Trends in Psychosocial Risk Management: What WHS and HR Professionals Need to Know

The regulatory, technological, and workforce shifts reshaping psychological health and safety — and what to prioritise in response

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

Introduction

The psychosocial risk management landscape in Australia and New Zealand is changing faster than most organisations are moving to keep up with it. Compliance expectations are tightening, the workforce is becoming more complex and more diverse, technology is introducing new categories of risk, and the courts are sending increasingly clear signals about the consequences of getting this wrong.

This article is drawn from a professional development webinar delivered in February 2025 as part of HeartBrain Works' monthly series. It examines the key trends shaping psychosocial risk management this year, draws on the landmark Elisha v Vision Australia case for practical lessons, and outlines what WHS and HR professionals should be prioritising in 2025.

Trend 1: Intensifying Compliance Enforcement

The most significant trend in the Australian regulatory environment is the shift from legislation to active enforcement. By 2023, all harmonised states under the Work Health and Safety Act had adopted legislation and codes of practice specifically addressing psychosocial risk — all except Victoria, which is addressed below. What is now changing is the seriousness with which regulators are pursuing compliance.

WorkSafe New South Wales is currently the most active regulator in this space. Their Psychological Health and Safety Strategy for 2024 to 2026 is explicit about the fact that they will be actively investigating psychosocial risk, with a particular focus on healthcare, education, and public administration — sectors where psychosocial risk can be especially significant. Their attention will be directed primarily at organisations with over 200 employees, though the broader compliance expectation applies across all workplaces.

Victoria is catching up. The Psychological Health Regulations, which were put out for consultation in draft form in 2022, came into effect on 1 December 2025. The regulations introduce specific duties for employers to manage psychosocial risk, and based on the consultation draft, workplaces may be required to have written prevention plans and to report specific categories of psychosocial hazards — including occupational violence, bullying, and sexual harassment — to WorkSafe Victoria. A compliance code has also been released to support implementation. Organisations in Victoria should treat this as an immediate priority if they have not already begun developing their systems.

The broader pattern is clear: regulators across Australia and New Zealand are not treating psychosocial risk as a soft area of aspiration. They are treating it as a compliance matter — one that will be inspected, investigated, and prosecuted where organisations fall short.

Trend 2: High-Profile Court Cases and Growing Legal Exposure

Closely connected to the compliance enforcement trend is the growing body of case law that is shaping what organisational liability looks like in practice. The Elisha v Vision Australia case, decided in 2024, is the most recent and instructive example — but it is unlikely to be the last. As public awareness of psychosocial risk grows and workers become more informed about their rights, organisations that fail to manage these hazards adequately will face increasing legal exposure.

The lessons from Elisha v Vision Australia are addressed in detail below, but the broader point is this: high-profile cases drive awareness, awareness drives expectations, and expectations drive claims. Organisations that have not yet built robust psychosocial risk management systems are not just behind on compliance — they are accumulating legal risk that is growing each year.

Trend 3: The Impact of Technology

The adoption of AI, robotics, and automation brings undeniable benefits to workplace health and safety. Many jobs have been made safer by removing workers from dangerous or repetitive tasks, and technology continues to create efficiencies that can reduce certain categories of workload. However, the psychosocial implications of technology adoption deserve careful attention — and in many organisations, they are not receiving it.

Several specific risks are worth examining. As physical and routine tasks are automated, the remaining work often requires higher levels of cognitive engagement — complex decision-making, nuanced stakeholder interaction, and information processing at pace. This can drive an increase in cognitive load across the workforce, particularly in roles that have been redesigned around technology. A second consideration is the use of monitoring and tracking technology: GPS systems, productivity-tracking software, wearables, and other tools that record worker behaviour can be perceived by employees as intrusive surveillance, generating a stress response and, in some cases, increasing rather than reducing workload. A third concern is job insecurity — the anxiety that arises when workers believe their roles may be replaced or significantly altered by automation. And finally, organisations that become overly dependent on technology may inadvertently create a workforce that lacks the skills to manage breakdowns, which introduces physical safety risk alongside the psychosocial.

None of these risks are reasons to avoid technology. They are reasons to assess its psychosocial implications as part of any adoption process, just as physical safety risks are assessed.

Trend 4: The Integration of WHS and HR

One of the most consistent gaps we observe when working with organisations is the absence of a coherent, shared process for managing psychosocial risk across WHS and HR functions. Historically, many psychosocial hazards — particularly those related to offensive behaviour, bullying, and harassment — have been managed primarily by HR, while physical safety considerations have remained with WHS. This division no longer holds.

Psychosocial risk management requires both functions to work together: HR brings knowledge of employment law, contracts, complaints processes, and people practices; WHS brings the risk management framework, the hierarchy of controls, and the regulatory compliance perspective. Where these functions operate in silos, organisations end up with gaps — complaints that fall between processes, investigations that lack procedural rigour, and risk assessments that miss the full picture.

A practical starting point is to map the current state: what happens when someone reports a psychosocial hazard or concern? Who receives the report? Which team is responsible for what? How does the process differ depending on the nature of the hazard? Creating a clear user journey for psychosocial complaints — from initial report through to resolution and follow-up — is one of the most concrete and valuable things an organisation can do to improve its psychosocial risk management infrastructure.

