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Free tools for HR leaders

Psychosocial risk assessment
tool (Australia)

A short self-assessment to see how ready your workplace is to identify and manage psychosocial hazards.

Your numbers

Rate how well each hazard category is identified and managed today. This is an organisational readiness indicator, not a clinical or individual assessment.
Readiness band
 
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What are psychosocial hazards?

They are aspects of work that can cause psychological or physical harm, such as high job demands, low control, poor support, lack of role clarity, poorly managed change, low recognition and difficult workplace relationships.

How we calculated this

You rate your workplace across the recognised psychosocial hazard categories: job demands, control, support, role clarity, change management, recognition and workplace relationships. Each category is scored, then aggregated into a banded readiness rating, and the tool surfaces your highest-risk categories. The categories follow the model WHS framework and the NSW WHS Regulation 2025, alongside the Commonwealth Code of Practice (Safe Work Australia; SafeWork NSW; Comcare, 2025). This is an organisational readiness indicator, not a clinical or individual assessment.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of psychosocial hazards in the HR Glossary.

Assumptions
  • Rated by whoever fills it in, usually HR or a manager. The WHS duty includes consulting workers, so a rating without worker input is one view of the workplace, and usually the more optimistic one.
  • Seven categories are a subset. The Commonwealth Code of Practice lists more hazards than these, including bullying and harassment, remote or isolated work, fatigue and job insecurity. A strong band here does not mean those are managed.
  • The bands are equal-width conventions for reading a total, not thresholds a regulator recognises. Two workplaces in the same band can be in very different shape.
  • It rates the organisation as one unit. Psychosocial hazards concentrate by team, roster, site and manager, so a moderate overall rating can hide one team where demands and support are both at 5.
  • It is a readiness check for the process, not the process. It does not identify hazards for a specific work group, assess them, choose controls or record them, and it does not replace advice from your regulator or a qualified practitioner.
Sources

What to do about it

The band is a starting point, and the duty is to identify hazards, control them and show you did. A checklist proves you thought about it once. These steps are for whoever holds WHS for the organisation and whoever holds people, because psychosocial risk sits between the two.

1
Where a tool helps

Take the flagged categories to a proper hazard identification, team by team

Use the data you already hold: absence by team, turnover, complaints and grievances, exit reasons, workers compensation claims. The tool rated the organisation; the hazards live in specific teams and rosters.

2

Consult, and record that you did

The Code expects workers to be part of identifying hazards and choosing controls. Short structured conversations, a pulse question or two, a survey item, a documented toolbox talk. Write down who was consulted, when, what they said and what changed as a result.

3

Put the controls in the work itself

The Code asks for controls that change the source of the risk (workload, rostering, role clarity, how change is run) ahead of support offered after the harm. Resilience training and an assistance program are useful; on their own they are not the control.

4

Document the register and set the review date

One line per hazard: where, who is exposed, the control, the owner and the review date. Review when something changes (a restructure, a new roster, a new manager, a complaint) and on a schedule regardless. The record is what proves you acted.

5

Re-run this quarterly, next to two measures

Absence rate and voluntary turnover by team. If the band improves and those numbers do not move, the rating is drifting from the workplace and it is time to ask the workers again.

Step 1 needs a read
your checklist lacks.

Compono Engage is an employee engagement platform that reads culture and climate alongside work personality, team by team, including the demands, support, recognition and relationships that sit at the centre of the hazard categories above. Most compliance checklists ask whether hazards are managed. They cannot show you where they are building.

Step 1 asks you to identify hazards by team with the data you hold. Engage gives you that data on a regular cycle rather than once a year, so the register in step 4 is fed by a live read and the review date has something new to review. The band above says how ready you are. Engage shows where to look first.

See how it works
Compono Engage
8%+
reduction in turnover

Common questions

What do the WHS laws require?

Model WHS laws now require employers to identify psychosocial hazards and manage the risks, so far as is reasonably practicable. The NSW WHS Regulation 2025 and a Commonwealth Code of Practice are in force and set out how to do this.

Is this tool a clinical or diagnostic assessment?

No. It is an organisational readiness indicator across recognised hazard categories. It does not assess individuals and is not a substitute for professional advice or a formal risk assessment.

What should we do with the result?

Use the highest-risk areas to focus a proper hazard assessment, consult your workers, and put control measures in place. Reviewing it regularly helps you show the risk is being actively managed.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the Fair Work Ombudsman or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.

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Psychosocial hazards

The plain-English definition, with the calculators and rules that sit around it.

Read the definition →Talk to us

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