Workplace health and safety in Australia has changed. Regulators, courts, and workers now expect employers to protect psychological wellbeing with the same rigour they apply to physical safety. The Work Health and Safety (Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work) Code of Practice 2024 sits at the centre of this shift. It gives Australian workplaces clear, practical guidance on identifying, asse

ssing, and controlling psychosocial risks.

This guide explains what the Code covers, its legal weight, who must follow it, the specific hazards it targets, and the steps your organisation needs to take. If you employ people, manage safety, or run a business in Australia, you need to understand this Code.

Why Psychosocial Safety Matters Now

Work-related psychological injuries are climbing fast. The costs are brutal.

Safe Work Australia's data shows mental health conditions now make up about 9% of all serious workers' compensation claims. That's a 36.9% jump since 2017-18. General workplace injuries rose just 18.3% over the same period.

The money tells an even starker story. Psychological claims represent roughly 12% of total claims but chew through about 38% of total compensation costs. In NSW, the average cost of a psychological injury claim has nearly doubled from $146,000 in 2019-20 to $288,542 in 2024-25.

Workers with psychological injuries stay off work far longer. The median time lost for mental health claims runs more than four times higher than physical injury claims. While 88% of workers with physical injuries return to work within 13 weeks, 40% of workers with psychological injuries remain separated from their workplace after a full year.

Mental health conditions cost Australian businesses around $6 billion annually through absenteeism, lost productivity, turnover, and compensation claims. But the flip side holds opportunity. Research shows an average return of $2.30 for every $1 spent on mental health initiatives.

What the Code Actually Is

The Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice 2024 sits under section 274 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. It gives practical guidance on managing psychosocial hazards and meeting the standards set out in WHS laws.

The Code supports Regulations 55A to 55D of the Work Health and Safety Regulations. These regulations define key terms and set out requirements:

• Regulation 55A defines a psychosocial hazard as a hazard that arises from or relates to the design or management of work, the work environment, plant at a workplace, or workplace interactions and behaviours, and may cause psychological harm (whether or not it also causes physical harm).

• Regulation 55B defines a psychosocial risk as a risk to the health or safety of a worker or other person arising from a psychosocial hazard.

• Regulation 55C requires PCBUs to manage psychosocial risks in accordance with Part 3.1, including applying the hierarchy of controls.

• Regulation 55D lists the matters PCBUs must consider when determining control measures.

The regulatory changes kicked in on 1 April 2023 in the Commonwealth jurisdiction. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations approved the Code, and it took effect on 1 November 2024.

The 2018 review of model WHS laws drove this development. That review found workplaces often treated bullying and harassment as individual grievances rather than symptoms of broader safety culture problems. The Code pushes organisations to tackle these issues systemically.

Legal Standing: Why You Can't Ignore It

The Code isn't legislation, but it carries real legal teeth.

Courts Will Use It Against You

Approved codes of practice are automatically admissible as evidence in court proceedings under WHS laws. Courts treat the Code as evidence of what's known about a hazard, risk, or control measure. When a court decides what was "reasonably practicable" in your situation, it will look at the Code.

Following It Gets You Home

Following the Code will generally satisfy your health and safety duties under WHS laws. You can take a different approach, but you must prove your method delivers safety outcomes equal to or better than what the Code sets out. Good luck with that argument if something goes wrong.

Inspectors Will Hold You To It

WHS inspectors can reference the Code when issuing improvement or prohibition notices. If you've strayed from the Code's guidance and that contributed to a psychosocial risk or harm, expect enforcement action.

Who Must Comply

The Code casts a wide net.

PCBUs

Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking carry the primary duties. This covers employers, contractors, subcontractors, franchisors, the self-employed, and corporate entities. PCBUs must ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers while at work. They must also protect others from risks arising from work. Under the WHS Act, "health" means physical and psychological health. Both get equal billing.

Officers

Company directors, senior managers, and executives must exercise due diligence to ensure their organisation complies with WHS duties. You can't delegate this away. Officers need to know their organisation is properly identifying and managing psychosocial hazards.

Workers

The Code covers employees, contractors, subcontractors, outworkers, the self-employed, apprentices, trainees, work experience students, and volunteers. Workers must take reasonable care for their own health and safety, avoid actions that harm others, and follow reasonable instructions from the PCBU.

Others at the Workplace

Customers, clients, patients, visitors, and delivery people fall within scope. PCBUs must ensure psychosocial hazards don't put these people at risk. These people must follow reasonable behavioural standards and site rules.

