Psychosocial hazard #7 – Poor organisational justice

Why is poor organisational justice a psychosocial hazard?

This hazard involves a lack of procedural justice (fair processes to reach decisions), informational fairness (keeping people informed) and interpersonal fairness (treating people with dignity and respect). Some questions that you might ask to assess whether there are any psychosocial hazards related to poor organisational justice in your workplace include:

• Are there any failures to respect peoples’ privacy or to protect confidentiality of their personal information?
• Are there cases where a worker’s performance is openly discussed in front of other people?
• Are there any instances of people’s information being used for purposes other than that which the information was provided for?
• Are any policies unfair or biased or do they deny any workers their rights?
• Are policies applied inconsistently or in a biased way creating inequalities?
• Does the organisation fail to recognise and accommodate the reasonable needs of workers?
• Are there occurrences of actual or alleged cases of underperformance, misconduct and harmful behaviour that are not addressed appropriately or at all?
• Are there inequalities in the allocation of work or shifts or opportunities that are discriminatory or unfair?
• Are there different rules for different categories or groups of workers?
• Are there inadequacies in policies and procedures compromising the capacity to make fair decisions on employment matters?

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.