Psychosocial Risks. Why the first WorkSafe Bullying prosecution cited ‘Toxic Culture’. Systems (Work Design, ISO 45003) Vs Culture explained.

I recently wrote a post in response to the first WorkSafe bullying prosecution, Court Services Victoria fined $380k for ‘toxic’ workplace , with findings of a 'Toxic Culture' drawing attention to Culture, not systems as the fix. Here I highlight the need to understand the difference between culture and systems. And the limitations of a system ie Work Design and ISO 45003. And I’ll qualify that by adding that I’m a professional Health & Safety lead auditor. And also worked for the people that invented ISO as an ISO trainer. I know systems inside-out. And so I also know their intent, benefit, requirements. And limitations. And the misconceptions that widely account for people referring to Work Design as 'harm prevention'. Which it absolutely is not.

Systems are a framework. They are a collective technical think-tank outcome. Note the word 'technical'. Not human behaviour. Systems are a collection of interrelated steps that make a whole by being carried in a certain sequence or collective sequences. Systems are where strategy, information, tools, pathways, infrastructure and other resources are aligned and utilised to achieve an outcome. They are a pathway to get an outcome. Work design is a set of rules to help motivate employees and fix repetitive, monotonous jobs. Essentially Work Design is an 'engagement' job system.

The widespread misconception is that Work Design is a psychosocial harm prevention tool. Psychosocial risk are sources of harm from social and psychological factors. Ask yourself if bullying is a Psychosocial factor. If the answer is yes, it is definitely caused by social and psychological factors, then how is Work Design ever going to be harm prevention. Is making your job less monotonous going to prevent social and psychological factors resulting in bullying. No. Because Work Design is not a Psychosocial Harm Prevention fix. It is a systems harm anticipation framework for job engagement, to address after organisational wide actual social and psychological factors are mitigated and prevented.

Similarly ISO 45003 is a wider system. For the whole organisation. To line up the overall strategy, leadership, planning, resources, operations, continual improvement and review process frameworks. That's all it is. And to highlight how ISO 45003 isn't a harm prevention fix, clause 6 asks you to IDENTIFY your workplace social and psychological risk factors. When something is asking you to identify the problem, it is not fixing the problem. It is drawing your attention to the need to figure out what the root-case social and psychological factors to begin with.

And these are the limitations of systems. They give you the expertise based framework only. The bones. Work design and ISO 45003 don't give you the will, commitment and crucially, the knowledge, needed to fill the bones. The IDENTIFYING specific social and psychological risks (compiling a list of things you think are social and psychological risks is harm anticipation, not harm prevention. They may be real issues present, they may not be). This will, commitment and knowledge is by far the more important factor, by about 80%, compared to systems. To read more on the requirements for sustained psychosocial hazard management, culture and mental health read here

You could easily have a Healthy Workplace if committed with will, commitment and knowledge and no Work Design or ISO 45003. You will definitely NOT achieve a Healthy Workplace, with all the expert Work Design and ISO 45003 consultants, but no will, commitment and knowledge. Guaranteed.

And that's why WorkSafe concluded that the root-cause was Culture. The foundational requirement for everything to work. No system will have sustained benefits without foundational culture support. And that's also why WorkSafe prosecuted. Because the very foundations needed where lacking. The Culture. Guaranteed if the Culture was committed to doing the right thing, but they were some Work Design and ISO 45003 failings, prosecution would not have been pursued.

Culture is 'the way we do things around here'.

If 'the way we do things around here' is wait for suicide by bullying, high turnover from toxicity, wait for findings by legally appointed investigators to say we ignored key repeated toxic behaviours of sexual harassment, bury things when reported, victim blame, then no amount of 'work design', ISO 45003, wellbeing training or Safe Works list of Psychosocial Risk management items is going to fix or prevent these issues. They will at best just bandaid them for an audit, which is likely the only time any of these will be taken seriously in this type of culture. If 'the way we do things around here' is to really pay attention to staff needs and concerns, to get objective data driven transparency on what these are to best support them robustly, to specifically look for issues at the grass roots, before waiting for harm to happen and be reported, then that is the only way to prevent psychosocial harm and mental injury. This is a healthy culture. Culture dictates everything within a workplace.

We all know about workplace bullying, toxic workplace, mental harm, etc. But largely people look to piece-meal solutions for that specific downstream issue. Guaranteed Work Design and ISO 45003 are not going to 'prevent' bullying, sexually harassment, toxic colleagues. People who keep promoting Work Design as harm prevention are the very people that the legislation's intent in requiring dual H&S Risk Management & Organisational Psychology expertise want to weed out from working in the Psychosocial Safety space. The foundation root-cause of ALL of these is Culture. Psychosocial Risk management for Harm Prevention is only possible by establishing cultural fixes.

But addressing these cultural issues is also responsible for all the desired individual benefits like good physical and mental health, creativity, innovation, learning and development, as well as the organisational desirabilities like lower safety incidents (physical and psychological), lower quality defects, lower turnover, decreased revenue loss, optimised business operations. And more. Culture is the Lead Indicator for Leadership, Safety (Physical & Psychosocial, Wellbeing, Engagement, Quality, Productivity, Innovation, Learning & Development and Optimising every facet of your workplace. Address Culture. Reap the benefits 10s fold.

Systems are important. And useful. But they are only a complimentary support system to the most important employee Mental Health and Healthy Workplace requirement, the Culture. The system will only map out a structured way to get there. It is the culture that will get you there.

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The author is a Lead Auditor for Health & Safety, has been a BSI Executive ISO trainer across several varying Standards, an Executive Coach and is a current Board Director of NZOQ. Her PhD research focused on Psychosocial Risk, Wellbeing, Culture & Resilience, in Positive Psychology & Organisational Behaviour.

She is founder of EnableOrg? - Benchmark Psychosocial Health & Wellness. For workplace legal obligations in Psychological Harm Prevention & Wellbeing. EnableOrg?s’ Lead-indicator, integrated software helps you identify, correct, prevent and manage workplace psychosocial & wellbeing risks, for a sustainable, long term mental health, healthy culture and healthy engaged, employees.

Ranjeeta is a renowned Thought Leader and Expert in the field across Organisational Psychosocial Health, Wellbeing, Engagement, Resilience, Leadership and Culture. She is an International Speaker and has presented and spoken at varying conferences and summits.

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