Australia's free, validated psychosocial risk assessment tool is being decommissioned in October 2026. Tens of thousands of Australian workplaces have used the People at Work survey as their starting point for identifying psychosocial hazards, and many have built their compliance posture around it. With the platform retiring, organisations need a clear path forward that satisfies the regulator, gives the workforce a meaningful voice, and produces evidence that holds up to inspection.

This guide explains what the People at Work survey is, why the change matters, what your options are after October 2026, and how to choose the right approach for your organisation.

What the People at Work survey is

The People at Work survey is Australia's free, validated psychosocial risk assessment tool, developed by Australian researchers in partnership with the Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities, Comcare, and Safe Work Australia. Hosted at peopleatwork.gov.au, it allows organisations to measure workforce exposure to psychosocial hazards using research-backed scales covering job demands, role clarity, support, recognition, change management, and several other domains drawn from the Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work.

Since launch the tool has been used by tens of thousands of Australian workplaces, particularly in the public sector, education, health, and not-for-profit sectors where budgets for commercial assessment tools are tight. For many WHS and people-and-culture teams, People at Work has been the default first step in identifying psychosocial hazards under the WHS Regulations.

When and why People at Work is being decommissioned

Safe Work Australia has confirmed the People at Work platform will be decommissioned in October 2026. The platform was always a public investment in baseline awareness rather than an ongoing compliance system, and the commercial market for psychosocial assessment and compliance tools has matured to a point where the public investment is no longer the most efficient way for government to support employers.

For context, the regulatory landscape around the tool has changed significantly since it launched. Every Australian state and territory has now adopted explicit psychosocial duties under model WHS Regulations, with Victoria the last to do so on 1 December 2025. Where the People at Work survey was once a leading-edge resource, it now sits inside a regulatory environment that expects employers to manage psychosocial risk as a continuous discipline, not as a periodic survey exercise. Decommissioning reflects that shift.

What the decommissioning means for organisations using it

If your organisation has used People at Work as its primary psychosocial hazard identification method, three things matter from now until October 2026.

First, anything you have previously collected through the platform should be exported and archived in your own systems before access ends. The survey results, response rates, and any de-identified hazard data form part of your organisation's evidence trail and may be needed if a regulator asks for the basis of your current controls.

Second, your statutory duty to identify, assess, control, and review psychosocial hazards is unchanged. Section 19 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, alongside each state's psychosocial-specific Regulations, requires employers to manage psychosocial risk. The People at Work tool helped organisations meet the identification step. The duty itself remains in full effect after the platform is retired.

Third, the next survey cycle cannot rely on the People at Work infrastructure. If your organisation runs psychosocial surveys annually or biannually, the next round needs a replacement instrument selected and configured well before the data window opens.

Your options after October 2026

Three categories of replacement exist, and they are not interchangeable. Different tool, different job.

Licensed validated survey instruments. Tools such as the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ), the Job Stress Survey, and academic People at Work derivatives offer the same psychometric depth as the original. They suit organisations that need a research-grade measurement instrument and have the in-house capability to administer the survey, analyse the data, and translate findings into a hazard register independently.

Engagement and culture survey platforms with a psychosocial template. Culture Amp, Officevibe, and similar platforms offer pre-built psychosocial questions inside a broader engagement-survey product. They suit organisations that want psychosocial measurement to sit alongside engagement, retention, and culture data, and that already have a programme for acting on engagement insights. They produce employee voice data, not a structured hazard register, and the data does not flow into a controls plan or audit trail without separate work.

Psychosocial compliance platforms. Purpose-built platforms manage psychosocial hazard identification as one step inside a complete compliance lifecycle: hazard register, control mapping, control verification, incident management, board reporting, and audit-ready evidence. This category suits organisations where the regulator's expectations, board oversight, and operational scale require an ongoing system rather than a periodic survey.

A useful contrast for organisations weighing the second and third categories sits at our engagement surveys vs psychosocial compliance page.

How to choose what is right for your organisation

Three questions narrow the decision quickly.

