Does your job make you feel stressed, exhausted or unsafe?

Many workers tend to blame themselves when they’re not coping at work or feel like it’s just not the right job for them. What many don’t know is that employers have a responsibility for your health and safety at work, and that includes your mental health.

You’ve heard of physical hazards, but what about psychosocial hazards? Psychosocial hazards are workplace risks that harm your mental health. It’s your employer’s job to reduce these risks.

Psychosocial hazards risk your mental health and ability to work

Recovering from a mental health issue can take a lot longer than a physical injury, risking your ability to work for long periods and, in many cases, causing a significant loss in income. Safe Work Australia reports that in 2024, one in five workers took a median of 37 weeks leave due to a mental health issue.

UWU member Monique* works in the poultry industry. The work is fast-paced with a rigid timeframe because they work with livestock. Overtime has become part of the job due to understaffing.

“People are fatigued. Too much work, not enough staff.

“Working with live animals means we have to work at a certain speed because we can’t hold them, so overtime has become part of the job. Workers think they have to do regular overtime, or they’ll lose their job.”

At Monique’s workplace, management aren’t stepping up. She is the workplace Health & Safety Rep (HSR). HSRs are union members specially trained to deal with the health and safety of their co-workers and address safety issues with management. She says staff are either not aware of psychosocial hazards or scared to report they’re struggling with their workload.

“Employees are being told if you go to first aid you can’t do overtime. So, they’re now scared of going to first aid and reporting anything.”

Fatigue also means things go wrong with machinery which increases the risk of physical hazards and injuries.

Managers have a responsibility to reduce psychosocial hazards

Safe Work Australia lists common psychosocial hazards and further advises that these hazards are more likely to interact and combine to create higher risk. Some they list are:

• high job demands
• low job control
• poor support
• lack of role clarity
• traumatic events or material
• poor physical environment
• violence and aggression
• bullying
• harassment, including sexual and gender-based harassment, and
• conflict or poor workplace relationships

These hazards can leave workers with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and worse.

Nadine* is a casino worker in Melbourne and an HSR. Psychosocial hazards are rife on the casino floor.

“We don’t really work with a lot of physical work hazards, so the vast majority would be psychosocial. We have complex PTSD in the sense of small things that just accrue over time, like witnessing aggression or violence or being bullied by customers.

“Because you’re expected to be hyper-vigilant and paranoid essentially as part of your job, it then bleeds into your everyday life and you become paranoid about the same things but in a non-correlated way.

“When you’re already dealing with drunk and aggressive people, it triggers a fear response, even if they just ask you for help.

“So, obviously that translates to high staff turnover and burnout and PTSD.”

Unfortunately, managers efforts have been underwhelming.

“ [Management] say things like, ‘You need to harden up, learn some resilience’. But you can’t change how someone’s brain and feelings work just by telling them to harden up,” she says.

Low awareness and mental health stigma remain a barrier

Russell* is a logistics worker in Melbourne and an HSR at his shed. He’s been trained in mental health first aid and says there’s low awareness among workers and management about the seriousness of psychosocial hazards.

“Management are certainly not aware [of the risks of psychosocial hazards] because some of the practices they put into the shed put people under extreme pressure.”

He says managers have unrealistic expectations about how long it takes to complete work, and use surveillance and disciplinary procedures to enforce unreasonable workloads. At his shed, workers were having trouble even going to the bathroom without getting called in by management for not meeting their targets.

According to Russell, management pay lip service to the problem. Although he was nominated for mental health first aid training, employer policies and programs are not consistent with reducing mental health concerns.

“Management implemented a program where everyone in the shed is a mental health first aider and we just have to say, ‘I’m here for you’.”

Russell says a lack of awareness even among workers and stigma around mental health contribute to underreporting of psychosocial hazards. There’s not much an HSR can do if hazards go unreported with no evidence to address them officially.

“Unfortunately, there’s still a stigma around anyone who’s suffering from anxiety or a mental health condition. Management says, ‘We understand. Come and talk to us if you’re struggling’, but the reality is just so different.

“All of us have stresses in our lives but there are situations where it’s much more concerning and people don’t speak up. If you work in a fast-paced environment like we do – there are 500 people in our shed – it can be a bit tricky. As trained first aiders, we ended up taking a guy who was really on the brink to the doctor during work hours.”

Unfortunately, when management don’t take mental health seriously enough, it means workers become reluctant to address it.

“As HSRs, we would say if we can report this and create a paper trail, we can build a case against the company, but a lot of people are too ashamed and embarrassed to document it.”