How quickly will we evolve?

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The recent formalising of Psychosocial Hazards in Australian Work Health and Safety legislation is a fantastic evolution. We have been aware of the risks to people’s well being (Both mental and physical) from Psychosocial Hazards for a long time, and it’s taken a while for it to be seen as a hazard that needs to be actively managed.

Early in the industrial age accidents and fatalities were an accepted and expected outcome in work environments. The attitude was largely “You know the risks, so the responsibility is on you. By the way, it might not end well”. Over time safety and risk became the subject of increased awareness and responsibility for employers, transitioning through cultures dominated by compliance/policy/procedure and ultimately growing to deep safety cultures. The exemplars of this are zero blame cultures where safety is prioritised over production. Everyone is empowered to call a halt if something seems unsafe, and there are continual conversations about how it can be made more safe.

We are just emerging from the equivalent of “you know the risks” in PsychoSocial Hazards. You can track it in laguage like:

  • Stress is part of the job, suck it up

  • Go to the hardware and buy a bucket of harden up

  • Your emotions have no place at work

  • Everyone is busy, deal with it

  • Yes he’s a bully, but he’s also a great performer we’ll all just have to put up with it

These are fading, but they haven’t gone away. We now have a regulatory environment. How quickly can we evolve to cultures of deep responsibility where we are encouraged to call out unsafe practice, hold each other to account, educate rather than blame? We have a road map in the physical WHS space that has been a roughly 200 year evolution. Let's not take that long on psychosocial hazards. The clock has been ticking for a while.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be exploring some of the hazards named in the excellent Worksafe “CODE OF PRACTICE - Psychosocial hazards in the workplace” and especially how these contribute to a high performance culture as well as one free from harm. Just like physical safety, it makes sense regardless of what metric you measure.