Are you trying to satisfy the regulator, the workforce, or both? A licensed survey instrument or a psychosocial compliance platform meets the regulator's expectation around hazard identification. An engagement platform meets the workforce's expectation around being heard. The right answer is often both, run in parallel by different functions, with the regulator-facing data flowing into a documented hazard register.

Does the data need to flow into a hazard register and control plan? A survey produces findings. A hazard register documents which hazards apply to which work activities, what controls are in place, and how those controls are verified. If the survey results sit in a PDF and the hazard register sits in a spreadsheet, the gap between them is exactly where regulators look during inspection. A platform that holds both reduces the gap. A practical walk-through of the steps involved is in our psychosocial risk assessment guide.

Will you re-survey on a cadence and trend the data over time? A one-off measurement does not show whether controls are working. The Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work expects organisations to review controls and update the hazard register as work, workforce, and conditions change. Cadence matters more than the precise instrument.

Hazard identification is one step of a longer process

The reason People at Work has felt like enough for many organisations is that it produced a defensible artefact: a survey result with validated scales. In an environment where the regulator was still building inspector capacity, that artefact was usually enough to demonstrate good faith.

The bar has moved. SafeWork NSW now runs compulsory psychosocial checks during inspector visits to organisations with 200 or more workers, supported by a 25% increase in inspector numbers. WorkSafe Victoria's psychosocial regulations have been in force since December 2025. The Court Services Victoria prosecution in 2023, which resulted in a fine of approximately $379,157 for failing to identify psychosocial risks at the Coroners Court, signalled the kind of evidence regulators now expect: identification, assessment, control, review, all documented and current.

A survey, however validated, is one input into that process. The lifecycle still has to be operated. That is the gap many organisations will discover when they replace People at Work with a like-for-like survey and find the deeper compliance question unanswered.

ReFresh is built for the full lifecycle. It treats hazard identification as the start of an ongoing operation, not the destination. For organisations whose People at Work data has been the spine of their psychosocial compliance, the decommissioning is a useful prompt to review whether the rest of the lifecycle is in place, and to decide whether a survey replacement or a compliance system is the right next step.

Frequently asked questions

When exactly is the People at Work survey being decommissioned?

Safe Work Australia has indicated October 2026. Organisations should plan to export historical data and select a replacement well before that date.

Can my organisation keep using People at Work data we have already collected?

Yes. Historical results remain a valid input to your hazard register and risk assessment as long as the data still reflects the present workforce and work activities. As a guide, hazard data older than 12 to 18 months should be refreshed.

Is a replacement survey enough to satisfy the regulator?

A survey alone is not enough. The Work Health and Safety Regulations require identification, assessment, control, and review of psychosocial hazards, with documented evidence at each step. A survey supports the identification step. The remaining steps need to be operated and documented separately.

What happens if my organisation does nothing before October 2026?

The duty to manage psychosocial risk continues regardless of the platform's availability. An organisation that does nothing will lose the only evidence trail it had, while the underlying obligation, regulator scrutiny, and inspector activity all continue.

Are there free alternatives to People at Work after it is decommissioned?

Some open-source survey instruments such as COPSOQ are free to use under licence terms. They are not equivalent to a managed platform. Organisations using them take on responsibility for hosting, distribution, analysis, and translating findings into a hazard register and control plan.

What to do now

The People at Work survey served a real purpose. It gave Australian employers a credible, free starting point in a regulatory landscape that was still finding its shape. The decommissioning is not an ending so much as a marker: psychosocial compliance has moved from a periodic awareness exercise to a continuous operating discipline, and the tools available to support employers have caught up.

For organisations that have leaned on People at Work, the next nine months are the right window to review your current evidence, decide whether a survey replacement or a compliance system fits your maturity, and run a parallel cycle so the transition does not leave a data gap.

A short readiness check is the simplest place to start. It tells you what evidence a regulator would currently find in your organisation, where the hazard identification, controls, and review steps sit, and what the highest-leverage next move is. Take the psychosocial compliance readiness survey or book a 20-minute walkthrough of the platform to talk through the transition for your organisation.

For broader context on the full psychosocial compliance lifecycle, see the definitive guide to psychosocial compliance in Australia.