High Workload as a Psychosocial Hazard: What's Really Going On

Why the volume of work is rarely the whole story  and what organisations can do about it

Dr. Georgi Toma | Director, HeartBrain Works | Honorary Research Fellow, University of Auckland

Introduction

High workload is the psychosocial hazard that almost every organisation identifies when asked what might be affecting their people. It is the answer that comes up first in conversations with leaders, in staff feedback, and in the language people reach for when describing why they are exhausted, disengaged, or on the verge of burnout. And it is, in many cases, real — but it is rarely the whole story.

This article is drawn from a professional development webinar delivered as part of HeartBrain Works' Psychosocial Hazards Focus series — the first in that series, and chosen as the opening topic precisely because of how prevalent and how misunderstood this hazard is. We examine what high workload actually means, what the research tells us about its consequences, and why identifying it accurately — including the underlying factors that drive the perception of high workload — is essential to implementing controls that actually work.

Why High Workload Matters Now

The evidence connecting excessive working hours to serious physical and psychological harm is no longer in dispute. A major study conducted across 194 countries found that working more than 55 hours per week is associated with a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of death from ischaemic heart disease, compared with working 35 to 40 hours per week. Research by Professor Jarrod Haar at Auckland University of Technology found that people working 55 hours or more per week are 416% more likely to develop burnout — and that managers are 141% more likely to develop burnout than regular employees.

These figures sit alongside a rapidly evolving regulatory environment. Across Australia, the duty of care for psychological health and safety is now codified in legislation, with harmonised codes of practice in most states and territories and ongoing regulatory development in Victoria and New Zealand. This is part of a global movement — reflected in similar legislation in Canada and the European Union — driven by post-pandemic increases in anxiety and depression and a growing recognition that psychosocial hazards are a health and safety issue, not a wellbeing aspiration.

High workload sits squarely within this framework. Where the exposure is prolonged, frequent, or intense, it creates the conditions for chronic stress activation — the pathway through which psychological and physical injury occur.

Defining High Workload — and Its Hidden Complexity

High workload, at its simplest, means that the volume of work tasks and responsibilities exceeds what can realistically be managed within a given time frame or role. It is the perception that there is more to do than there are hours, energy, or resources to do it.

What makes this hazard genuinely complex is what lies beneath that perception. When organisations suspect high workload and commission a psychosocial risk assessment to investigate, the data consistently reveals a more complicated picture. Across HeartBrain Works' audits conducted across multiple sectors, the actual volume of work — the sheer amount of tasks exceeding capacity — is the primary underlying cause in only approximately 30% of cases. In the remaining 70%, the perception of high workload is driven by something else entirely.

Understanding what that something else is, for each organisation and each team, is the difference between implementing controls that work and implementing controls that address a symptom while leaving the cause untouched.

What Is Actually Driving the Perception of High Workload?

A scenario helps illustrate this. Consider a new employee who consistently finds that the workload is so high they cannot complete it within regular hours, so they work late — only to discover that their colleagues and manager do the same, and that busyness has become a badge of honour in the team culture. When they try to work more efficiently, they find that the system they rely on is slow and difficult to use. Training materials did not adequately prepare them for the problems they encounter. Colleagues are either too busy or too uncertain to help. Information needed from other teams is scattered across different drives. The team they most often need to contact tends to respond abruptly, so this employee finds workarounds rather than asking for help — all of which takes more time than simply getting the information would have.

This scenario is not unusual. And when we examine it through a psychosocial risk lens, the hazards are numerous: ineffective work systems, inadequate induction and training, poor support from colleagues and managers, a culture that normalises excessive hours, tolerated incivility, and lack of process clarity. The perception is of high workload. The causes are something quite different.

The most common factors that our audits identify as underlying drivers of perceived high workload include ineffective work systems and technology, unclear or overly complex processes, lack of role clarity and role conflict, incivility and poor workplace relationships that disrupt collaboration and waste time, an always-on culture driven by leader behaviour or communication systems that make people afraid to disconnect, ineffective workforce planning and staff shortages, periods of rapid growth that keep teams operating above capacity for extended periods, and high cognitive load — work that demands sustained attention, complex decision-making, and significant information processing, which depletes energy in ways that can feel indistinguishable from having too much work.

