Appendices

Appendices

In this section

Appendix 1. ‘Five Why Discovery Process’

The ‘Five Whys’ is a simple root cause analysis (RCA) technique that may help you understand how psychosocial hazards are interacting and combining to create a risk of harm. It can help duty holders to better understand the sources of psychosocial risk; approaches to design work; and systems of work to address the risk.

Step One: Clearly define the scope of the exercise and list each specific problem. The purpose of this is to get the team to focus on the same problem, which makes the process quicker and less confusing.

Step Two: Form a team to look at the problem and for solutions from different perspectives. Make sure you have workers who are experiencing the problem and who have some ‘expertise in the area’ where possible. It can be helpful to include workers from other areas or sites to get different perspectives. Appoint a trusted and competent person to facilitate the whole process and write down everyone’s answers.

Step Three: Organise the data you have about the problem with the help of the work team and clarify what you know about it. Creating a timeline of events that led to the problem emerging/risk can be very helpful. Remember for every risk, action/inaction and adverse behaviour included in the “timeline”, ask the question ‘what should have been done compared to what was done?’

Step Four: Ask ‘why’. Work backwards asking why the problem happened and write the answers down. Ask the ‘why’ question multiple times to help identify the causes that may have contributed to the risk.

Step Five: Once you have found the root cause(s) and assessed possible solutions, you can plan corrective action(s) or change(s) to help prevent it happening again. Make sure all workers are aware of the outcomes of the discovery process, and that they receive any appropriate training, instruction, and supervision on the changes and any new work methods.

Example of using the Five Why Questions

Problem/situation: The call centre worker did not follow the organisation’s process to deal with an upset client, the client complained about how their issue was handled and worker was extremely distressed.

  • Why? The worker was new to the organisation and did not know what the correct processes were.
  • Why? Issue not included in induction. The worker was anxious about asking for help from the supervisor as they were still on probation.
  • Why? The supervisor was new to the organisation and thought the issue was covered in training. The supervisor was not checking in with workers to see how they were going and if they knew the correct process.
  • Why? The supervisor was busy learning their own role and had multiple new staff to manage. The supervisor did not know there were client-handling policies and suggestions available on the computer system.
  • Why? Induction training was generic and did not include this known common issue. This was because workers were not consulted during development of the training. A distressed client-handling policy and instructions were available; however, they were not in an obvious location on the computer system. They had been developed by the previous supervisor and the knowledge had been lost.

Appendix 2. Tips for a psychosocial task hazard analysis

Doing a psychosocial task hazard analysis (PDF, 99.11 KB) will help you better understand the systems, essential resources (people, equipment, and information), and main steps you need to follow, in order to complete the task successfully and safely.

Psychosocial Task Hazard Analysis Tips

  • Read SafeWork NSW’s Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work and other relevant resources (including information on hazards that may present risks to psychological or physical health and safety in your workplace).
  • Read evidence-based information about common workplace risks and control measures in your type of organisation from reputable sites like WHS regulators, your industry association or relevant trade union. You may also wish to refer to other Australian and international jurisdiction websites.
  • Gather your organisation’s information and data about position descriptions, Safe Work Method Statements, WHS risk register, near miss incidents, injury and illness data, worker surveys, customer complaints and WHS Committee meetings.
    • Involve your workers and their HSRs throughout the process. Explain why you are doing the task hazard analysis. Make sure you reassure workers the focus is on understanding the psychosocial risks, not on individual workers’ performance. Include information about systems thinking to help show this.
    • Explain the task hazard analysis process including how workers can help and how you will keep them informed of the outcomes.
  • Prioritise tasks or jobs for analysis. Focus on:
    • tasks that are known or suspected to be a high psychosocial risk to workers and which are important parts of a job or role
    • tasks you plan to significantly redesign or stemming from new projects.
  • Set up an analysis team. Make sure you include both experienced and novice workers; a supervisor/manager; and a HSR or WHS Committee or WHS officer. It can be helpful to include someone from other areas of your workplace to gain alternative perspectives.
  • Do the task hazard analysis:
    • gather the team together and agree on the processes and team member roles and responsibilities. This includes who is the task hazard analysis owner who is responsible for reporting the issues to senior managers
    • observe the task. You may want to break it down into key steps or ask workers to do an ‘activity diary’ in which they make notes on things that make a particular step easy or hard. You can use this information as prompts in the task hazard analysis discussions
    • discuss and document all relevant information including:
      • the goal or purpose of the task
      • key steps and actions in the task, in sequential order. Make sure you keep the steps in their correct order and that each one logically flows to the next. Keep the language simple when describing actions. Generally, most tasks can be described in 10 steps or less. You may need to break complicated tasks into subtasks
      • essential or very important inputs and resources needed to do the task. These include information, equipment, the context the task is performed in, and people
      • psychosocial hazards associated with the task, and how these might vary over time or due to different levels of staff experience
      • control measures that are currently in place and how effective these are
      • how the work and systems of work could be redesigned to address the risks.

