Dr Dougal Sutherland: Psychosocial risk assessments at work

2024 has been a tricky year for many organisations and businesses – whether it be through having to make significant changes or being affected by the current economic environment. Now is a good time to stop and take stock of how the year has impacted on your people. One great way to do this is through a psychosocial risk assessment.  

What’s a psychosocial risk assessment? It looks at all the psychological and social hazards in a workplace that can potentially cause mental or physical harm to your people.  

Some easy examples are:  

• Bullying  
• Micromanagement  
• High workloads  
• Less obvious examples include  
• Job insecurity  
• Lack of clear role description  
• Physical work environment e.g., spending all your working day in the cab of a crane  

Psychosocial hazards are a leading cause of mental health problems at work (e.g., stress, depression, anxiety) and also physical health problems (e.g., musculoskeletal problems, high blood pressure, heart problems). Now is a good opportunity to look at what hazards are at your place to set your people and organisation up to perform at their best in 2025.  

First steps you should take:  

• Make sure management is involved and supportive – you’ll hit a ceiling in how far this can go if they’re not on board. If they need any convincing, there have been a number of cases in court recently where organisations have been fined anywhere between $50k and $1.8million for not looking after the mental health of their staff  
• Talk to staff to find out what things are really like at the coal face. Leaders can sometimes make the mistake of thinking they know all the ins and outs of an organisation and while they will know some of it, nothing beats talking to people who are actually doing the job  
• Look at data you already have, e.g. are there areas with high levels of sick leave or with high annual leave balances – why might this be the case?  

Lastly, you might need to call in the external experts, which is where organisations like ours can help out. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at B and Google.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being our Psychologists as with us
this morning to Google.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Good morning Jack. Hey, we're both out of our usual
comfort zones this morning. By the sound of it. You're
in the You're in the US of A. And I'm
I'm down in Calbourn at the Saint Michael's Church, fear
on the White Elephant stall of all things.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Oh the white elephants saw. So just give us a
run through. What sort of products are you hawking this morning?
What are you trying to shill to the masses.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I've been trying to get rid of a couple of
electric knives. We've got, We've got we've got a porter
cot for for for a baby, and a couple of
lamps would would also be, plus a whole lot of
not particularly useful electrical equipment. And a leaf flower. Is
that that's the I think that's the top, the top
thing that we've still got. It's a great leaf flower.

(01:03):
If you're interested, I could always put your name on
it and you can send me the check once you
get in the country.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
See, I'm not into leaf blowers. I'm I'm, but I'm i'm.
I'm always a little bit seduced by the idea of those,
you know, the suckers, the kind of the opposites of
the leaf blowers. They have the big bag. I've always
wondered how effective they actually are because I look at them.
I look at them on trade me from time to time,
and I have to We've got a little courtyard that
I always have to sweep up, and I always think, oh,
maybe it's time that I get a big sucker for

(01:28):
the backyard. But I haven't. I haven't haven't pulled the
trigger just yet.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Well, you know, as you need a blower just in
the meantime, just let me know your name. Anyway, it
is a.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Bit of a blast in the past to have a
wide elephant stand, to be perfectly honest, because most of
the sort of secondhand buying and selling goes on to Facebook,
Marketplace or trade me these days. So I'm glad to
hear that you were you were out there doing it.
Although I can't imagine what the what the demand is
going to be like for one electric knife, let alone
two electric knives. I feel like that was a fad

(02:00):
that's kind of that's you know, that's gone the way
of the old popcorn makers. You know, that's just it.
Don't there.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah, don't say that too loudly. I'm going to sell them.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
No, no, no, sorry, sorry. It sounds like you've got an amazing
products and everyone should get down there this morning. Yeah yeah,
yeah too.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Right. Anyway, it looks that's right.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Very good. So twenty twenty four has obviously been a
pretty difficult year for lots of organizations, lots of businesses,
and the economy isn't out of the woods just yet.
But you reckon now is actually a great time to
take stock of how the year has kind of impacting
on people within an organization with something called a psychosocial

(02:41):
risk assessment. So what on earth is that?

