Managing psychosocial hazards at work - Construction industry

Persons conducting a business or undertaking, or PCBU for short, must ensure the health and safety of workers and others. This includes managing psychosocial hazards and risks at work as much as managing physical hazards and risks. PCBUs must manage psychosocial risks in accordance with Part 3.1 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation. This includes eliminating psychosocial hazards so far as reasonably practical. Psychosocial hazards must be identified and their risks assessed, controlled, and continually reviewed to protect workers' health and safety. A psychosocial hazard arises from or relates to the design or management of work, a work environment planned at a workplace, or workplace interactions and behaviours. It may cause psychological harm, whether or not it also causes physical harm. PCBUs must consult with their workers about psychosocial hazards relevant to their work. Workers often have valuable insights about the impact of psychosocial hazards and potential ways to control the risks.

In this video, we're exploring a case study from the construction industry. We'll review how this workplace identifies, assesses, controls, and reviews the psychosocial hazards and risks in their workplace. See if you can spot them all before we give you the answers.

A medium-sized residential construction company is currently managing several projects. Some are not on schedule, and there is a backlog of work. The construction manager is responsible for organising the contractors, apprentices, and ensuring supplies and equipment are delivered to different sites. An electrical subcontractor is engaged for all the sites, and the manager is aware that one of the contractor's electricians has been verbally aggressive with a first-year apprentice working for the construction company. The apprentice just wants to learn but makes regular mistakes and is afraid to ask for help. She wants the verbal aggression to stop but is afraid to speak up in case this impacts her apprenticeship. He tells the apprentice that this is how the industry is and he doesn't have time to deal with this, and that she needs to toughen up and get on with her work.

Let's take a look at what psychosocial hazards and risks are present in this example. Poor emotional and practical support is being provided by the supervisor and manager to the apprentice. The manager does not acknowledge the apprentice's concerns or make the time to support training. The manager and workers experience a high workload with competing deadlines. Verbal aggression, especially in the presence of high job demands, could escalate to bullying or physical aggression if not stopped. Verbal aggression is having a negative impact on the apprentice's ability to focus on her work. This is also stopping her from asking for help.

After consulting with the manager and workers, the construction company takes the following steps to control the risks. They arrange to meet with the electrical subcontractor and the other subcontractors to develop behaviour standards for their workers and introduce a process for addressing safety concerns, including violence and aggression. They inform workers that aggressive behaviour can be reported directly. They speak with the apprentice to check on her well-being and provide information about psychological support services. They review the supervision and support of apprentices. The company decides to reduce the demands on the manager by providing assistance with managing contracts and tenders. They introduce daily toolbox talks with all workers, including contractors, to provide relevant information and instructions. The manager allocates time each week to understand the first-year apprentice's learning requirements, assess her progress, and develop learning goals. The manager also gives responsibility to the apprentice for tasks she should be competent to do. The manager also allocates a third-year apprentice to support the first-year apprentice on various tasks. After consulting with the manager, the construction company requires staff to periodically complete the People at Work psychosocial risk assessment survey to identify and assess risks and the adequacy of controls. They also implement a ‘look and listen’ safety walk multiple times per build. During the review and improve stage, they also integrate support and mentoring of apprentices into their systems and check in with the apprentice to verify the verbally aggressive behaviour has stopped. The company also arranges training for supervisors of apprentices, particularly on managing young and inexperienced workers, and arranges regular reviews of work-related behaviour grievances with training to be included in the organisation's WHS systems. Finally, the company creates a safety culture charter in consultation with workers, which is displayed prominently in project offices and around the site.

In this example, we saw how to identify different psychosocial hazards in a construction organisation. Often these hazards will interact, and if exposure is frequent, prolonged, and severe, can lead to work-related stress and subsequently psychological harm. The identifying hazards in this example include poor support, violence and aggression, poor workplace relationships, and high job demands. Control measures were used at multiple levels to eliminate, as well as minimise the risk. This example shows how psychosocial hazards, the types of control measures implemented, and the monitoring and review strategies can differ widely for organisations in different industries and of different sizes. It is important to consider the unique context of your organisation, including your organisation-wide systems, work practices, work environment, workplace behaviours, and types of tasks and roles.

For more information, download the Managing the Risk of Psychosocial Hazards At Work Code of Practice 2022.

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