Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment: Essential Steps for Safer Workplace Change

2 days ago

Change is a normal part of running a business, but it can introduce risks that affect workers’ health, safety and wellbeing.

A new roster. A new supervisor. New software. Moving premises. Restructuring a team. Changing someone’s duties. Introducing new equipment. Reducing staffing levels. Changing reporting lines.

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), these decisions are often necessary to improve efficiency, respond to customers or keep the business moving forward.

However, workplace change can also introduce psychosocial hazards.

This is why businesses should consider completing a Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment before significant workplace changes are introduced. This practical assessment helps identify potential hazards, evaluate how changes may affect workers and determine appropriate control measures before implementation.

Why Assess Psychosocial Risks Before Workplace Change?

The NSW Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice recognises organisational and workplace change as an important consideration when managing psychosocial risks.

The Code highlights the importance of consulting affected workers and their Health and Safety Representatives as early as possible when changes are proposed to areas such as:

Organisational restructures and the design or management of work
Work locations
Tasks and duties
Working arrangements
New technology
Plant and equipment
Production processes
Workplace redesign

It also identifies the need to review control measures before significant organisational or workplace changes occur, including changes to organisational structure, work location, equipment, resources, employment conditions and systems of work.

This matters because a change that seems straightforward from a business or operational perspective may affect workers very differently.

A Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment provides a structured way to consider these potential impacts before the change takes place.

Completing a Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment before implementing significant changes helps businesses take a proactive approach to workplace health and safety.

How Workplace Change Can Create Psychosocial Hazards

A Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment isn’t intended to determine whether everyone agrees with a business decision.

Its purpose is to ask:

Could the proposed change alter the way people work in a way that creates or increases a psychosocial hazard?

For example, imagine a business introduces a new software system.

The software may eventually make the business more efficient. However, during implementation:

Workers may have to maintain the old and new systems simultaneously.
Workloads may temporarily increase.
Workers may worry about making mistakes.
Some workers may not have received adequate training.
Responsibilities may become unclear.
Experienced workers may suddenly be expected to support everyone else.
Workers may feel they have little control over how the new system is introduced.

The problem isn’t necessarily the software.

The risk can arise from how the change is designed and implemented.

SafeWork NSW provides a similar example involving workers experiencing uncertainty associated with restructuring and a new IT and performance-monitoring system. Its guidance emphasises consultation, role clarity, manageable workloads, support and training as potential controls..

Common Psychosocial Hazards During Workplace Change

SafeWork NSW identifies 15 common types of psychosocial hazards. When considering a workplace change, several may be particularly relevant, including:

Role overload
Low job control
Role conflict or lack of role clarity
Poor support
Poor organisational change consultation
Poor procedural justice

These hazards can interact or combine, increasing the overall risk.

A manager therefore shouldn’t simply ask:

“Have we told everyone about the change?”

They should consider:

“How will this change affect the way our people actually do their jobs?”

That is a very different conversation.

How to Conduct a Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment

For most SMEs, this doesn’t need to become another complicated 20-page risk assessment.

A short pre-change assessment, completed by the manager responsible for the change, provides a practical record that psychosocial risks have been considered.

A Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment helps businesses identify potential psychosocial hazards, evaluate how workplace changes may affect employees, and determine appropriate control measures before implementation. It also provides a documented process for managing psychosocial risks as part of workplace health and safety (WHS) management.

The assessment could ask the following questions.

What is changing?

Briefly describe the proposed change and why it is occurring.

Who will be affected?

Identify the workers, teams, supervisors, contractors or other people whose work may change.

Could workload or work pressure increase?

Consider additional duties, deadlines, staffing levels, training time and temporary increases in workload.

Will workers have less control over their work?

Consider changes to rosters, work methods, breaks, decision-making, location or flexibility.

Will roles or responsibilities change?

Could there be uncertainty about who is responsible for particular tasks or decisions?

Could support or supervision decrease?

Consider whether supervisors will have sufficient time and resources to support workers during the transition.

Have affected workers been consulted?

Record who was consulted, when consultation occurred and how workers were given an opportunity to contribute.

What concerns or suggestions were raised?

Don’t simply record “consultation completed”. Capture the issues workers identified.

What controls will be implemented before the change?

This might include additional staffing, revised workloads, training, clearer procedures, additional supervision, staged implementation or changes to the proposed design.

When will the change be reviewed?

Set a date to speak with workers and check whether the controls are working.

Why Worker Consultation Matters During Workplace Change

Consultation is more than communication.

Sending an email saying:

“From Monday we will be implementing a new roster.”

is communication.