Workplaces and situations are always changing so any analysis is just at a point in time. It will increase your understanding of some of the current situations and hazards but is unlikely to be comprehensive. Use the information you have gained from the process and include it in your risk register to help you prioritise actions and make sure they get done and are monitored. Use the Task Hazard Analysis Template to assist you.

Appendix 3. Work Design Case Studies

SafeWork NSW’s Code of Practice (pages 28-37) includes ten scenarios illustrating psychosocial risks and work design control measures. Case studies are included in the next section to illustrate organisational and team level work design, and team and task level work design.

Download example case studies which illustrate organisational and team level work design, and team and task level work design, and a Work Design Checklist as a PDF:

Case Study One: Hospitality Sector

Organisational context and work situation

A busy, ageing, regional, local sport organisation has a bar, restaurant and gambling facilities associated with their club. It has extended opening hours, so staff need to do shift work and be able to move between the bar, restaurant, or gaming room depending on how busy each is. There is also a courtesy bus. Most customers on the courtesy bus are elderly and may require help to get on and off the bus.

  • The club employs a large number of part time female workers from racially diverse backgrounds
  • The club also employs casual workers for special functions who are typically less experienced
  • There are frequent staff shortages
  • The layout of the bar and restaurant is poor which increases the manual handling risks and slows service
  • Inexperienced staff usually take longer to do tasks.

These factors lead to regular customer complaints about bar and restaurant wait times. This is made worse as the poor stock ordering system means some favourite drinks and food frequently run out.

Club staff are expected to help create a friendly welcoming environment. However this is challenging when customers are often rude about wait times, intoxicated and young female staff frequently complain about being threatened and racially harassed. Frequent late roster changes are also creating problems for workers trying to plan childcare and home duties.

While no staff have recently put in a stress claim, the organisation is finding it hard to recruit and retain experienced staff as stressed and dissatisfied workers are easily employed by other clubs and restaurants in the town.

Psychosocial hazards and risks

The club, through their worker consultation forums and exit interviews, identified a range of psychosocial and physical risks leading to staff stress and fatigue. These included: frequent exposure to harassment and aggression from customers, high workloads, emotionally demanding work (being polite to rude customers), low job control, hot working environments in kitchens, hazardous manual handling of kegs and food and drink supplies, unpredictable and inflexible shifts and inadequate training for new staff. They also identified that floor managers felt rushed so didn’t always feel they had enough time to give practical and emotional support.

Work design process and control measures to manage psychosocial risks

The house and duty managers began to review daily takings, check online reviews, staff notes on issues that came up during their shifts, and upcoming functions to make sure they rostered enough experienced staff on when needed. Rosters were now published two weeks in advance and staff were encouraged to approach managers if they needed changes.

Instead of fixed roles, all staff were now expected and trained to do multiple roles across the club so they could help out whenever needed. To ensure staff were clear on the new responsibilities, this was included in their job descriptions. Staff suggested it would be helpful to have QR Code stickers (which took staff to an online version of the instructions), or quick reference sheets placed near the task. This was especially important where the task had to be done in a particular order for safety and efficiency reasons, such as tapping the kegs.

Staff said the varied roles made the shifts more interesting and they appreciated learning new skills. While staff were undergoing training some extra staff were needed. As they became confident the extra staff were no longer needed.

The ordering systems were reviewed and updated to make sure appropriate stock was available. Where it was not, floor staff could let customers know.

Most staff worked in teams of two or three and now at the beginning of each shift would meet to discuss how to divide tasks up to share the load. This improved their sense of job control, made work more interesting and junior staff were able to develop new skills.

Staff suggested that courtesy bus customers were more respectful when older rather than younger staff drove. Whenever possible, older staff were rostered on. This also allowed the staff to get to know their regular customers and build relationships. The bus was fitted with a radio in case the driver needed assistance or there was a medical emergency.

