The next psychosocial hazard that is listed in Safe Work Australia’s Model Code of Practice on Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work is “low job control”.

Why is low job control a psychosocial hazard?

This hazard involves workers who have little control or say over the work or aspects of the work including how, when and where the work is done

Some questions that you might ask to assess whether there are any low job control related psychosocial hazards in your workplace include:

• Do people require permission or sign-off before being allowed to progress routine or low risk tasks?
• Are people not permitted to make decisions that are within the scope of their abilities?
• Is work subject to prescriptive processes that do not allow workers to apply their skills or judgment?
• Are changes made to people’s work areas without consulting them?
• Are changes made to work processes, systems or resources without consulting the affected workers?
• Do you have managers who micro manage people to ensure that they are on top of things and people don’t make mistakes?
• Do work processes and systems limit people’s ability to take breaks or change tasks?
• Do excessive work demands make it difficult for workers to take breaks or to maintain reasonable working hours?
• Are workers often in situations which expose them to aggression or abuse?
• Is the physical work environment something that workers cannot control or get relief from (eg working in adverse climatic conditions or dusty or smoky environments)?

This list is not exhaustive and while we have based these posts on the model code produced by Safe Work Australia, there can be differences in the specific details for each State or Territory. So you need to check that in the jurisdiction in which your workplace lies.

This is the first in a series of blogs in which we will unpack the 14 psychosocial hazards identified in the Model Code for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work published in 2022 by Safe Work Australi.

The first of those is “Job demands”.

Why are job demands a psychosocial hazard?

This hazard involves sustained or intense levels of physical, mental or emotional effort which are unreasonable and chronically exceed a worker’s skills or sustained low levels of physical, mental or emotional effort.

Some questions that you might ask to assess whether there are any job demand related psychosocial hazards in your workplace include:

• Are there long, irregular or unpredictable hours of work?
• Are there insufficient breaks or not enough recovery time between work periods?
• Are there people who don’t take time off (and perhaps might have an excessive annual leave balance)?
• Does anyone struggle with the amount of work that they have to do?
• Does anyone struggle with the complexity of the work that they have to do?
• Are timelines for completion of work too demanding?
• Is the level of concentration required to do a job too intense?
• Do people have challenges in managing competing priorities?
• Is anyone concerned about the impact that making a mistake would have?
• Does anyone’s work involve managing stressful or distressing situations?
• Do people have to manage others’ emotions or perhaps suppress their own?
• Is there anyone who doesn’t have enough work to do?
• Do people have to wait on others to complete work before they can do their own or before they can access the tools and resources that they need to do their jobs?
• Does anyone do very monotonous and repetitive work?
• Is there anyone who finds the work just too easy and unchallenging because they have higher abilities? 

This list is not exhaustive and, while we have based these posts of the model code produced by Safe Work Australia, there can be differences in the specific details for each State or Territory. So you need to check that in the jurisdiction in which your workplace lies.