Which Jurisdiction?

The Commonwealth Code applies directly to federal government departments, Australian Public Service agencies, and certain private sector employers under the Comcare scheme. Most states and territories have implemented their own versions based on Safe Work Australia's model code. Check with your local WHS regulator to confirm which code applies to you.

The Psychosocial Hazards (14 in Model Code, 17 in Commonwealth Code)

The Safe Work Australia model code identifies 14 common psychosocial hazards. The Commonwealth Code adds three more: fatigue, intrusive surveillance, and job insecurity, bringing the total to 17 hazards for workplaces covered by the Comcare scheme. This list isn't exhaustive, but it covers the main risks most workplaces face.

Work Design and Management Factors

Job demands. Physical, mental, and emotional demands including workload, time pressures, and exposure to traumatic content.

Fatigue. (Commonwealth Code addition) High cognitive demands, lack of recovery periods, long shifts, inadequate rest between shifts, and environmental stressors like noise, heat, or vibration.

Low job control. Workers have little say over how or when they do their work, or face tight micromanagement.

Job insecurity. (Commonwealth Code addition) Workers lack confidence their job will last. This covers fixed-term contracts, casual work, freelance arrangements, and gig work.

Poor support. Managers and colleagues don't provide adequate practical help or emotional backing.

Lack of role clarity. Unclear, inconsistent, or constantly changing responsibilities, expectations, or access to important information.

Poor organisational change management. Badly handled workplace changes that create uncertainty or bypass consultation.

Inadequate reward and recognition. Workers put in effort but don't receive fair recognition or rewards, formal or informal.

Poor organisational justice. Unfair procedures, information sharing, or interpersonal treatment.

Traumatic events or material. Witnessing, investigating, or exposure to traumatic incidents or content.

Remote or isolated work. Limited access to other people, reliable communication, or support when needed.

Intrusive surveillance. (Commonwealth Code addition) Monitoring that undermines trust or creates excessive pressure.

Poor physical environment. Noise, lighting, temperature, or space conditions that hurt wellbeing.

Workplace Behaviours and Interactions

Violence and aggression. Physical assault, threats, intimidation, or aggressive behaviour from anyone in the workplace.

Bullying. Repeated unreasonable behaviour towards a worker or group that creates health and safety risks.

Harassment including sexual harassment. Unwelcome conduct that offends, humiliates, or intimidates. This includes gender-based harassment.

Conflict or poor workplace relationships. Relationship breakdowns, interpersonal conflict, incivility, or poor communication.

How Hazards Combine

Workers rarely face just one hazard. Multiple hazards often hit at once, and they interact. High workloads become far more dangerous when workers can't take breaks or get help. A hazard that seems manageable alone can become serious when combined with others. The Code requires you to consider hazards collectively, not in isolation.

Psychosocial hazards can cause both psychological and physical harm. Psychological harm may include anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleep disorders. Physical harm may include musculoskeletal injuries, chronic disease, and fatigue-related injuries. Stress itself is not an injury, but frequent, prolonged, or severe stress causes harm.

Key Obligations

PCBUs must manage psychosocial risks under Part 3.1 of the WHS Regulations. The core obligation is to eliminate psychosocial risks so far as reasonably practicable. If you can't eliminate them, minimise them so far as reasonably practicable.

The Hierarchy of Controls

The Commonwealth Code makes the hierarchy of controls mandatory for psychosocial risks. This ranks controls from most effective to least effective:

1. Elimination. Remove the hazard completely. Always consider this first.

2. Substitution. Replace a hazard or hazardous practice with something less risky.

3. Isolation. Separate the hazard from people exposed to it.

4. Engineering controls. Put physical measures in place that reduce exposure.

5. Administrative controls. Use policies, procedures, and work practices to reduce exposure.

6. Personal protective equipment. Provide resources that help workers cope with remaining risks.

Administrative controls and PPE sit at the bottom because they don't fix the hazard at its source. They depend on people following rules and supervisors checking up. Use them alongside higher-order controls, not instead of them.

Consultation Requirements

You must consult workers when managing psychosocial hazards. Talk to workers directly affected by a hazard or risk. If workers have a Health and Safety Representative (HSR), include them.

Real consultation means sharing information, giving workers genuine chances to speak up, actually considering what they say before making decisions, and telling them what you decided and why. Psychosocial hazards often need different consultation approaches than physical hazards. The issues can be sensitive, and workers may need safe ways to raise concerns.

