Every time a post about Work Design not preventing harm for psychosocial risk management is posted, a truck full of organisational psychologists pipe up defensively about 'work design IS harm prevention'. And yet, it isn't. As prosecutions and investigations commence, not one report has identified the cause of prosecution 'a lack of work design' or 'insufficient ISO 45003'. Because neither of these are what Compliance for H&S Risk Management for PsychoSocial Risks requires in full. And the limitation in this misinformation is because the legal requirement is HEALTH & SAFETY Psychosocial RISK MANAGEMENT. That is 2 other fields that are required to have the required grasp on requirements that organisational psychology does not encompass in required depth.
I will briefly mention here I have a PhD in Org. Psych. I also have post-grad qualifications in H&S Legal requirements & H&S Risk Management. And I am a professional H&S and ISO auditor. I only mention this because it is relevant to the vantage point, and therefore knowledge and understanding needed to understand exactly what the limitations of Work Design and ISO 45003/1 really are. So I understand with some insight what risk management requires. And also what organisational psychology in the field DOES NOT cover, which is required to understand fully legal requirements for compliance. Risk Management is a whole complex field in itself. It is NOT encompassed within organisational psychologists qualifications in understanding as practical and legal requirements for H&S Risk Management need.
A few years ago when my company EnableOrg revamped our website to explain PsychoSocial Risks, a persistently problematic in imitation, Org. Psych 'psychosocial risk' work design app in Perth, Western Australia (you know who you are) very quickly copied our wording, but very obviously ignorantly as terminology was incorrectly describing legal requirements. As EnableOrg is developed from subject matter expertise, we had integrated H&S legal requirements with risk management requirements and organisational psychology to establish a robust compliance platform.
The problem with org. psych. only, is that it does not have the robust requirements of H&S behind it. So there is no understanding of lead and lag indicators. There is no understanding of legal requirements, so there is no segregation of PCBU, officer and worker responsibility behind it. There is no understanding of Risk Management behind it. Which is well beyond Plan, Do, Check, Act as google will spit out when you search requirements. As this imitator app declared on its website at the time of being 'the first in the world' to offer.
And yet more and more legal professionals are reiterating that it is the culture risk management that will be required if you want to meet legal requirements, legal perspective here. Not once has Work Design been mentioned as a cause of workplace deficiency for legal requirements. The first psychosocial prosecution did not mention anywhere Work Design or ISO 45003, it also cited culture. Because Work Design is not Harm Prevention. For those that understand Harm Prevention and root cause risk management. Which requires concepts well beyond just organisational psychology.
And yet time and time again when I post highlighting this erroneous limitation and incomplete legal requirement, organisational psychologists will defensively argue that "poorly designed jobs and systems of work, such as work overload, role ambiguity, role conflict, and time pressure are harm prevention". These are task orientated ergonomic and employee engagement risk management, also called Work Design. These limiting factors WILL NOT fix a workplace or risk manage to legally required preventive harm. Work Design and ISO45003 are important SUBSETS for psychosocial risk management. They are far from satisfying legal requirements, on their own. They are valuable supporting tools. Only. Not Compliance in themselves.
Like having an axe stuck in your head which then gives you a headache, taking Panadol for the rest of your life and calling this strategy harm prevention because Panadol prevents the headache, if you do not understand the cause being the axe. Work design is not harm prevention, if you really understand the requirements of workplace psychosocial risk management. Manage with work design as your compliance strategy and you will be trapped in a cyclic trap of never seeing long term fixes and having to refix same issues over time, like Panadol for the lifetime. Increasing risk over time. Wasting significant money managing. And not supporting employee health long term. Manage at the culture, and you are taking out the axe, actually preventing harm. Which is what the legal requirement is.
The author is a sought after key-note speaker, consultant, Thought Leader and Expert in the field across Organisational Psychosocial Risk Management, Wellbeing, Engagement, Resilience, Leadership and Culture. She is an International Speaker and has presented and spoken at varying conferences and summits, including the World Congress for Health and Safety as an Expert Speaker with EnableOrg® showcased as an Innovator in the field.
Ranjeeta has had a career spanning organisational governance, development and risk management. She has worked across Clinical, Public and Private sector industries in UK, Australia and NZ. She has been an expert panel member for JAS-ANZ Auditor development, is a Lead Auditor for Health & Safety, Quality, contracts Compliance & Conformance, a BSI Executive ISO trainer across several varying Standards, an Executive Coach and is a current Board Director.
She is founder of EnableOrg® - Benchmark SaaS. Leading experts in Psychosocial Risk, Mental Health & Healthy Culture. EnableOrg®s' Lead-indicator, integrated software helps you identify, correct, prevent and manage workplace psychosocial & wellbeing risks, for a sustainable, long term mental health, healthy culture and healthy engaged, employees.
