What is Psychosocial Risk Assessment?
Psychosocial risk assessment is the practice of understanding the likelihood and consequence of harm arising from worker exposure to psychosocial hazards. A psychosocial hazard is anything in the design, management and social aspect of work that has the potential to cause harm (psychological or physical). Psychosocial risk assessment is typically conducted by health and safety professionals or external consultants such as organisational psychologists. Human resource and people and culture professional also often to contribute to psychosocial risk management activities, particularly when it comes to controlling the risks arising from psychosocial hazard exposure through work design interventions.
Psychosocial risk assessment tools are designed to consult with workers to understand their experience of work and to understand risk of psychological harm. Psychosocial risk assessment tools need to understand the severity, frequency and duration of exposure to psychosocial hazards (like work overload/low job control) in order to create population estimates of psychological harm (such as burnout, work-related stress, depression and anxiety, and psychological injury). Psychosocial risk assessment tool range from free, academic tools (such as COPSOQ), to enterprise grade software platforms like FlourishDx.
eLearning
How to Conduct a Psychosocial Risk Assessment: Free eLearning
The ‘How to conduct a psychosocial risk assessment’ course by FlourishDx is designed for those who want practical guidance on how to conduct a psychosocial risk assessment. It will teach you how to meet your legal obligations where they exist and how to address important requirements of ISO 45003:2021.
ISO 45003
ISO 45003:2021 Psychological health and safety at work is the first internationally agreed guideline on psychosocial risk management. Contributed to by experts from more than 70 countries, it provides practical guidance on how to address the risk of psychosocial hazards within an occupational health and safety management system. A key part of this standard is the need to consult with workers periodically on psychosocial hazards through psychosocial risk assessment. Learn about the ISO 45003:2021 international standard in this free foundations course by FlourishDx.
Podcasts and Webinars on Psychosocial Risk Assessment
FlourishDx produces several podcasts based out of international locales on psychological health and safety and workplace mental health more generally. These regularly feature guests who are leading experts in psychosocial risk assessment as well as other topics related to psychosocial health and safety.
Free Digital Playbook and Psychosocial Risk Assessment Tools
FlourishDx is the leading software platform for companies wanting to conduct psychosocial risk assessment, adopt international best practice (such as ISO 45003), and meet WHS legal requirements where they exist on psychosocial risk management. On top of world leading data analytics tools, learning resources and the well-featured employee wellbeing app, it also contains a playbook on how to implement a psychological health and safety management system (generic) as well as align to the international ISO 45003 standard.
Get started in 3 easy steps
Step 1
Get started today by signing up for a free FlourishDx Basic Account via the website to explore all the admin and user features.
Step 2
Once you’ve created your free account, head over to either the Google Play Store or Apple App Store to download the FlourishDx mobile app.
Step 3
Add up to 12 colleagues to your FlourishDx Basic Account to allow free app access that will enable you to work together to better understand and improve workplace mental health.
New International Guidelines from WHO and ILO
The WHO guidelines on mental health at work were published in September 2022 and were accompanied by a jointly published WHO/ILO policy brief. The guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations to promote mental health, prevent mental health conditions, and enable people living with mental health conditions to participate and thrive in work.
The first two of the 12 recommended evidence-based guidelines were focused on psychosocial risk management (inclusive of psychosocial risk assessment) as an organisational level intervention. This is in line with the recent addition by the ILO of occupational safety and health being a fundamental principle and right at work3.
Incorporate Psychosocial Risk Assessment into a Holistic Strategy for Workplace Mental Health
With the WHO/ILO guidelines on mental health at work, it is clear that psychosocial risk assessment through consultation with workers should be a key part of a holistic strategy to address employee mental health. The workplace mental health benchmark tool by FlourishDx is a self-audit that can be supplemented by an optional employee check in survey to determine the maturity of an organisation’s approach to employee mental health – that incorporates psychosocial risk assessment.
Developed in collaboration with 40 international experts, it is well aligned to the three levels of intervention referenced in the WHO/ILO policy brief: Prevent, Promote and Respond. The tool is available for large companies with more than 250 employees.