Consultation involves giving affected workers a reasonable opportunity to provide information, raise concerns and contribute to decisions about managing the health and safety risks associated with the proposed change.

SafeWork NSW identifies worker consultation as part of identifying and controlling psychosocial hazards. Persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) also have duties to consult workers who may be affected by a health and safety matter.

That doesn’t mean every business decision has to be made by committee.

It means the people who perform the work can often identify consequences that aren’t obvious to the person designing the change.

As part of a Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment, documenting worker feedback helps management identify concerns and select practical controls before introducing workplace changes.

An SME Example: Introducing a New Roster

Consider a registered club introducing a new roster to reduce labour costs.

The proposed roster may make financial sense, but completing a Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment might identify that:

Fewer experienced employees will be working during busy periods.
Supervisors will have responsibility for larger teams.
Some employees will lose predictability in their working hours.
Workers may have less opportunity to take breaks.
Customer aggression may be more difficult to manage with fewer experienced staff available.
The duty manager may become the escalation point for significantly more incidents.

The answer isn’t necessarily to abandon the new roster.

Instead, the assessment allows management to consider controls before implementation.

For example, the club could adjust staffing during peak periods, ensure an experienced supervisor is always available, provide rosters further in advance, establish an escalation process and review the new roster with workers after four weeks.

SafeWork NSW’s guidance includes examples involving adequate staffing during peak periods, experienced workers on shifts and releasing rosters ahead of time when discussing psychosocial risk controls.

A Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment allows the club to consider how roster changes could affect workload, worker support and the ability to manage customer aggression.

Another Example: Introducing New Software

A 20-person business decides to introduce a new job management system.

Rather than simply purchasing the software, providing one training session and setting a go-live date, the Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment identifies that employees will temporarily need to use two systems.

Management recognises this could increase workload and uncertainty.

Controls might therefore include:

Reducing other administrative requirements during implementation
Providing practical training before go-live
Nominating an internal system champion
Allowing additional time to complete tasks
Providing clear instructions about responsibilities
Establishing a process for workers to report problems
Reviewing workloads two and six weeks after implementation

The business still implements the technology.

It simply manages the people risks associated with the change.

Reviewing and Monitoring Workplace Change Risks

One of the most useful questions on the assessment may be:

“When will we review this?”

A risk assessment completed before implementation is based partly on what management expects will happen.

Once the change is operating, the business can determine what is actually happening.

SafeWork NSW states that control measures should be maintained and reviewed to ensure they remain effective, and that workplace changes that could create new risks should be reviewed.

Reviewing the Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment after implementation helps determine whether the controls remain effective and whether additional workplace risks need to be addressed.

The review can be simple:

What is working?
What isn’t working?
Has workload changed?
Are responsibilities clear?
Do workers have enough support?
Have any new hazards appeared?
Do we need to change any controls?

Record the discussion and any actions that result.

Practical Psychosocial Risk Management for SMEs

Psychosocial risk management doesn’t always require another large policy.

Sometimes the most effective approach is to incorporate psychosocial considerations into decisions the business is already making.

A Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment could become a simple trigger whenever a business proposes a significant change involving people or how work is performed.

For example:

New roster → complete the assessment.
New software → complete the assessment.
Restructure → complete the assessment.
New supervisor or reporting structure → complete the assessment.
Relocation → complete the assessment.
Significant change in duties → complete the assessment.
New production process or equipment → complete the assessment.

For a small business, that creates a straightforward rule:

Before we significantly change how people work, we consider how the change could affect their health and safety.

The completed assessment also provides evidence that the business identified potential hazards, consulted affected workers, considered controls and planned to review whether those controls were effective.

Using a Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment consistently helps SMEs integrate psychosocial hazard identification into their existing workplace change management procedures.

Conclusion: Managing Psychosocial Risks Before Workplace Change

Businesses will always need to change.

The objective of psychosocial risk management isn’t to prevent change or make management afraid to make decisions.

It is to recognise that how change is planned, communicated, consulted on, implemented and reviewed can affect workers’ psychological and physical health and safety.

A five- or ten-minute assessment before implementing a relatively simple change may identify an issue that would otherwise become a much larger problem several weeks later.

For SMEs, that’s exactly what good WHS management should look like: identify the risk early, talk to the people doing the work, put sensible controls in place and check that they are working.

By incorporating a Psychosocial Change Risk Assessment into their change management process, SMEs can identify people-related risks early, consult affected workers and implement appropriate controls to support a safer workplace.

If your business needs support with workplace health and safety, risk management or compliance, contact CHD Partners to discuss your requirements and identify the appropriate next steps.