The club organised for staff representatives to meet with the architect and discuss the planned staged club refurbishment. This meant staff could help produce ideas to improve the workflow and reduce manual handling risks associated with the kitchen and bar areas. This also identified some quick fixes which were introduced immediately: co-locating ice and glassware; putting in floor mats to reduce leg fatigue; and making sure the heaviest food and drink supplies were in the middle shelves in the cool room and staff moved them using trolleys.

Staff were trained to politely ask customers about any service complaints but reminded and supported to use the club’s no abuse tolerance policy. If customers repeated the unacceptable behaviour the duty managers or security staff member escorted them off the premises.

Case Study Two: Retail

Organisational context and work situation

A large regional supermarket chain has typical grocery items but also recently introduced an online sales and delivery service. To manage this, major rostering changes and a new computerised rostering system has been introduced. This new system sets the days and times when tasks need to be done. Staff are now expected to work across multiple store departments in a single shift. Managers make sure hours are equally distributed across available staff and the organisation’s roster app now requires staff to respond online with their shift availability.

The new rosters are based on this system with very little flexibility for changes at the local store level. Operating hours have also changed with the store now opening later and closing earlier. Some in-store departments have even more restricted operating hours. Customer self-service terminals have also been introduced.

The time allocations for tasks were recently updated based on the records of average times to complete standard tasks (where this information was available). A time and motion study was done for the new tasks. As a result, the time allowances either remained the same or were reduced. The new allowances have little flexibility and do not consider relevant circumstances, such as trying to do tasks during busy times when the store is crowded, and that customers frequently ask staff for help.

Limited worker consultation occurred about the changes before they were introduced. Staff report they now sometimes do not have enough time to complete tasks safely and well. This has led to stress and higher staff turnover. Supervisors have reported there are not enough experienced staff available to train new workers.

Psychosocial hazards and risks

The supermarket, through their worker consultation forums and meetings with union representatives, identified a range of psychosocial and physical risks that were contributing to stress, fatigue and musculoskeletal risks. Concerns focused on:

  • poor consultation with workers on the rostering and hours of work changes
  • insufficient staff allocated during peak periods
  • staff felt they had little flexibility or say (job control) over which departments they were allocated to and the order in which they could do tasks
  • staff that were doing the new tasks (such as picking stock for online orders) reported there had been inadequate training, making them especially anxious and meaning mistakes occurred more frequently
  • customers often being rude when there were technical problems with the self-service terminals.

Generally, staff reported they felt their supervisors did try to support them but did not have time as they too were often struggling to complete all their tasks. Staff felt store managers were not listening to their concerns.

Staff had significant concerns about the design of the new online order trolleys. These were larger with extra storage crates. While the larger size had reduced the number of ‘trips’ required, its size made it harder to see around (especially for shorter workers). The trolleys were generally heavier and harder to manoeuvre within aisles especially when the store was crowded.

Staff noted there were only ever a small number of staff rostered on in the alcohol department. Alcohol theft was a constant problem. They reported they were required to ask potentially underage customers for identification and to refuse service to those who were clearly intoxicated. This resulted in frequent abuse and threats of violence by customers.

Staff noted a range of design issues that made it stressful to monitor customers' safety. The supermarket was located close to the shopping centre’s entrance and there were two entry/exits. The sales counter was narrow which meant customers could easily reach across and take goods from behind the counter. While there was a panic alarm installed, it alerted a contact external to the shopping centre, so response times were slow and there were no safe retreat spots if workers were threatened.

Work design process and control measures to manage psychosocial risks

The store manager heard about the concerns and reviewed the tasks, daily takings and consulted workers about the issues raised. As a result, some tasks have now been rostered for times when the store is less busy. This also helped reduce aisle congestion and customer complaints.

Local site managers have greater flexibility to change staff rostering from the predetermined settings. Managers can put staff in areas which best suit them and take into account workers’ skills, interests and personal circumstances. They now allow additional time to complete tasks when the store is busy. Staff have greater controls and can push back some tasks and do these later in the shift when it is not as busy.

Staff are being trained to work across multiple departments, but this is now done more slowly. Workers learn one area at a time and are allowed to master each one before moving to a new task. Training is now done during quieter periods when it is easier to concentrate. New workers are being given extra time to complete the tasks and paired with an experienced ‘buddy’. Workers report they feel better supported and have appreciated the greater job control.

