Australian WHS survey - Autumn 2024

The Australian Work Health and Safety (WHS) Survey (the Survey) provides a platform for workers from across Australia to share their first-hand experiences of WHS.

The Survey helps characterise the current state of WHS in Australia across three aspects.

• The WHS profile of Australian workers, such as their exposure to physical and psychosocial hazards including harassment, their awareness of WHS rights and responsibilities, and their feelings of empowerment to participate in, and influence, health and safety at work.
• The WHS profile of Australian workplaces through participants’ perceptions of their workplace’s existing WHS policies and systems, demonstrated WHS commitment and practices, and views about the barriers and potential enablers to improve WHS in their workplaces.
• New and emerging WHS issues observed or experienced by the participants and their suggestions for potential harm prevention measures.

This information is critical in assisting Australian businesses, WHS regulators and affiliated bodies to prevent workers from being harmed in the workplace. The Survey is open for response every six months. The current edition, Autumn 2024, is the third in the series, providing insights based on data collected in February 2024, along with comparisons to data collected from the previous editions (Autumn 2023 and Spring 2023).

The following findings are notable highlights from the most recent Survey.

Exposure to hazards related to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) remain high

Among the 2,080 Survey participants, 84.7% reported being exposed to hazards known to lead to MSDs, including repetitive movements, standing for two hours or more, work in awkward position, manual handling, and work at height, on a daily or weekly basis. This was the highest level of exposure ever reported in any edition of the Survey. National statistics show consistent levels of harm generated from work-related MSD diseases and injuries, accounting for about half of serious worker compensation claims in 2015-16, 2019-20, and 2020-21. Our findings confirm the persistently high prevalence of exposure to MSD-related hazards in the workplace, and call for further efforts in this domain.

The under-reporting of sexual harassment and workplaces’ inadequate responses to reports are still concerning

A large percentage of participants reported having experienced bullying and/or harassment at work in the last 12 months (41.6%), a percentage comparable to that reported in the Spring 2023 edition (41.3%) and significantly lower than that reported in the Autumn 2023 edition (56.0%). Of these victims of harassment, 8.1% reported having experienced sexual harassment. Our findings show that the reporting of sexual harassment is still a concern. Nearly two out of 10 victims indicated they had never reported the incident(s), mirroring a statistic found in the previous Spring 2023 edition of the Survey. The fear of potential consequences after reporting the incident(s) was the main reason some victim-survivors choose not to report; fear that relationships at work would be negatively affected, and/or fear that their career would be negatively impacted. Our findings also indicate that victims who choose to report incidents of sexual harassment usually do not do it via an external agency (less than 6% of our participants). Among those who choose to report the incident(s), a majority (56.1%) observed no changes made in the organisation following their report, reiterating another concerning statistic found in the previous Spring 2023 edition (39.6%). These findings further reaffirm the need to 1) improve the reporting of bullying and harassment at work, particularly sexual harassment, and 2) to improve the responses of workplaces and actions taken following reports.

Lower levels of exposure to psychosocial hazards, burnout keeps creeping

The proportion of participants considered at risk of psychosocial harms (based on their responses assessing levels of job demand, job control, job security and effort-reward fairness) significantly decreased from 7.5% reported in Spring 2023 and 16.3% in Autumn 2023, to 6% in the current Autumn 2024 edition. Complementing this trend, the proportion of participants considered at minimal risk of psychosocial harms (i.e., experiencing no psychosocial job quality adversity) significantly increased from 42.6% in Spring 2023 and 31.7% in Autumn 2023, to 47.5% in the current edition. In contrast, our findings indicate an increase in the level of burnout experienced by participants. More participants agreed with burnout-related statements such as ‘I feel drained by my work’ (74% compared to 68% in the Spring 2023 and 64% in the Autumn 2023), ‘I worry about work when I am not working’ (69% currently compared to 59% in Spring 2023 and 63% in Autumn 2023), and ‘I find it hard to disconnect from work’ (66% currently compared to 56% in Spring 2023 and 62% in Autumn 2023). This is concerning as the feeling of burnout has been shown to increase workers’ mental distance from their job, to augment their feeling of negativism related to their job, and to reduce their professional efficacy.

Hybrid working arrangement better for health and safety

Our findings show that workers with hybrid working arrangement were less likely to be exposed to physical hazards (e.g., repetitive movement, standing for two hours or more, working with an awkward posture on a daily or weekly basis) than those working in an office or across multiple work sites. Hybrid workers also reported lowered exposure to all types of harassment and were considered presenting decreased risk of psychosocial harm compared to those working in an office/ on work site(s) only. While it is acknowledged that not all jobs could be structured into the hybrid model, the potentially beneficial aspect of this model should be considered where such arrangement is possible.

Prioritisation of WHS for Health care and social assistance workers

Workers in the Health care and social assistance sector account for the largest proportion of the labour force in Australia (15.2%). This number is only expected to grow with most current projections indicating the sector might account for 16.7% of the labour force by 2033. Our findings show that Health care and social assistance workers are currently experiencing the highest levels of worker exposure to physical hazards in the workplace. Additionally, Health care and social assistance workers are experiencing the highest levels of bullying and harassment in the workplace and are the workers most at risk of experiencing psychosocial harm as indicated by lower levels of job quality (higher job demand, lower job control, etc). This highlights the need for increased and sustained efforts to address the WHS challenges experienced by Health care and social assistance workers every day.