26/02/2021

Australia’s only validated psychosocial risk assessment tool, People at Work, is up and running on a new free, digital platform thanks to work health and safety regulators and leading researchers.

Martyn Campbell, Executive Director of SafeWork SA, and current Chair of Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA), today launched the free digital platform dedicated to mentally healthy workplaces.

“Workplaces have a duty to protect the psychological health of workers in the same way they protect their physical safety,” Mr Campbell said.  “People at Work helps organisations identify, assess and control risks to psychological health and safety.

Previously a paper-based survey, with onerous and time-consuming manual data entry sheets, People at Work is now accessible through a much more user-friendly digital platform.

Put simply, People at Work is free for Aussie businesses and workplaces to help them identify and manage work-related psychosocial hazards and factors AND which doesn’t need an expert to interpret the psychosocial risk assessment results”.

A jointly funded initiative led and managed by Queensland, People at Work supports Australian organisations to meet their legislative work health and safety responsibility to identify and manage psychosocial risks in the workplace.

“The People at Work digital platform lays out an easy to follow five-step process with resources, interactive learning modules, a self-administered survey, and automated custom reports that businesses can access, all for free,” Mr Campbell said.

“Industry has been crying out for an easy to use psychosocial risk assessment tool and People at Work is just that.

I’d like to thank the Psychological Health Unit from Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, and representatives from work health and safety regulators around the country, who have led the way on this pioneering and exciting project,” he said.

The newly released digital platform enables organisations to:

  • self-administer the People at Work survey to their workers.
  • add custom demographics like workgroups and roles.
  • receive automated reporting with key breakdowns to identify high risk areas with recommended control measures, benchmarking, and guidance.

The People at Work digital platform provides organisations with their results in two reporting formats, a high level summary, and a more detailed report that also provides suggestions for improvements in the workplace.

SafeWork SA is one of several national funding partner organisations of which are all responsible including Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Victoria, Comcare, Safe Work Australia, NT WorkSafe, WorkSafe ACT, WorkSafe WA, WorkSafe Tasmania, and the WorkCover Tasmania Board.