Line Managers & Psychosocial Risk: Why Their Role is Crucial – and Legally Required

What the research, the legislation, and the case law are telling us about the frontline of workplace mental health

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

Introduction

Line managers sit at the most consequential intersection in any organisation: the point where strategy meets people, where policy becomes practice, and where the day-to-day conditions of work are either supportive or harmful. When it comes to psychosocial risk management, this position is not merely important — it is legally significant.

Yet many line managers are underprepared for this role. They may be unclear about what is expected of them, overburdened by their own workload, or simply unaware that managing psychological health and safety is part of their job description. This article examines why that gap matters, what the regulatory landscape requires, what the research tells us about the impact of manager support, and what competencies every manager needs to develop in order to fulfil their role effectively.

Why Line Managers Matter

The influence a line manager has over the experience of their team members is difficult to overstate. Research from the Workforce Institute at UKG found that for 69% of people, their manager has the greatest impact on their mental health — on par with their partner. This figure alone should reframe how organisations think about manager capability and support.

Line managers are responsible for the day-to-day conditions in which work is done: planning and allocating tasks, managing team dynamics and communication, responding to signs of distress or conflict, and implementing controls to reduce risks. Their behaviour and capability determine whether psychosocial hazards are recognised, escalated, and managed — or allowed to accumulate unaddressed.

At the same time, our psychosocial risk audits consistently show that line managers are themselves disproportionately affected by high workload, cognitive load, and emotional demands. Caught between the pressures of their own responsibilities and the needs of their teams — and frequently without adequate training or organisational support — middle managers often carry the greatest psychosocial risk load in the organisation. Their wellbeing is not a secondary concern; it is a strategic one.

The Regulatory and Legal Context

Psychosocial risk management is not a best practice aspiration. It is a legal requirement, and the regulatory landscape across Australia and New Zealand has evolved rapidly to reflect the seriousness with which legislators now treat psychological health at work.

The primary framework is established by the Work Health and Safety Act and associated Regulations, supplemented by the Model Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work. In Victoria, the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Psychological Health) legislation came into effect on 1 December 2025, introducing specific duties for employers to manage psychosocial risk. Relevant provisions also exist across the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, the Model Code of Practice on Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment, and the Fair Work Act 2009. The Industrial Manslaughter Offence further underscores the personal liability that can attach to officers where failures in duty of care result in serious harm.

These frameworks place responsibility on both employers and employees. A Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) is required to identify reasonably foreseeable psychosocial hazards, introduce and maintain control measures to eliminate or minimise the associated risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and review those measures on an ongoing basis. Employees are required to take reasonable care for their own and others' psychological health and safety, report identified hazards, and comply with control measures.

Officers — including senior leaders — carry their own due diligence obligations: to acquire and maintain knowledge of WHS matters, to understand the nature of the organisation's operations and associated hazards, and to ensure that appropriate resources, processes, and procedures are in place to manage risks and comply with WHS laws.

Line managers, operating within this framework, contribute to psychosocial hazard management through awareness and understanding of what those hazards are, regular one-to-one check-ins with their direct reports, identification and reporting of hazards, and the implementation of controls to eliminate or reduce risks.

What the Case Law Is Telling Us

Real-world legal cases make clear what is at stake when psychosocial hazards are not proactively managed. Three cases in particular illustrate the range and severity of consequences.

1. In Mathews v Winslow Constructors, the court awarded $1.3 million AUD in damages. The psychosocial hazards at issue included bullying, sexual harassment, trauma, and exposure to violence — hazards that, left unaddressed, created conditions for serious psychological injury.
2. In the Court Services Victoria case, damages of $379,157 AUD were awarded in a matter involving a toxic culture, high job demands, exposure to traumatic material, role conflict, poor workplace relationships, and offensive behaviours. The combination of compounding hazards — none of which existed in isolation — produced a risk profile that the organisation had failed to adequately address.
3. In Elisha v Vision Australia, the award approached $1.5 million AUD. This case is particularly instructive for its emphasis on the consequences of a pattern of behaviour that was not addressed in a timely way, on questions of procedural fairness, and on the increased liability that can attach to employers where a psychiatric injury results from a breach of the employment contract.

Together, these cases underscore the importance of proactive leadership, organisational systems that are capable of identifying and responding to psychosocial risk, and the significant financial and reputational consequences of getting this wrong.

Manager Support: A Psychosocial Protective Factor

The role of line managers in psychosocial risk management extends well beyond legal compliance. Managers are not simply executors of policy — they are, in a very real sense, protectors of psychological health.