Wherever possible more experienced workers are allocated to the alcohol department. Restocking is now done during quieter periods when there is less likely to be issues with intoxicated customers. During busy times and when there is a risk of customer aggression around refusing alcohol service, workers are required to stay behind the sales register area. This has been redesigned to be lockable with anti-jump wires to give workers a safe retreat place. Counters have been raised and widened with moveable objects (such as a donation jar) removed from the surface so these can’t be used as a weapon. All alcohol sales workers are provided with an earpiece connected to the supermarket store security team so they can discreetly call for assistance if needed. A panic alarm directly alerting supermarket and shopping centre security teams has also been provided. Centre security and the local police have increased their patrols around the liquor store and outside the supermarket. CCTV has been upgraded across the store and high price alcohol items placed in reinforced locked cabinets.

To allow for aisle congestion and interruptions from customers, the supermarket has allocated extra time to complete online picking orders, especially when there are customers in store. Workers are rotated through heavier pick aisles to reduce their exposure to manual handling.

The online trolley provider consulted workers about the design concerns. Modifications to the trolleys have reduced the quantity of products that can fit in each crate, reducing the overall weight and force required to move it. Staff use a smaller trolley with better visibility and handling characteristics during the busiest times. Where possible, bulky and heavy items such as dog food and drinks are now ‘picked’ directly from the truck or into crates when required.

Staff report they feel the workloads, in terms of time pressure and manual handling demands, are now more manageable and the increased job control has increased their ability to manage their fatigue and stress.

Case Study Three: Education

Organisational context and work situation

A morning administrative meeting has been introduced by senior leaders in a school. Workers must attend the meeting in addition to their current work requirements. Workers were not consulted prior to the announcement.

Workers emailed the principal with concerns about the process and additional workload. Workers felt that their workload had grown out of control, was impacting on their health and their family relationships, and the new imposed additional meeting was the ‘last straw’. One worker experienced an escalation in psychological distress and lodged a claim for workers compensation for a psychological injury.

Psychosocial hazards and risks

The principal took immediate action to suspend the proposed new additional meeting so the executive could revisit the suggestion and review the existing meetings workers needed to attend in addition to their teaching duties. A confidential survey was also sent out to all affected staff so that their views could be considered. A range of psychosocial hazards and risks were identified through the review:

  • risk of poor organisational change consultation if workers were not involved in design decisions
  • high workload
  • low control.
Work design process and control measures to manage psychosocial risks

Following the review, the executive decided the additional morning administration meeting would go ahead beginning in the following term. This would allow staff to make childcare arrangements where necessary. Other meetings that were currently being held once a week would only occur on an as-needs basis, which would be determined by the affected staff.

Overall, the review showed that staff valued the concept of a whole staff weekly administration meeting, that had a clear start and finish time, an agenda circulated in advance, and opportunities for additional items to be raised. Workers said they did not believe they could manage this meeting without other requirements being reduced to fit it in. The principal set that in peak periods no meetings should be held at all, and any urgent administrative matters could be dealt with by email in those weeks.

At the educational department level, while conducting a regular review of incident reports, the People and Culture team noticed a spike in the number of claims for psychological injury. They also noted feedback from workers that too many work hours along with an intensification of work was contributing to many workers feeling burnt out. This trend was discussed at the senior executive level. The department issued advice to principals that they needed to consult with staff and consider staff members’ time when allocating work tasks and setting expectations.

Case Study Four: Policy and research organisation

Organisational context and work situation

A medium sized research organisation that does complex analysis for customers had a command and control management style with highly siloed specialist teams. The research topics and analyses that customers needed were highly varied. However, client requests always came with tight timeframes and significant reputational issues if the advice was inaccurate or late. The organisation had adopted hybrid working arrangements with most staff working some days in the week from home.

The organisation had topic specialist teams which often caused some teams to have too much work whilst other teams had too little. The IT workload system was antiquated and did not allow managers to properly understand project requirements or workloads, especially for complex policy matters. The organisation had poor tools and templates for routine analytic tasks and reports, even though better templates could have reduced team workloads.

Supervisors tried, where they could, to allocate routine tasks to non-specialist teams. However, this work was often boring and also resented by staff as they felt they missed out on developing and using interesting new skills. Staff were reporting stress and frustration around current work designs and systems of work, including role overload. The organisation was unable to rapidly respond to customer requests without putting their staff at risk of harm. The staff, especially managers, were feeling stressed and overwhelmed and knew things had to change. However, they felt a lot of anxiety about a proposed organisational restructure to address the psychosocial and efficiency risks.

Psychosocial hazards and risks

A range of psychosocial risks were identified through the People at Work Survey, from staff consultation workshops and reports by supervisors to the management team meetings.

