Psychosocial and mental health

Last reviewed: February 2025

Psychosocial hazards in the workplace

Psychosocial hazards in the workplace refer to factors that can affect an employee's mental health and well-being.

Examples of Psychosocial hazards:

Aggression or violence: Violence, threats of violence, or aggressive behaviour such as yelling or physical intimidation directed to an employee from other employees, students, patients customers and clients.

Bullying: means repeated, unreasonable behaviour by a person which is directed at another person or group of other persons that creates a risk to health and safety. Bullying behaviour is not limited to employees, it may also occur with other workplace relationships such as students, contractors, clients and customers or members of the public.

Traumatic content or events: Experiencing fear or extreme risks to the health or safety of themselves or others. Exposure to natural disasters, or seriously injured or deceased persons. Reading, hearing or seeing accounts of traumatic events, abuse or neglect. Supporting victims or investigating traumatic events, abuse or neglect.

Sexual harassment: a person sexually harasses another person if he or she:

• makes an unwelcome sexual advance, or an unwelcome request for sexual favours, to the other person, or
• engages in any other unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature in relation to the other person in circumstances in which a reasonable person, having regard to all the circumstances, would have anticipated that the other person would be offended, humiliated or intimidated.

High job demands: sustained or repeated physical, mental or emotional effort which is unreasonable or frequently exceeds the employee’s skills or capacity. A job can involve a combination of physical, mental and emotional demands.

Low role clarity: Uncertainty, frequent changes, conflicting roles or ambiguous responsibilities and expectations.

Low job control: Workers have little control over aspects of the work including how or when the job is done.

• Workers have limited ability to adapt the way they work to changing or new situations.
• Workers have limited ability to adopt efficiencies in their work.
• Tightly scripted or machine/computer paced work.
• Prescriptive processes which do not allow workers to apply their skills and judgement.
• Levels of autonomy not matched to workers’ abilities.

Low job demands: low levels of physical, mental or emotional effort are required to do the job over a sustained period of time.

Poor workplace relationships: Poor workplace relationships or interpersonal conflict between colleagues or from other businesses, clients or customers.

• Frequent disagreements, disparaging or rude comments, either from one person or multiple people, such as from clients or customers. A worker can be both the subject and the source of this behaviour.
• Inappropriately excluding a worker from work-related activities.

Poor organisation change management: Insufficient consultation, consideration of new hazards or performance impacts when planning for, and implementing, change.

• Insufficient support, information or training during change.
• Not communicating key information to workers during periods of change.

Poor organisational justice: Inconsistent, unfair, discriminatory or inequitable management decisions and application of policies, including poor procedural justice.

Low reward & recognition: Jobs with low positive feedback or imbalances between effort and recognition. High level of unconstructive negative feedback from managers or customers. Low skills development opportunity or underused skills.

Remote or isolated work: Working in locations with long travel times, or where access to help, resources or communications is difficult or limited.

Poor environmental conditions: Exposure to unpleasant or hazardous working environments.

• Poor support when workers do not have adequate practical or emotional support to enable them to perform their job safely.

Health and safety effects of exposure to psychosocial hazards depend on the type and severity of the hazard, the frequency and length of exposure, and the number of hazards present.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides independent and confidential services, as well as support materials to all UoM employees.

The program is delivered by Assure and includes a wide range of long and short-term services available to all staff, with a focus on wellbeing and prevention.

The EAP is a free and confidential service you can access for any wellbeing issues you may be experiencing, including personal wellbeing challenges not related to work.

Services are delivered online through video or chat, by telephone or in person.

For more information about the services available and access, click here.

For employees of  Melbourne Theatre Company, Melbourne Teaching Health Clinics and GVEH without UoM login credentials, please contact  your local HR and Health and Safety contacts for EAP access details.

Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS)

The University of Melbourne Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provides free, confidential, short-term psychological counselling to currently enrolled students and staff, as well as a range of workshops, training and helpful resources.

Counselling and Psychological Services (unimelb.edu.au)

Guide to manage psychosocial hazards

The principles available to manage physical hazards should be applied to manage psychosocial hazards.

Complete a Risk Assessment

The University has in place risk management requirements which incorporate:

• Identification of health and safety hazards.
• Risk assessment of hazards.
• Development of risk controls.
• Implementation of the risk controls.
• Review of effectiveness of risk controls.

To learn more about the University Risk Assessment Methodology, follow this link - health-and-safety-risk-assessment-methodology.pdf (unimelb.edu.au)

Training

Respect Education Program

Respect education is a cornerstone of the University’s commitment to eliminating sexual misconduct from our community and prioritising the safety and wellbeing of everyone who experiences it. All University staff are required to complete mandatory training and support the initiative. Programs for honoraries and contractors are under development for 2024.

The Respect Education Program been designed to build capability and confidence in all staff, equipping everyone to play an active role in identifying, preventing and responding to sexual misconduct. It embodies the principles of conduct laid out in the Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response Policy.

You can now facilitate workshops with your teams. Visit the resource repository for workshop resources including information on how to seek support, making a report about sexual misconduct, supporting colleagues in the event of a disclosure and having courageous conversations.

More information here: Respect education : Staff Hub (unimelb.edu.au)

Mental Health First Aid training

The Health and Safety Services offer Mental Health First Aid training to:

• Employees who are people leaders
• Health and Safety Business Partner
• HR Business Partner

You can access all our training sessions on TrainME: TrainME

Appropriate workplace behaviour

Our aspiration is that everyone at the University feels valued, supported and safe in their work.

Concerning behaviour includes behaviour that could potentially breach the Appropriate Workplace Behaviour Policy or Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response Policy, such as bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment or sexual assault, or any other behaviour that makes you feel uncomfortable or concerned for your safety or wellbeing.

If you experience or witness concerning behaviour, we encourage you to speak up.

Making a complaint

We understand that making a complaint can be difficult, particularly if you've experienced trauma. The process is designed to be supportive, procedurally fair, people-centred and trauma-informed. We want people impacted by negative behaviours to be heard, empowered and supported, and all participants treated with respect and compassion. Where possible, early disclosure can mitigate potential harm and prevent escalation of behaviours.

You can decide what action to take if you are concerned about something you’ve experienced or witnessed at work. You can seek support and guidance from your line manager, a senior staff member, your local HR representative or the University’s Safer Community Program.

More information here: Complaints : Staff Hub (unimelb.edu.au)