Good manager support functions as a job resource and a psychosocial protective factor: it buffers teams against the negative impact of high job demands, reduces the likelihood of burnout, and sustains wellbeing even in environments where hazards cannot be fully eliminated. Poor leadership and the absence of support, by contrast, are well-documented contributors to chronic stress and heightened psychosocial risk.

Manager support encompasses two main dimensions. Emotional support involves empathy, active listening, and demonstrating genuine care for employees — noticing when someone is not coping, creating space for honest conversation, and responding with compassion rather than judgement. Instrumental support involves providing practical assistance: actionable advice, accommodation of individual circumstances, and tangible help when a team member is struggling with the demands of their role.

The research evidence supporting the impact of manager support is substantial. Studies show that manager support can mitigate the negative impact of work-life conflict and reduce turnover intention, reduce emotional exhaustion caused by high job demands in lean working environments, and improve mental health outcomes even for employees with existing mental health conditions — a finding demonstrated specifically in the context of Australian emergency services. These are not marginal effects. They represent meaningful differences in the lived experience of work.

Assessing Line Manager Preparedness

Before investing in training or systems change, it is useful to take stock of where your managers currently stand. The following questions offer a practical starting point:

• Do your managers understand what psychosocial hazards are and why managing them matters?
• Are they able to identify signs of stress in their team members — and in themselves?
• Are they equipped to have meaningful conversations about stress and mental health?
• Do they have the skills and knowledge to put in place controls that promote psychosocial safety?
• And do they have sufficient organisational support and resources to do all of this effectively?

The more of these questions that attract a candid "no," the greater the case for targeted manager training. These are not abstract capabilities — they are the practical competencies that determine whether a manager is a protective factor or a source of risk for the people they lead.

The Competencies That Matter

Research and practice identify two complementary frameworks for thinking about what effective managers need to be able to do.

The first framework focuses on the qualities associated with good manager support. An effective manager pays attention to their team members' feelings and problems, and notices when someone is not doing well. They show genuine appreciation for the work their team does. They provide help with tasks when needed, offer practical advice on managing challenges, and are someone their team members would feel comfortable approaching if they were experiencing workplace stress. They are considerate in how they manage people, involve team members in decisions that affect them, remain accessible and approachable, and stay objective when issues arise between staff.

The second framework, developed by HeartBrain Works, focuses specifically on the competencies required for psychosocial risk management. An effective manager understands what psychosocial hazards are and how they affect mental health. They understand when the risk of compensation claims or stress-related leave arises and how to mitigate it. They can identify signs of stress and poor mental health in both their team members and themselves. They hold effective and regular conversations with staff about psychosocial hazards and mental health. They put in place appropriate controls and interventions to manage workplace stress. They take steps to manage their own mental health. They know what support is available within the organisation, make use of it themselves, and actively share it with their team. And they enact positive behaviours that promote psychological health and safety.

These two frameworks are complementary. The first describes how an effective manager shows up interpersonally. The second describes the specific knowledge and skills required by the psychosocial risk management context. Together, they form the basis for a comprehensive approach to manager development in this space.

Conclusion: From Compliance to Culture

Line managers are the most direct point of contact between organisational intent and employee experience. They determine, more than any policy or program, whether the conditions of work are psychologically safe or harmful. This makes their development not a training exercise but a strategic investment — one with measurable returns in wellbeing, retention, productivity, and legal compliance.

The organisations that do this well are those that take manager capability seriously: providing clear guidance on what is expected, equipping managers with the skills they need, ensuring they have sufficient time and support to do the relational work their role requires, and treating their own wellbeing as a matter of organisational concern rather than personal responsibility.

If you would like to explore how to build these capabilities in your organisation, we would welcome the conversation Get in touch with us! 

References

The Workforce Institute at UKG. (2023). Mental health at work: Managers and money. UKG.

Karatepe, O. M., & Kilic, H. (2015). Does manager support reduce the effect of work–family conflict on emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions? Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 14(3), 267–289.

Huo, M.-L., Boxall, P., & Cheung, G. W. (2022). Lean production, work intensification and employee wellbeing: Can line-manager support make a difference? Economic and Industrial Democracy, 43(1), 198–220.

Petrie, K., Gayed, A., Bryan, B. T., Deady, M., Madan, I., Savic, A., Wooldridge, Z., Counson, I., Calvo, R. A., Glozier, N., & Harvey, S. B. (2018). The importance of manager support for the mental health and well-being of ambulance personnel. PLOS ONE, 13(5), e0197802.

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