The cognitive load point deserves particular attention. In many organisations, the issue is not the amount of work but the nature of it — the mental effort required to keep up with systems, navigate unclear processes, manage competing demands, and make rapid decisions without adequate information. This is one of the reasons managers are at elevated burnout risk: their role involves not only their own workload but the cognitive and emotional demands of supporting their teams.

Identifying High Workload: Questions Worth Asking

Before moving to controls, it is essential to understand what is actually driving the perception of high workload in your organisation. The following questions can serve both as an assessment of an existing situation and as a planning tool before changes are introduced. For each question, consider whether the answer is yes — and if so, whether that factor may be contributing to perceptions of high workload in your organisation.

1. Is there an unspoken acceptance that working beyond reasonable hours is normal and required?
2. Are your systems creating stress for employees — through poor design, inadequate training, or recent changes that have not bedded in well?
3. Are your processes unclear or overly complex, particularly where multiple teams or people must work together to complete a task? Is cross-team collaboration ineffective?
4. Are disrespectful behaviours tolerated in the workplace — including behaviours that cause people to waste time avoiding difficult colleagues or navigating fractious relationships?
5. Is there an implicit expectation to be always available, even outside working hours and during leave, driven by leader behaviour rather than explicit policy?
6. Is workforce planning absent or inadequate, leading to staff shortages that are absorbed by the remaining team?
7. Is the organisation experiencing rapid growth that keeps workload consistently above manageable levels?
8. Do your people need to process large volumes of information and make frequent complex decisions — a cognitive demand that may feel like workload even when the task count is reasonable?

The more of these questions that attract an honest yes, the more important it becomes to investigate underlying causes before designing any controls.

Five Principles for Managing High Workload Risk

1. Secure Leadership Commitment

Sustainable change requires leadership buy-in. This means building a clear business case that connects psychosocial risk management to the outcomes leaders care about: productivity, delivery of targets, staff retention, and the organisation's legal obligations. The data available to support this case is compelling. Workers' compensation claims with a psychological component are significantly more expensive and take considerably longer to resolve than physical injury claims alone. Burnout drives attrition, and attrition is costly. Helping leaders understand that early action is both more humane and more economical than waiting until psychological injury has occurred is one of the most important contributions a WHS or HR professional can make.

2. Consult All Staff in a Genuinely Unbiased Manner

Psychosocial risk assessment depends on honest data, and honest data depends on people feeling safe to provide it. Workers in precarious or insecure employment, newer employees, and workers from groups who have historically experienced disadvantage — whether related to age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, or other factors — may be particularly unlikely to disclose concerns in an environment that does not feel genuinely safe. The consultation method matters: internally run focus groups, however well-intentioned, carry inherent power dynamics that can suppress candid responses. External providers and genuinely anonymous processes consistently yield more accurate data.

3. Identify Underlying Causes Accurately

This is the principle on which everything else depends. As the scenario above illustrates, the presenting hazard — high workload — is rarely the whole picture. A thorough assessment will look beyond the perception to identify which of the contributing factors described above are actually at play, and to what degree. The controls implemented must respond to these root causes, not merely to the surface-level complaint. Hiring more staff to address a workload problem that is actually being driven by process inefficiency and poor systems will not solve the problem — it will expose additional people to the same conditions.

4. Train Your Managers

Managers are the first point of contact for most workers experiencing psychosocial stress, and they play a critical role both in identifying hazards early and in putting practical controls in place. Yet many managers are unfamiliar with the legislative framework, uncertain about what conversations are appropriate to have, and unaware of what is expected of them under current WHS obligations. Where a regulator investigates, documentation of what a manager observed, what they did, and what accommodations they put in place will be scrutinised closely. Investing in manager training on psychosocial hazard identification, appropriate workplace conversations, and their legal obligations is not optional — it is a risk management imperative.

5. Engage WHS Representatives in Ongoing Monitoring

Controls are only effective if they are implemented and if their effectiveness is tracked over time. WHS representatives play an important role in this process, helping to monitor whether the controls put in place are actually reducing the risk, and whether new hazards are emerging. Share the findings of any risk assessment with them, communicate the controls that have been recommended, and build their ongoing involvement into the monitoring cycle.

