Bringing Awareness to Psychosocial Hazards During the Return-to-Work Process

Psychosocial hazards in the workplace can cause genuine and significant harm to a person’s psychological health and safety, giving justification for a successful workers compensation claim. Furthermore, failing to consider and mitigate the risk of psychosocial hazards can hinder a successful return-to-work for an injured or ill worker, extending recovery time and reducing the likelihood that the worker will return to the same employer. Sima Gharibi, Melbourne Team Manager and Rehabilitation Counsellor, describes what psychosocial hazards are, the impact they have on the return-to-work process, and how to address them.

Understanding the difference between psychosocial and psychological safety

Firstly, Sima emphasises the need to understand the difference between psychological and psychosocial health and safety and how they look, offering these helpful definitions.

Psychological health and safety refers to the mental well-being of employees in the workplace.

Psychosocial health and safety is a broader concept that involves psychological health and safety as well as other factors that contribute to a healthy and supportive work environment, such as:

1. Physical safety: The absence of physical hazards in the workplace.
2. Social support: The availability of support from colleagues and managers.
3. Work-life balance: The ability to balance work and personal life commitments.
4. Job satisfaction: The level of satisfaction with one’s job.

Examples of how psychological safety and psychosocial safety can play out in the workplace:

• Psychological safety: A team member feels comfortable speaking up about a mistake they made, knowing that they will not be punished or ridiculed
• Psychosocial safety: A team member feels supported by their colleagues and manager, and they know that they can rely on them for help and advice.

What are psychosocial hazards?

“Psychosocial hazards are factors in the design or management of work that increase the risk of work-related stress and can lead to psychological or physical harm – and the list is quite long.

“How much they affect someone’s mental health depends on their existing mental state, including whether they have an existing mental health condition or not) and the culture of an organisation. A toxic culture will make the impact much worse, while a healthy working environment can reduce the severity,” Sima explains.

Psychosocial Hazards can include:

• Pressure to complete a high workload in a short timeframe
• Stress from a lack of resources to do the work required (physical, people and financial)
• Lack of communication with, or support, from a supervisor.
• A lack of work-life balance due to long hours, or being contacted after hours
• Stress about performance and/or meeting targets
• Little or no control of over their work e.g. no control over job demands or procedures
• Poor relationship with colleagues/managers
• Inadequate communication with colleagues or managers in relation to the requirements of the role
• Feelings of isolation from colleagues or from community when working alone or in remote area
• A lack of support for workers experiencing trauma or ill-health outside work
• A mismatch between the real responsibilities and scope of the job compared to the written job description
• Verbal aggression and swearing which leads to feelings of stress or fear, low self-esteem and concerns over job security
• Constant organisational change
• High emotional demands – this is prevalent in caring professions like psychologists, counsellors, nurses, doctors, rehabilitation counsellors, criminal justice, social workers, youth workers, and HR
• Not feeling valued or appreciated
• Not feeling like they are welcome or ‘fit’ in the workplace environment or are intentionally excluded from work and social conversations and events
• A lack of communication about staffing changes e.g. people leaving without notice or reason can cause stress over job security

Sima warns that there are some unexpected hazards as well that have a more severe impact on people’s psychosocial wellbeing than employers think.

KPIs: Whie used as a performance management and incentive tool, without caution, using targets and KPI’s can backfire. The competition to achieve targets and then missing them can cause resentment, stress, stigma/exclusion, lower self-esteem.

“Obviously not everyone will achieve their target. When that happens, people feel like they have less capacity. This increases their stress levels, leads to anxiety or depression and as a result worsens their performance. It’s a vicious cycle,” Sima explains

Communication during organisational changes. Unless change is communicated clearly, accurately and at the right time, it raises stress levels due to the uncertainty about job security. Stress impacts their performance and in turn job security.

“If there is lack of communication or pieces of information are overheard at the wrong time, employees may wrongly think ‘I might be terminated next. My role might be made redundant. What do I do? Do I apply for another job?’ So that causes stress. If changes aren’t communicated, this can go on for weeks and weeks and obviously it will impact their working performance,” Sima says.

Physical safety: if workers don’t feel physically safe at work – e.g. occupational health and safety procedures aren’t being followed – they won’t feel psychologically or psychosocially safe.

“I had a client in a construction job who told me that they’d asked for a vehicle to be serviced multiple times, but they weren’t listened to. The worker had an accident where he ended up disabled but said he’d never felt safe driving that vehicle,” Sima recalled.