Speaker 3 (02:44):
No, you're exactly right, it's been a tricky year, thought,
I think most businesses and organizations in New Zealand, and
one of the hidden effects of that is the psychological
impact and the psychological harm that people can suffer at work.
And that's what we would refer to as a psychosocial risk.

(03:06):
So these are risks in a workplace that they don't
necessarily cause you physical harm, but they could cause you
some psychological harm. They can cause a physical harm as well,
but it's the things like, for example, bullying or a
high workload. Now, that's not probably going to cause you
too much. You know, it's not like a slip, trip

(03:27):
or a fall. You know, it's not like a loose
cable or something like that. But it is a hazard
in your workplace. And I think now, if any organization
has been through a big change, now is a really
good time to stop and take stock of has that
change actually had a negative impact on the mental wellbeing
of your people?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
And so how do you take stock? How do you
assess that?

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, look, there's no one single way. So there's first
y I would say in an organization, look at the
data that you've already got, so, you know, look at
things like, is there a particular area in your workplace
where there might be high levels of sick leave? For example?
That might be a suggestion. Are there people at work

(04:11):
who've got lots and lots of annually going And I
know that from an accountancy perspective that's not a great thing,
But also why aren't people able to take their annual lead?
It may be because they feel that there's too much
work to do so you can look at the data
that you've got. You know, at Umbrella we do this
sort of stuff a lot as well. We're like an
independent external agency that would come in and help you

(04:34):
doing that. But there's no one single way but looking
at all the Sorry, the other key thing I should
say is make sure you talk to people at the
cold face. We often risk imagining what the work is
like without actually going and talking to people, and it's
crucial that you go and talk to your staff find
out about what is actually going on on the ground.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah. The interesting thing about about psychosocial issues is that
or psychosocial hazards is that they don't just lead to
mental health problems, and I think that's kind of mental
well being stuff is probably pretty obvious. But they can
also lead to physical health issues, right.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, they can. It's really interesting and it's often something
that people overlook and sometimes, to be honest, I sometimes
forget about it too. But those psychosocial hazards are one
of the leading causes of muscular skeletal problems and people
it's from, you know, think about the tension that you
might carry in your shoulders if you're stressed all the time. Also,
a big contributed to things like elevated blood pressure and

(05:34):
heart problems, and that's probably from being under chronic stress
and having lots of quartersole rushing around in your blood
stream all the time. So important to recognize that not
only a mental effect but also a physical effect on
people as well.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Okay, hey, very good now, I know you've got a
busy day obviously at the White Elephants standards a queue
of keen buyers lining up right now to barter for
those electric knives. But are you going to the Derby tonight?

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Google, I haven't got plans to tonight. I might well
go down to the pub and watch it on TV, though.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Google, Come on, I would have thought, especially you know
what that that that wonderful Wellington Phoenix tradition when they're
up at eighty minutes right, you've got to and you're
part of the home crowd, you've got to whip the
shirt off and circle that round, you know. I would
have thought that would be your scene, doogle?

Speaker 1 (06:19):
You know?

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, Well you're talking. You're talking me into it, aren't
you really? It's my son's just moved to Auckland or sorry,
he's been in Auckland for a few years, but he's
just latched onto supporting Auckland FC. So now we've got
a bit of you know, into rivalry within the family
as well with the old Wellington Yea, yeah, it'll be
a great match. I think it's a great match.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
No, it will be. Hey, good luck this morning. We'll
be thinking of you and crossing our fingers for for
lots of buyers whom you can play off against each
other and drive the prices up at the White Elephants
stand Doogle Sabland from Umbrella Wellbeing. We'll put all of
his tips there for psychosocial hazards and doing a bit
of a check at your workplace or organization up on
the News Talks d website. And speaking of that local

(07:01):
derby five pm this evening at sky Stadium in Wellington,
Jason Pine is on we Can Sport and will no
doubt be salivating at that prospect. I'll get his pick
for who he thinks is going to take out the
first New Zealand darby. I think it's not technically the
first New Zealand derby. It's the first derby of twenty
twenty four between two New Zealand teams in the A League.

(07:24):
Because of course, we have had other teams in the
A League as well as the Phoenix in the past. Anyway,
we'll find a more succinct way of explaining that before midday,
right now at sixteen past eleven.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News talks ' B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.