A Note on Always-On Culture

One factor that deserves particular mention is the always-on culture — the implicit expectation that employees remain accessible outside working hours, respond to messages during leave, and treat connectivity as a professional standard. This expectation is rarely communicated explicitly. It is modelled. When leaders send messages at 10pm, respond to emails on holiday, and are visibly always available, the workforce reads that behaviour and adjusts accordingly — regardless of what the formal policy says.

In some organisations, the always-on pattern is not driven by leader behaviour but by communication systems: information is shared through channels that make people afraid to disconnect in case they miss something important. In others, it reflects a genuine cultural norm in which busyness has become conflated with commitment.

Whatever the cause, the consequences are the same: inadequate recovery time between periods of work, which sustains the chronic stress activation that is the pathway to psychological injury. Addressing this requires an honest look at what leaders are actually modelling — not just what the wellbeing policy says.

Case Study: From Diagnosis to Measurable Improvement

An organisation in a male-dominated industry with approximately 350 employees came to HeartBrain Works with a familiar set of presenting problems: staff complaints about high workload, high turnover in certain teams, anecdotal signs of burnout, a history of organisational silos, poor cross-team collaboration affecting service delivery, and no existing data on psychosocial hazards or burnout rates.

The audit revealed that the underlying causes of perceived high workload were high cognitive load and poor work systems, lack of role and process clarity, a high prevalence of incivility, and staff shortages in specific teams. It also found that 35% of staff were at severe or very severe risk of burnout — a significant finding that reframed the urgency of the response.

The organisation's response was structured and systemic. A working group was formed that brought together executive leadership, HR, and diversity and inclusion functions. Their wellbeing and health and safety strategies were aligned into a single coherent document. Targeted interventions clarified roles, processes, and cross-team collaboration expectations. The previously planned IT system update — which had been managed as a top-down decision — was restructured as a working group process that included frontline users. An intervention addressing incivility, respect, and collaboration was delivered across the organisation.

Twelve months later, the follow-up audit showed an 18% reduction in severe and very severe burnout risk, a 15% reduction in severe job demands, and a 20% improvement in job resources including supervisor support, colleague support, and role clarity. These results are achievable — but they required an accurate diagnosis and a willingness to address root causes rather than surface symptoms.

Conclusion: Accurate Diagnosis Before Action

High workload is real, prevalent, and harmful. But addressing it effectively requires moving past the label to understand what is actually driving it in a specific workplace, at a specific point in time. The controls that will make a genuine difference depend entirely on that understanding — which is why the quality of the assessment matters as much as the quality of the response.

Organisations that invest in rigorous, independent psychosocial risk assessment, consult their people in ways that generate honest data, and implement controls tied to root causes rather than presenting complaints are the ones that see measurable, lasting improvement. The tools to do this are available. The evidence base is strong. And the legal obligation to act is clear.

If you would like support assessing and managing high workload risk in your organisation, we are to help. Get in touch with us! 

References

World Health Organization & International Labour Organization. (2021). WHO/ILO joint estimates of the work-related burden of disease and injury, 2000–2016. WHO.

Haar, J. (2023). Burnout and working hours: New Zealand evidence. Auckland University of Technology.

Safe Work Australia. (2022). Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work. Safe Work Australia.

Comcare. (2023). Comcare annual report: Workers' compensation scheme data. Australian Government.

Toma, G. (2026). Psychosocial Risk Management for a Healthier Workplace: A Practical Implementation Guide. Routledge.

About the Author 

Dr. Georgi Toma is the Director of HeartBrain Works and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. With over a decade of experience in psychosocial risk, occupational stress, and culture interventions, Georgi has supported high-profile clients including Myer, RMIT University, Uber, Hitachi Energy, Clough Group, MEC Mining, and Environment Canterbury to create mentally healthy workplaces. HeartBrain Works offers validated psychosocial risk audits, training for leaders and staff, and the scientifically validated Wellbeing Protocol. 

About the Healthy Work Community of Practice 

The Healthy Work Community of Practice is a professional community for health and safety professionals. Members access quarterly knowledge-sharing sessions, a psychosocial risk controls library, real-world case studies, regulatory alerts, practical toolkits, a job board, research summaries, and ongoing training and workshops. Intake opens three times per year. To learn more, visit https://www.heartbrainworks.org/Healthy-Work-CoP