the Commonwealth WHS jurisdiction rather than their state or territory system.
For those workplaces, Comcare is the relevant regulator.
The Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice 2024 is in force in the Commonwealth jurisdiction and provides practical guidance on identifying and managing psychosocial hazards.
Where to start:
Comcare – Psychosocial hazards
Comcare also provides guidance comparing psychosocial risk-assessment tools, which can be helpful when deciding how to gather information about risks in your workplace.
A few other resources worth bookmarking
Creative Workplaces
If you work in arts and culture, Creative Workplaces is one of the best places to start.
Its guidance takes WHS principles and applies them to the realities of creative work — productions, galleries, performance, festivals, touring, freelance work, emotionally demanding content, cultural safety and temporary teams.
Creative Workplaces – Psychosocial hazards in the workplace
Creative Workplaces – Managing hazards and risks
Safe Work Australia
Safe Work Australia develops national WHS policy and the model WHS framework.
It's an excellent source of national guidance, but it is not a workplace regulator, so questions about the laws applying to a particular workplace should generally go to the relevant state, territory or Commonwealth regulator.
Safe Work Australia – Psychosocial hazards
People at Work
People at Work is a free, validated Australian psychosocial risk-assessment survey.
It forms part of a five-step process for identifying, assessing and controlling risks to psychological health at work, and participating organisations receive a report comparing their results with Australian industry benchmarks. Australian WHS regulators jointly fund the tool.
WorkSafe Victoria WorkWell Toolkit
For Victorian workplaces, the WorkWell Toolkit offers a particularly approachable next step after learning the basics.
It's designed as a guided, step-by-step way to understand workplace mental health and start preventing psychological injury.
WorkSafe Victoria – WorkWell Toolkit
You don't need to have all the answers before you start
Psychosocial safety can feel like a big topic.
Particularly for a small organisation, independent producer, festival, creative business or project team already working with limited time and resources.
You don't need to become a WHS expert overnight.
Start with curiosity.
Ask:
What is it about the way this work is currently designed, managed or experienced that could cause someone harm?
Then:
What could we change about the work to make that less likely?
Talk to the people doing the work.
Look at the pressure points.
Use the tools and resources that already exist.
Ask for help when you need it.
Sometimes the answer will be a policy or training.
But sometimes it will be adding another crew member.
Changing a call time.
Clarifying who makes a decision.
Creating a better handover.
Allowing more recovery time.
Giving someone a safe way to raise a concern.
Changing how confronting creative material is approached.
Or simply having a conversation early, before a manageable issue becomes a much bigger one.
Creative work will always involve ambition, uncertainty, emotion, deadlines and pressure.
Psychosocial safety isn't about removing those things.
It's about creating conditions where people can do challenging and meaningful work without their health and safety being the price they pay for it.
At Hey Mate, we work alongside the creative industries to help people and organisations better understand wellbeing, psychosocial safety and the conditions that support healthier, safer and more sustainable creative careers and workplaces.
Because supporting people and creating great work shouldn't be competing priorities.
They should strengthen each other.
This article provides general educational information and isn't legal advice. WHS requirements vary depending on your jurisdiction, workplace and circumstances. Your relevant workplace safety regulator can provide current information, practical guidance and resources applicable to your workplace.
Information reviewed: 2 September 2026.
