When it comes to WHS, all organisations (PCBU’s) have “positive duties” they need to comply with. This positive duty exists specifically for the management of psychosocial hazards and sexual harassment, amongst others.
All PCBU’s need to ensure that they eliminate risks at work, and if they can’t eliminate them, then they must minimise them as far as is reasonably practical. However, across Australian jurisdictions, a positive duty to manage psychosocial hazards is also required under the legal framework of the Work Health and Safety Act.
A positive duty requires us to take proactive and meaningful action to prevent harm, rather than just reacting to incidents after they occur. You must identify the hazards and take steps to eliminate them before they occur. This means identifying psychosocial hazards such as occupational violence, fatigue, bullying or other hazards that could contribute to a psychological injury.
What actions can you take to support your compliance with this Positive Duty?
The following are proactive steps that can contribute to meeting your positive duty:
- Completing a risk assessment to identify psychosocial hazards and implement risk controls
- Implementing clear policies and procedures about expected workplaces behaviours and communicating these to workers so that everyone understands them. This could be your Code of Conduct or your Occupational Violence procedure.
- Providing comprehensive training for all staff about psychosocial hazards. An example could be training on how to manage fatigue and your fitness for work program.
- Providing wellbeing solutions, to support workers with adopting a balanced lifestyle that has positive impacts on both physical and mental health
At The Mindful Risk Group, we have sourced solutions to comply with regulatory requirements, and to support our team in cultivating stronger physical and psychosocial health to contribute proactively to overall wellbeing.
Valus Health have launched three new preventative & proactive digital health solutions:
Our team have completed these short, interactive sessions and found them to be informative, engaging and highly implementable– we now have a Team Challenge underway with implementing some of the solutions! We encourage you to do the same, and until 27 February 2026, you can complete any of these programs with an 80% discount coupon! Enter the code MINDFUL80 in the ‘Have a Coupon?’ box to take advantage of this offer (one license).
Please note – we do not receive any financial incentive for promoting this offer – we just have a desire to share solutions that work and support safer workplaces!
Have a great week!
Bron and The Team