Guide for NSW businesses
How to do a psychosocial risk assessment in NSW
A psychosocial risk assessment in NSW has four steps: identify the hazards, assess the risks, control them, and review the controls. You consult the workers affected at every step. The steps come from Part 3.1 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025, which s 55C(a) applies to psychosocial risks. Division 11 of the Regulation adds rules for choosing controls. A business with 10 to 60 people can do this itself, with honest conversations, a simple register and a calendar.
A business must manage psychosocial risks in accordance with Part 3.1 of the Regulation, which includes identifying hazards, eliminating or minimising risks, following the hierarchy of control, and maintaining and reviewing controls.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), ss 55C(a) and 34 to 38.
What you are assessing
A psychosocial risk assessment looks at the work, not at the people doing it. You are not testing anyone's resilience or asking about their health. You are asking which parts of how the work is designed, managed and shared out could harm people's mental health, and what to change.
A psychosocial hazard is a hazard that arises from, or relates to, the design or management of work, a work environment, plant at a workplace, or workplace interactions or behaviours, and that may cause psychological harm, whether or not it may also cause physical harm.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), s 55A.
A psychosocial risk is a risk to the health or safety of a worker or other person arising from a psychosocial hazard.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), s 55B.
Common examples are high workloads, unclear roles, poor support, conflict, bullying, harassment and aggression from customers.
Consult your workers at every step
Consultation is not a separate step. It runs through all four. The people doing the work usually know where the pressure is.
You must consult workers, so far as is reasonably practicable, when identifying hazards and deciding how to control them.
Source: Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), ss 47 and 49.
Consulting means sharing relevant information with workers, giving them a reasonable chance to raise issues and contribute to the decision, taking their views into account, and telling them the outcome in a timely way.
Source: Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), s 48(1).
The NSW Code says workers who are, or are likely to be, affected, and their health and safety representatives, must be consulted at each step of the risk management process; under the Act, the duty to consult workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected applies so far as is reasonably practicable.
Source: SafeWork NSW, Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (May 2021), section 3.1; Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), s 47(1).
In a small business, consultation can be simple. A short agenda item at a team meeting or toolbox talk, a quick survey, or a conversation between a supervisor and their team all count, as long as you share the information, listen, take the views into account, and tell people what you decided. If you have a health and safety representative, involve them.
Keep notes of who you asked, what they said and what you did with it. Leave out names and anything about health.
Step 1: Identify the hazards
Start by finding the hazards that could reasonably be expected in your work. Look at each team or role separately, because the same business can have very different hazards in the warehouse and at the front counter.
A business must identify reasonably foreseeable hazards that could create risks to health and safety, and this applies to psychosocial hazards.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), ss 34 and 55C(a).
Two sources of information work best together.
- What your records already show. Complaints, incident reports, overtime, sick leave, staff turnover, exit conversations, workers compensation claims and staffing levels at peak times.
- What your workers tell you. Ask each team what part of the job puts them under the most pressure, and what gets in the way of doing it well.
Based on the NSW Code, section 3.2.
Use Table 1 of the NSW Code as a prompt, so you do not miss a type of hazard. Our psychosocial hazard register template lists the hazards the Code names and gives you a layout to record them.
Write each hazard down in terms of the work: "dispatch team regularly works unpaid overtime on Mondays", not "Sam is stressed".
Step 2: Assess the risks
For each hazard, work out how serious the risk is and what to deal with first. Aim for a sensible order of action you can explain, not scientific precision.
The NSW Code suggests assessing a psychosocial risk by considering how serious the harm could be, including how long people are exposed, and how likely it is, then combining the two to help prioritise action.
Source: SafeWork NSW, Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (May 2021), section 3.3.
Ask these questions for each hazard, with the workers affected:
- How bad could the harm be?
- How likely is it, given what has already happened?
- How many people are exposed, how often, and for how long?
- Do other hazards make it worse?
- What is already in place, and is it working?
For a smaller business, this step does not need a formal workshop. A fuller process may be needed where something serious turns up.
The NSW Code says that for a small business, a psychosocial risk assessment may be as simple as regular toolbox discussions with affected workers, with a fuller process that may be required where serious risks are found or suspected.
Source: SafeWork NSW, Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (May 2021), section 3.3.
Give each hazard a simple rating, such as low, medium or high, and record it. Rare but very serious risks, such as violence or traumatic events, deserve a separate look so they are not rated too low.
Step 3: Control the risks
The first question is always whether the hazard can be removed. If it cannot, reduce it, starting with changes to the work itself.
A business must eliminate psychosocial risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and where that is not reasonably practicable, minimise them so far as is reasonably practicable.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), s 55D(1).
In NSW, the Regulation applies the hierarchy of control to psychosocial risks: where it is reasonably practicable, change the work itself before relying on training or procedures.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), ss 55C(a) and 36.
Changes to the work look like this:
- adding staff or moving shifts at known peak times
- setting realistic deadlines and workloads, with a limit that triggers action
- clarifying who does what, and who decides
- changing the layout, such as a counter or screen between staff and customers
- giving a second person to go to when the supervisor is part of the problem.
Training, policies and procedures still matter. They come after the work has been changed as far as is reasonably practicable, to deal with what is left.
In choosing control measures, a business must consider all relevant matters, including how long, how often and how severely people are exposed, how hazards interact, the design of work and tasks, how work is managed and supported, the workplace and its conditions, workplace interactions and behaviours, and the information, training and supervision given.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), s 55D(2).
Our reading of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), s 55D, is that an employee assistance program or wellbeing policy on its own is not a control of a psychosocial hazard.
Step 4: Review the controls
Check that each change is still happening and still doing its job, and look again whenever something changes.
Control measures must be kept effective, which includes keeping them fit for purpose and suitable for the nature and duration of the work.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), ss 37 and 55C(a).
Controls must be reviewed when they are not working, before a change at work that is likely to create a new or different risk they may not control, when a new hazard is found, when consultation shows a review is needed, or when a health and safety representative asks for a review on the grounds the Regulation allows.
Source: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW), ss 38 and 55C(a).
The NSW Code lists further times to review controls, including after a serious incident, injury or illness arising from a psychosocial risk, or after a psychological injury; at agreed review dates, such as annually; and where audit results show a review is needed.
Source: SafeWork NSW, Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (May 2021), section 3.5.
The simplest way to make reviews happen is to book them. Put a date next to every row on your register. At each review, ask the workers affected whether the change has made a difference.
Common mistakes
The Code itself names two common failures. Both are easy to fall into.
The NSW Code names two common failures: focusing on one person's poor behaviour without dealing with the hazards behind it, and relying mainly on administrative controls instead of following the hierarchy of control.
Source: SafeWork NSW, Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (May 2021), section 3.5.
- Treating it as a people problem. When there is conflict or poor behaviour, deal with it, and also ask what about the work is feeding it, such as time pressure or unclear roles.
- Leading with a policy or training. A new policy is quick to write and changes little on its own. Change the work first.
- Doing it once. An assessment filed away and never looked at again does not manage anything.
The NSW Code says a risk assessment is not something that happens only once, and should be part of a continuous improvement process.
Source: SafeWork NSW, Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (May 2021), section 3.3.
If you want to understand why this matters more from 1 July 2026, read what the NSW psychosocial code of practice means for your business.
Related guides
- What the NSW psychosocial code of practice means for your business
- Psychosocial hazard register template
Start with a four-minute check
The free check covers all four steps and consultation, names your three biggest gaps, and gives you one thing to do this week for each.
For templates for every step, the Psychosocial Risk Pack for NSW is $349.