For five years, I was a psychosocial inspector. I investigated complaints. I conducted reviews. My role was to assess whether businesses were meeting their WHS obligations in relation to psychological health.

Psychosocial risk is now firmly on the regulatory agenda, and many businesses are unsure what that actually means for them in practice. So rather than talk about the legislation in the abstract, I want to walk you through what I actually looked for when I walked into a workplace, because that is what compliance looks like from the other side of the table.

What happens when a complaint lands

When a psychosocial complaint reaches the regulator, it is triaged. Not every complaint results in a workplace visit, but the ones that do are the ones where the information suggests a systemic issue: a pattern of behaviour, a failure to respond, or a risk that is ongoing.

By the time an inspector arrives, they usually know more than the business expects. They have the complaint. They may have spoken to the complainant. They have often reviewed what is publicly known about the business.

The visit is not the beginning of the process. It is the middle.

What I asked for first

The first requests were almost always documents, because documents show what the business knew and what it did.

  • The relevant policies: bullying, harassment, complaints handling, code of conduct
  • Records of the complaint and how it was handled: who was told, when, and what happened next
  • Evidence of investigation: notes, interviews, outcomes, communication back to the people involved
  • Training records, particularly whether managers had been trained in managing people, not just in the policy existing
  • Evidence of consultation with workers about psychosocial hazards
  • Any risk assessment that considered psychological health

Here is what surprised many businesses: having a policy was never the question. Almost every business has a policy. The question was whether the business could show the policy operating. When something was raised, was it recorded, acted on, and followed through?

What could trigger an improvement notice

Improvement notices in the psychosocial space were rarely about a single incident. They were about what the incident revealed.

If a complaint showed that managers had never been trained to handle the situations their role put in front of them, that was a gap. If workers said they had raised concerns before and nothing visible happened, that was a gap. If there was no process for identifying psychosocial hazards at all, no consultation, no assessment, nothing, that was a gap.

A notice says, in effect: your systems are not managing this risk, and you are now required to fix that.

The difference between the businesses that got it right and the ones that did not

Here is the part I most want business owners to hear.

The businesses that stood out to me were not the ones with the most sophisticated systems or the thickest folders. Some of the best workplaces I visited were small operations with very little formal documentation. But they knew their workplace, they knew their people, and they could sit down with me and talk through exactly what issues had come up and what they had done about them.

When something was raised, it was recorded. It was followed up. It was closed off. Workers could see that their concerns did not disappear into silence. That is consultation, and that is what I was actually looking for.

The businesses that worried me were the ones that pointed to an EAP and some flexible leave arrangements and considered the matter managed. Those are good things to have. But they are supports, not controls. You cannot manage a hazard you have not identified, and an EAP does not identify anything.

What this means for you

If psychosocial risk has landed on your desk and you are not sure where you stand, start with these questions:

  • Could you show, not tell, an inspector how a complaint would be handled in your business?
  • Have your managers been trained for the people-management situations their role creates?
  • When did you last genuinely consult your workers about psychosocial hazards, and could you evidence it?
  • If a concern was raised six months ago, could you show what happened next?

If the honest answer to any of those is no, that is not a reason for alarm. It is a starting point. Every gap I ever wrote up was fixable, and the businesses that fixed them early were the ones I never saw again.

Take something with you. The NSW Psychosocial Code Compliance Checklist walks through the Code requirement by requirement so you can record your evidence and note the gaps. Free, no sign-up. Designed for NSW; check the Code that applies in your state.

Originally published on LinkedIn. Republished here by the author.