Trend 5: Changing Workforce Demographics and Structure

The composition of the workforce is shifting in ways that create new psychosocial risk considerations. The World Health Organization projects that by 2050, 22% of the global workforce will be over 60 — while birth rates suggest that the younger workforce is simultaneously shrinking. The practical implication for many organisations is that they are managing teams with up to five generations working alongside one another, each with different communication preferences, different expectations of what a workplace should offer, and different orientations toward authority, flexibility, and technology.

The rise of global and remote teams introduces a further layer of complexity. Meetings scheduled across multiple time zones can routinely fall outside normal working hours for some participants. Without deliberate policies to manage this — including explicit expectations about recovery time after late-night or early-morning meetings — these arrangements contribute to cognitive load, disrupted recovery, and the erosion of boundaries between work and personal life. Hybrid work, meanwhile, brings its own psychosocial risk profile. The flexibility it offers is valued by many workers, but the isolation it can create for others — particularly those who work remotely full time — is a genuine hazard that requires active management.

The rise of the gig economy adds a further dimension. Freelancers, platform workers, and contractors may sit outside the traditional employment relationship, but organisations still carry a duty of care toward them. Managing fatigue risk for a gig worker who drives for multiple platforms, for instance, is genuinely difficult — and the complexity of that challenge does not reduce the legal responsibility to think it through.

Trend 6: Mental Health as a Global Issue

The scale of the mental health challenge in working populations is now well documented at a global level. The World Health Organization reported in 2019 that 15% of working-age adults have a mental health disorder, and that mental disorders account for 12 billion lost working days annually — equivalent to approximately one trillion USD in lost productivity. These figures predate the pandemic; rates have risen since.

The global response has included the adoption of ISO 45003, the international standard for psychological health and safety at work, in 2021, and the progressive introduction of psychosocial risk legislation across an expanding list of countries — including Belgium, Sweden, Mexico, Chile, Canada, and South Korea, among others. Australia and New Zealand are part of this movement, not ahead of it. The direction of travel is consistent: governments and regulators around the world are treating psychological health at work as a health and safety obligation, not a discretionary commitment.

Trend 7: The Growing Need for Leadership Training

A theme that runs through many of the recent court cases and regulatory investigations is the role — or absence — of effective leadership in psychosocial risk management. Managers and leaders who lack the skills to identify psychosocial hazards, have difficult conversations with their teams, follow appropriate processes, and document what they are doing are a source of organisational risk, regardless of their intentions.

The gap is not primarily one of awareness. Most managers have some understanding that mental health matters and that they should be supporting their people. The gap is one of skill: knowing how to have a conversation about stress or performance in a way that is appropriate, fair, and legally sound; knowing what process to follow when concerns are raised; knowing what records to keep and why. Leadership training that addresses these practical competencies — not just the legislation and the theory — is an increasingly urgent priority.

Elisha v Vision Australia: Key Lessons for All Organisations

The Elisha v Vision Australia case, decided in 2024, resulted in an award of $1.4 million AUD to an employee who developed a psychiatric injury following the termination of their employment. The case turned on several issues, each of which carries lessons that apply far beyond its specific facts.

The first issue was contractual breach. The employment contract specified a process to be followed in the event of termination, and that process was not followed. The court used strong language to describe the quality of the investigation that preceded the termination. This is primarily a matter for HR and legal teams — but it underscores the importance of ensuring that employment contracts and the processes referenced within them are actually implemented as written, and that the people responsible for implementing them understand what they are required to do.

The second issue was procedural fairness. The employee was accused of conduct that was deemed inappropriate but was not given an adequate opportunity to respond to the allegations against them. This is a psychosocial risk issue as well as a legal one: the experience of being accused, investigated, and terminated without the chance to properly defend oneself is, in itself, a source of significant psychological harm.

The third issue — and perhaps the one with the broadest implications — concerns early intervention and the role of leadership. It was claimed that the employee had a history of behaviour that was relevant to the termination decision. However, there was no written record of any manager having discussed these concerns with the employee, no documented meeting, and no documented request for change. Without that record, the employee could not properly challenge the allegations, and the organisation could not demonstrate that it had taken reasonable steps to address the issue before it escalated.

This is where leadership training becomes directly relevant. Had the manager involved in this case been trained to have early, documented conversations about conduct or performance concerns — to raise issues promptly, record what was discussed, and follow up in writing — the situation may have been managed very differently. The absence of that skill and that process proved enormously costly.

For every organisation: the question to ask is not whether your managers are good people, but whether they have the training, the tools, and the understanding of process to manage difficult situations in a way that is both fair to the individuals involved and defensible to a regulator or court.

Conclusion: The Time to Act Is Now

The convergence of tightening enforcement, growing case law, a more complex workforce, and rapidly evolving technology means that psychosocial risk management can no longer be treated as a background compliance task. It is a frontline strategic priority — one that carries significant financial, legal, and human consequences when managed poorly, and significant organisational advantage when managed well.

The organisations that will be best placed in the years ahead are those that build their systems now: rigorous risk assessment, genuine consultation, integrated WHS and HR processes, trained and supported managers, and a genuine commitment to the psychological health of everyone who works for them.

If you would like support navigating any of these priorities,, we are to help. Get in touch with us! 

References

World Health Organization. (2019). Mental health in the workplace. WHO.

International Organisation for Standardisation. (2021). ISO 45003: Occupational health and safety management — Psychological health and safety at work. ISO.

SafeWork NSW. (2024). Psychological health and safety strategy 2024–2026. NSW Government.

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

Elisha v Vision Australia [2024] HCA 50.

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