The Four-Step Risk Management Process

The Code sets out four steps. Every step needs worker consultation.

Step 1: Identify Psychosocial Hazards

Find all reasonably foreseeable psychosocial hazards in your workplace. Look at what aspects of work could harm people and dig into why those conditions exist.

Run through all the hazards in the Code, but don't stop there. Watch the workplace, review incident reports and compensation data, survey workers, talk to people in focus groups, and examine your work systems and processes.

Step 2: Assess the Risks

Once you've spotted hazards, assess the risks they create. If you already know the risks and how to control them effectively, you can skip straight to implementing controls and then check they're working.

To assess risk, identify which workers face exposure and consider how often, how long, and how severe that exposure gets. Consider hazards together because they interact. Risk climbs when exposure is more severe (a traumatic incident), more frequent (regularly working without support), or longer lasting (high demands for months on end).

Step 3: Control the Risks

Regulation 55D lists the matters you must consider when choosing controls:

• Duration, frequency, and severity of exposure

• How hazards interact or combine

• Work design, job demands, and tasks

• Systems of work and how work gets managed, organised, and supported

• Workplace design, layout, and environment

• Plant, substances, and structures at the workplace

• Workplace interactions and behaviours

• Information, training, instruction, and supervision given to workers

Try elimination first. If that won't work, apply the hierarchy of controls. You can combine multiple controls if one isn't enough.

Step 4: Review Control Measures

Check whether your controls actually work. Review them when:

• Controls aren't effectively managing risks

• A workplace change might create new or different risks your controls won't catch

• You identify a new hazard or risk

• Consultation shows a review is needed

• An HSR requests a review for any of these reasons

Keep controls maintained. Make sure they're fit for purpose, suitable for the work, and properly set up and used. Build a routine for checking and maintaining them.

Practical Steps to Get Compliant

Get Leadership On Board

Nothing works without genuine commitment from PCBUs and senior leaders. Leadership decisions on governance and resources shape how work gets done. Make sure leaders understand their legal duties, the risk management process, the business case for managing psychosocial hazards, and their specific roles.

Set Up Proper Consultation

Build consultation mechanisms that actually work for psychosocial issues. These often need different approaches than physical hazard consultation. People may not speak freely about bullying in a shopfloor meeting. Use multiple methods for different sites, shifts, and types of hazards.

Run Regular Risk Assessments

Use validated tools like Safe Work Australia's People at Work survey. Bring in organisational psychologists or industry experts for complex risks.

Build Controls That Actually Work

Prioritise higher-order controls. Redesign work, adjust job demands, fix systems of work. Don't just write policies and run training sessions and call it done. Map your current controls against the Code to find gaps.

Train Your People

Officers need to understand their due diligence obligations. Managers and supervisors need to spot hazards, respond properly to reports, and support struggling workers. Workers need to know their rights and responsibilities.

Create Clear Response Procedures

The Commonwealth Code includes Part 8, which covers responding to reports, complaints, and incidents. This section contains 10 principles organisations must apply. Set up:

• Clear channels for workers to report hazards or incidents

• Investigation processes using people who understand psychosocial hazards and both WHS and industrial relations law

• Protections for complainants and people facing allegations

Document Everything and Keep Reviewing

Keep records of risk assessments, controls you've implemented, and review activities. You need this to prove compliance, track what's working, and drive improvement. Set up metrics for exposure and control effectiveness. Schedule regular audits.

Wrapping Up

The Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice 2024 marks a major shift in how Australian workplaces must protect workers' psychological health. It identifies common hazards (14 in the Safe Work Australia model, 17 in the Commonwealth version), lays out a clear risk management process, and requires proper application of the hierarchy of controls.

Compliance takes time and money. But the payoff is clear. Lower compensation costs, better productivity and performance, stronger staff retention, and workers who go home each day with their mental health intact.

Get familiar with the Code. Measure your current practices against it. Fix the gaps. The Code is available from your WHS regulator or the Federal Register of Legislation.

Psychological health is health. You wouldn't accept unsafe physical conditions. Don't accept conditions that damage workers' minds.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information about workplace health and safety requirements and should not be relied upon as legal advice. Requirements vary by jurisdiction and may have changed since publication. Consult relevant codes of practice, regulatory guidance, and qualified advisors for specific circumstances.

For more information on how to identify, assess, and control psychosocial hazards in your workplace, visit refresh.tech. ReFresh helps organisations build defensible, systematic approaches to psychosocial risk management and WHS compliance.