Supporting Psychosocial Safety: Enabling workplaces to identify
and manage psychosocial risks

Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing

Supporting safety beyond compliance

Psychological health is essential to a safe, productive and sustainable workplace. As expectations around workplace wellbeing continue to evolve, organisations are increasingly seeking practical ways to understand, monitor and respond to psychosocial risks. The Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing (WOW) is developing innovative, research-driven tools to help workplaces build healthier work environments, strengthen organisational capability, and support informed decision-making around worker wellbeing.

What are psychosocial hazards?

Psychosocial hazards are aspects of work that have the potential to cause psychological or physical harm and may arise from:

The design or management of work
The working environment
Plant at a workplace (e.g., machinery, equipment, appliances, containers, implements, tools)
Workplace interactions and behaviours

Work Health and Safety (Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work) Code of Practice 2024

Evidence-based tools for workplaces

In response to psychosocial safety legislation requiring employers to protect workers’ psychological health alongside physical safety, WOW has developed solutions to help workplaces strengthen wellbeing and meet legislative obligations. These tools:

Integrate academic knowledge of psychological stress and organisational psychology
Are valid, reliable and evidence-based
Enable workers to report experiences and perceptions of psychosocial hazards

Support workplaces to adopt a practical, audit-based approach to hazard identification and risk management (Stage 1)

Australian Psychosocial Index (API)

In development

The Australian Psychosocial Index (API) is an evidence-based self-report tool designed to assess the perceived prevalence of the 17 psychosocial hazards identified in national legislation.

Recognising that some hazards may have a greater impact than others, the current development phase focuses on establishing the content, construct and discriminant validity of each hazard against established psychological measures.

The current pilot study also explores three emerging psychosocial hazards not yet formally recognised in legislation:

Artificial intelligence
Digital work
Climate-related hazards
Benchmarking data for each hazard will help identify potential risk areas within workplaces.

Expected launch: Late 2026

Australian Psychosocial Scanning Tool (API-ST)

In development

The Australian Psychosocial Scanning Tool (API-ST) is designed to assess a workplace’s overall profile, work practices and strategic priorities related to psychosocial hazard risk management.

Completed by workplace representatives such as senior leaders, business owners, human resources personnel, and workplace health and safety staff, the scanning tool is evaluated alongside the API to provide organisational insights into psychosocial risk management practices.

Expected launch: Late 2026

Meet our researchers