Many PCBUs behind the eight ball in face of increasing regulatory action on psychosocial hazards. Companies to ensure they receive adequate WHS training and Due Diligence training. Bullying and harassment complaints are driving particularly frenetic regulatory action against PCBUs around psychosocial hazard management in one jurisdiction, and others are set to follow.
Since last year, SafeWork NSW has been "hammered" by complaints of bullying and harassment from workers, resulting in numerous PCBUs being issued with investigation notices undersection 155 ("Powers of regulator to obtain information") of the State Work Health and Safety Act 2011, HWL Ebsworth Lawyers partner Greg McCann tells OHS Alert.
Be prepared for a section-155 notice.
Affected PCBUs have been required to handover information on their own investigations into inappropriate behaviours and the "conduct of particular people", and on what outcomes they have implemented.
The regulator expects to see "the psychosocial risk assessment that should have been completed", and, importantly, "what surveys have been done across the business regarding the psychosocial hazards".
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Unless the businesses have taken the right steps to implement the recommendations from their investigations, and undertaken a very good risk assessment for the psychosocial hazards... they're already behind the eight ball.
Most employers are not well prepared for this type of regulatory action and it has meant panic stations for many of them.
And while there have been widespread efforts to comply with new provisions explicitly requiring PCBUs to manage psychosocial risks through a risk management process, many PCBUs are delayed because they lack the consultation processes needed for addressing psychosocial hazards.
Good policies needed including WHS and Due Diligence Training
Regulators in other jurisdictions are likely to follow SafeWork's course of action, after the new psychosocial regulations.
For many businesses, an appropriate response means "refreshing, redoing and reinvigorating their appropriate workplace behaviour policies".
This needs to target key risk areas, which lay in the interactions between workers at work and from the conduct of customers and others coming into the workplace.
Employers should ensure they have undertaken risk assessments of psychosocial hazards, and conducted face-to-face, assessed training with the workforce on the business's expectations around appropriate workplace behaviours.
Employers also need to reinforce that behaviours between workers need to be appropriate around the clock, with many court and tribunal decisions holding that after-hours interactions can be taken as having occurred at work.
If employers take all the right steps, they will have a good defence to any particular claims in the future.
For NSW PCBUs, SafeWork has two years to investigate allegations that come to its attention, and being "on the front foot" with the right policies in place should be enough for PCBUs to deter further regulatory action.