It’s important to note, that these factors don’t just impact people on an individual level and lead to potential workers compensation claims. Their impact influences the culture of the organisation which affects talent attraction, retention and productivity, and even customer dissatisfaction with poor levels of service from disengaged workers.

Employees are likely to be exposed to a combination of psychosocial hazards as they can influence and be influenced by other hazards. Some hazards might always be present at work, while others only occasionally. There is a greater risk of work-related stress when psychosocial hazards combine and act together, so employers should not consider them in isolation.

Sima cautions that psychosocial hazards do not necessarily reveal the causes of work-related stress: “The causes are likely to be specific to the employee, work or workplace. It is important to assess the extent to which the hazards are creating a risk or impact to an employees’ health safety and well-being. This requires the involvement and participation of employees at each stage of the process – planning, development, implementation and review – to control the impact of these hazards.

Psychological barriers & psychosocial hazards when returning to work after injury

Unfortunately, Sima says that employees face the risk of some quite specific psychological and psychosocial hazards when returning to work after injury or illness, both of which can cause stress and emotional harm. This can be in addition to any combination of psychosocial hazards that existed prior to their injury.

Unless these are addressed, it can extend their recovery time, cause a secondary psychological injury (requiring a further claim), or prevent them from returning to the workplace at all.

Psychological barriers can come in the form of:

• Fear of re-injury: Employees may be afraid of re-injuring themselves, or in extreme cases have PTSD, which can lead to anxiety, stress, and avoidance behaviors.
• Loss of confidence: Employees may have lost confidence in their ability to perform their job duties, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.
• Financial concerns: Employees may be worried about their financial situation, which can add to their stress and anxiety.

Psychosocial hazards include:

• Social isolation: Employees may feel isolated from their colleagues and supervisors, particularly if they are on reduced or different duties which can make it difficult for them to get the support they need. They may also feel like they’ve lost their social circle at work if they have been away for a long time.
• Stigma: Employees may feel stigmatized by their injury, which can make it difficult for them to talk about their experiences to others and get the help they need.
• Fear of returning to a toxic workplace: in the instance that psychosocial hazards were affecting the prior to injury.

How to mitigate psychosocial hazards & reduce psychosocial barriers for employees returning to work

Sima says that it’s the employer’s job to make the workplace safe: “Employers need to create a safe environment for injured or ill workers to return to by educating team members about the injury and communicating what the return-to-work plan is and how they can be supportive.”

Employers can do this by:

1. Holding regular 1:1 sessions between the manager and the returning worker where it’s safe for them to raise concerns
2. Ensure that any conflict between the manager and the employee is addressed prior to them returning to work so they feel safe – this might mean allocating a new supervisor or undergoing the facilitated discussion process
3. Offering training in psychosocial hazards to managers to enable them to identify and remove/reduce hazards
4. Focusing on building a positive team culture through events, recognition and appreciation programs, inclusion and anti-discrimination policies, and “Welcome Back” activities
5. Formal policies and risk management strategies* that address psychosocial hazards
6. Providing education and support to employees about the return-to-work process, including their rights and responsibilities
7. Encouraging open communication between employees, supervisors and healthcare providers to address any concerns or challenges before the employee returns to work
8. Offering flexible work arrangements such as modified duties or reduced hours to help employee gradually transition back to their job
9. Providing access to resources such as employee assistance programs or counselling to help employees cope with the challenges or returning to work
10. Being patient and understanding with employees who are returning to work and understanding the prognosis with regards to their capacity
11. Monitor for signs of discrimination or bias against employees returning to work in and take steps to address these in workplace meetings

*KINNECT’s psychologists and workplace rehabilitation consultants are happy to review your policies and psychosocial hazard management strategies as part of our return-to-work service.

When it comes to a fear of re-injury, Sima says that it’s important to firstly ensure that the rehabilitation provider addresses pain management, provides the employee with a stretching/warm-up plan (if necessary) and introduces cognitive behavioural techniques.

“After that, employers can support the confidence of returning workers by validating and normalising their concerns and doubts, highlighting their past successes and achievements, providing refresher courses in key skills, and braking goals or tasks into smaller, more manageable steps so they get a sense of accomplishment and progress,” Sima said.

If you’d like to know more about psychosocial hazards in the workplace, and supporting employees to return to work, please contact us – we’d be delighted to help.

Visit our psychological services page for information about how we can support employees returning to work.