These included:

  • prolonged periods of excessively high and occasionally low workloads, as work was unequally distributed across the organisation
  • cognitively complex technical tasks with poor practical support due to poor information management systems, templates, cross-team communication and working relationships
  • unrealistic client deadlines
  • lack of tools and templates such as generic analytic models and template reports
  • inadequate skill development opportunities
  • risk of poor organisational change consultation if workers were not involved in design decisions.
Work design process and control measures to manage psychosocial risks

The organisation did a series of task analyses, used a workload planning tool to analyse workloads, and did a skills audit to better understand the organisation’s current needs and staff skills mix. Leaders used a participatory approach to design solutions, forming a working group made up of worker representatives and the management team.

Leaders put in place an organisational restructure. The new structure set up six work groups in which all members had basic generic analytic and reporting skills training. Each group also had at least one technical subject matter expert. This meant all groups could now do most tasks. Where additional technical advice was needed, the divisional manager would request the relevant expert from another team to join meetings to give specialist advice.

The organisation recognised that rather than outsourcing the development of a new IT workload system, analytical tools, and reporting templates, these should be developed internally and with staff input. External providers were unlikely to understand the nuances of the work tasks. An internal working group was set up and developed the new systems. The group advised the human resources team on how training for these should be rolled out to all staff.

The new IT system also allowed the leadership team and manager to monitor customer requests, workloads, staff leave, and so on. Leaders could flexibly allocate tasks to the teams that had the most capacity.

Project managers now held regular planning meetings with key staff and customers to make sure everyone had a clear understanding of the job scope, risks, and realistic delivery timetables.

The new IT system included collaborative workspace tools that allowed staff working from different locations to share data and run through analytical models on screen in team meetings.

All staff members received training and support to do general analytics work and reporting on tasks. Leaders used the skills audit to find out individual worker’s needs so training and support could be, so far as possible, individually tailored to them.

The changes were piloted, and results showed that, for most staff, while the workload peaks and troughs evened out, managers’ workloads had increased. Managers needed to change their leadership style to give practical and emotional support and guidance. This meant shifting to an inspirational mentoring role rather than the previous command and control model, which for some had been a struggle. The managers also needed to rapidly become skilled in the new workload management software so they could closely monitor task allocations. The pilot showed that the organisation needed more time to update the policies and procedures, including performance agreements. The senior leadership team acknowledged this and put in place bi-weekly meetings with all managers to give them greater emotional and practical support (such as helping prioritise tasks and delaying deliverables). The leadership team recognised managers’ flexibility and professionalism as they moved to different leadership styles and rewarded their long working hours and efforts with paid time off.

Senior leaders recognised the changes being made to the organisation’s design and culture were significant. As the new arrangements were being rolled out, they made clear staff should expect mistakes but know they offered valuable opportunities to learn and change the designs. Leaders made sure there was a culture where all members of the organisation could give feedback on elements of the design that were effective or may need further improvements.

Two years after the rollout, staff report workload peaks and troughs are more even; there are greater opportunities to use and develop skills; and they believe their organisation has an innovative learning culture and practices. Generally, stress is lower and staff satisfaction higher. Customer feedback shows the advice given by the organisation is of high quality and timely.

Appendix 4. When a SafeWork Inspector Calls or Visits

If a SafeWork NSW Inspector visits or calls, they will be checking that the PCBU and officers are meeting their duties to effectively manage psychosocial hazards and risks. While a SafeWork NSW Inspector will make inquiries, or conduct an investigation, based on the available information and work issues that have been raised, a SafeWork NSW Inspector may consider whether the PCBU and officers are carrying out the following:

  1. managing psychosocial risks and hazards in accordance with legislative obligations
  1. have effective systems in place to identify and assess psychosocial risk and hazards
  1. have taken, or are actively taking, all reasonable steps to design out hazards and risks at the source to eliminate or minimise psychosocial hazards and risks
  1. monitoring the effectiveness of work design and other control measures and, where required, improves the work design
  1. consulting affected workers
  1. consulting, coordinating and cooperating with other duty holders.

SafeWork NSW has prepared a Work Design Checklist (PDF, 64.49 KB) to assist a PCBU and Officer to consider the information that may be required by the SafeWork NSW Inspector. However, this Work Design Checklist is for guidance purposes only. Importantly, a SafeWork NSW Inspector may ask a question, or request information, that is not included in the Work Design Checklist.