- 22 October 2025
- Michael McGrath
Managing Psycho-social risk at work!
To say we live in a different world at work than the workforce I joined in 1980 is a huge understatement. Many of the changes have been necessary and very welcome. Nevertheless, we are seeing significant and quite rapid increases in the administrative burden with increasing responsibility placed on business, which disproportionality burdens small business.
I was at a client board meeting last week and we ran through the risk register. Now maybe I wasn’t awake last year when we did this last, but I got schooled in, Psycho-social risk managements, yep that’s thing! And not just a thing but under NSW Safework there is a Code of Practice requirement called: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (link below). The fist of 16 hazards in the table on the SafeWork link is: Role overload (high workloads or job demands) for the record I’ve been in a constant state of work overload since I got my first full time job. One of the other hazards is, Inadequate reward and recognition. I’m sorry to go on about this but I’ve also been consistently subject to this one as well.
I’m incensed I didn’t know about these things earlier!
Now putting my attempt at humour to one side, and bearing in mind that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, I absolutely agree that psychological risk ought to be assessed and that in a world where people, especially young people, are suffering increasing with anxiety, depression and stress, that a heightened sense of the responsibility by the employer is more than valid.
I am just not convinced that having a policy or a code of practice changes anything. Good workplace practices and creating a safer psycho-social environment requires leadership and the development of a culture of fairness and openness and it’s not a once and done. I see too many large corporations with great policy and good-looking codes and yet have terrible practices leading to very poor experience for staff who feel overwhelmed by unjust bureaucracy. It’s too easy for companies to lawyer up and then hide.
Why do I say that so definitively? Well take a recent article on the front page of the AFR. [1] In essence the new Westpac CEO, Anthony Miller is reported as saying he will require staff to come in on the weekends, saying that he himself works on Christmas day! He has recently overseen the culling of 790 staff through redundancy in two months. Staff are suggesting that the former Goldman Sachs partner is creating a workplace where they are being encouraged to be more aggressive and is signalling that he would be more demanding including, scheduling meetings on the weekends. The ANZ are also seeing a shift in culture having bought in McKinsey to reshape the leadership while the CEO Nuno Matos pushes for more aggressive efficiencies. In a memo Matos flagged that he expected, “execution at pace.” I could go on, but you get the drift, neither of these initiatives sounds very Psycho-social.
I’ll bet you as much money as you like that both Westpac’s and ANZ’s HR policy reads beautifully and that they also have a well written psycho-social policy.
One of the difficulties with having complex and often hard to understand human resource legislation, is that the process of working things out between an employer and the employee can end up being very difficult and even dehumanising, with situations often hampered by the very legislation and policy drafted to improve things. These unintended consequences of legislation no doubt gave rise to the saying that, “the laws is an ass.” First coined by Charles Dickens in 1600.
When it comes to the law it appears not much has changed!
[1] AFR Banks Signal broad work culture shift. Westpac CEO to staff: Expect me to be more demanding. Monday 11th August.