Psychosocial hazard #4 – Lack of Role Clarity

The fourth in the list in the Model Code for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work is “Lack of role clarity”.

Why is lack of job clarity a psychosocial hazard?

This hazard arises from people being subject to unclear, inconsistent or frequently changing roles, responsibilities or expectations and not having clear and accurate information. 

Some questions that you might ask to assess whether there are any lack of role clarity related psychosocial hazards in your workplace include:

• Are people properly inducted into the organisation, their team and their role  or do they have to try to work it out by themselves?
• Are there inconsistencies in work allocations and/or overlap in responsibilities between workers which make people confused about who is supposed to do what?
• Do people receive instructions from multiple people and are not clear about who they report to?
• Are there mixed messages or inconsistencies in communications on performance standards or do those standards seem to change from day to day or depending on who you talk to?
• Is there adequate information on work processes or do people have to work it out for themselves?
• Do people lack understanding of why work processes are designed as they are?
• Are there inconsistencies in how people’s individual performance and behaviour is managed that confuses people about what the performance standards are?
• is there a lack of clarity about work priorities (e.g. which tasks or stakeholder relationships are most important)? 

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.