Psychosocial Risk Assessments: The First Step in Developing Effective Workplace Mental Health Programs

Using EHS software to conduct psychosocial risk assessments for a healthier workplace.

Shocking new statistics released recently are refocusing attention to the effects that uncontrolled psychosocial hazards have on workplace productivity. According to a 2023 survey conducted by ComPsych¹, new data shows that mental health-related work absences across the United States are surging, up 33% since 2022, and a startling 300% above 2017 totals.  

Similarly, the Business Group on Health (BGH) indicates that 77% of employers now report experiencing rising rates of workforce mental illness, highlighting what BGH’s CEO Ellen Kelsay called “a dire need for mental health services and support” for affected workers.² 

While the scale of this increase in mental health-related absence might be surprising, the underlying problem is not. The effects of uncontrolled mental health risks are well established. Therefore, exposure to work-related psychosocial hazards is a major occupational health and safety threat, according to the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).³   

Right now, Gallup estimates that mental health-related absence costs the U.S. economy approx. $47.6 billion USD in lost productivity each year.⁴ In the UK, 46% of all work illnesses are attributed to stress, anxiety or depression, making them the single biggest cause of time lost.⁵ Beyond productivity losses, the direct costs to treat mental health conditions is estimated to exceed $225 billion USD annually.⁶ 

So, we have a big problem. But, what to do about it?  

In this blog, we will explore the challenges in addressing psychosocial hazards in the workplace and discuss how psychosocial risk assessments can help organizations focus on issues that have the biggest impact on performance, and people’s health. We’ll also answer the following questions:

1. How can psychosocial risk assessments guide mental health investment decisions?
2. What are common EHS psychosocial hazards?
3. How to conduct psychosocial risk assessments within EHS?
4. How does EHS management software support psychosocial risk assessments?

How can psychosocial risk assessments guide mental health investment decisions?

Employers continue to pour massive dollars into workplace mental health services. From 2020 to 2022, spending on mental health services via employer-provided insurance increased by a whopping 53%. But that investment isn’t for naught. Studies show that for every dollar invested in workplace mental health services, companies return ~$4 in productivity gains.⁷  But with limited budgets, where should businesses focus their resources to realize the biggest impacts on mental health outcomes?  

Should they focus on increasing access to front-line mental health services? What about expanding access through telehealth? Should they increase training for front-line managers to identify mental health warning signs? Or maybe explore tools to assess individual mental health risk and prioritize interventions? The options are endless. 

But like everything in EHS, determining where to best prioritize our time, effort and money starts with identifying where the biggest risks (and opportunities) are. And that means we need to conduct psychosocial risk assessments.  

Common Psychosocial Hazards Within EHS

Mental health issues are influenced, in part, from exposure to workplace psychosocial risk factors. Psychosocial hazards are attributes linked to work design, management, environment or peer/manager interactions that can increase the risk of work-related stress.⁸  In its simplest form, stress results from an imbalance between the work demands and an individual’s capacity to meet or cope with those demands. Prolonged exposure to workplace stress can result in psychosocial or physical harm. 

Listed below are some common psychosocial hazards found in many work environments⁹: 

• High job demands 
• Low job control 
• Poor support  
• Lack of role clarity 
• Poor organizational change management 
• Inadequate reward and recognition 
• Poor organizational justice 
• Traumatic events or material 
• Remote or isolated work  
• Poor physical environment  
• Violence and aggression  
• Bullying and harassment, including sexual and gender-based harassment, and 
• Conflict or poor workplace relationships and interactions. 

Fortunately, new international standards have emerged in recent years to give organizations some direction on how to effectively control exposures to psychosocial hazards and optimize employee wellbeing. ISO 45003 was first published in 2021 to offer guidance to organizations on how to effectively manage psychosocial risks within an occupational health and safety management system.¹⁰ And a key element of the standard is the identification and control of psychosocial hazards and risk factors through a psychosocial risk assessment. 

How to conduct psychosocial risk assessments within EHS?

With psychosocial risk assessments, our aim is to identify relevant psychosocial hazards at play within the organization, and then determine what interventions-at an organizational level-are needed to reduce the effects of those hazards on individual’s ability to cope.  

Fortunately, the methodology to complete these risk assessments are not unlike others that EHS professionals are accustomed to.  

Step 1: Identify psychosocial hazards and those at risk 

The first step is to understand how work is structured and performed, and the hazards that individuals are exposed to through that work.  

Step 2: Assess and prioritize hazards for intervention 

At this step, we must determine the likelihood of exposure to that hazard, and the severity of harm that exposure can cause. Remember, a hazard in and of itself doesn’t immediately constitute a ‘risk’ provided that measures are in place to mitigate hazard exposure to a tolerable level. 

Step 3: Plan & execute interventions 

Once we’ve identified our prioritized list of psychosocial hazards, we need to develop plans to address exposures through corrective & preventative control measures. Remember, the intent is to focus interventions at the organizational level, not the individual level. 

Step 4: Monitor & adjust 

Any intervention taken should be regularly monitored to ensure it remains in place and effective at either preventing exposure to hazards, and/or mitigate the effect of that exposure to a tolerable level. 

How does EHS management software support psychosocial risk assessments?

Psychosocial risk assessments are not unlike other forms of risk analysis. As such, they are often plagued by the same constraints. Fortunately, though, they also benefit from the same features and optimizations available in enterprise-grade, SaaS EHS management software. Let’s look at some of the common constraints impacting risk assessments: 

Excessive administrative burdens 

For organizations still using spreadsheets to record risk assessments, these documents can quickly become unwieldly, comprising thousands of columns, rows and cells that must be entered, checked, reviewed and maintained on a regular basis to ensure they remain accurate and can inform risk-based decision making. EHS management software drastically reduces the time and effort to record and maintain these risk registries, and include options to schedule and assign specific risk assessments to individuals to review and update on a regular basis, so decisions are informed by current data. 

Compromised data quality 

Beyond the administrative burdens created by reliance on spreadsheets, manual risk assessment processes introduce considerable data quality and integrity risks. An errant keystroke can impact overall analyses, and point the organization away from specific issues that require its immediate attention. Even worse, a corrupted file might mean months of work goes down the drain in an instant, along with your ability to prioritize actions to address psychosocial hazards of greatest concern. EHS management software offers more control over data storage and access, ensuring your risk analyses are always protected and available to guide decision making. 

Lack of integration with related activities 

Remember, completing a psychosocial risk analysis is just the first step. Identified hazards and risks need to be controlled, and our control measures need to be regularly assessed to ensure they remain effective. Manual risk assessment practices, however, introduce needless steps in the process. Individuals who verify risk-based controls must secondarily update the risk assessment spreadsheet to ensure it reflects reality, adding another inefficient admin task. With EHS software, organizations can create workflow integrations where a validation task can seamlessly update the corresponding risk assessment, enabling individuals to focus more on addressing uncontrolled risk in the field, and less on maintaining documentation. 

Poor data visibility 

Centralizing our psychosocial risk assessment data is only truly effective if by doing so we can aggregate and visualize that data in a meaningful way to inform future decisions. With paper-based risk management practices, our ability to consolidate and visualize data to tell a compelling narrative of what the business is doing to manage psychosocial risk is limited. With EHS software, however, users can easily create intuitive dashboard indicators to help leaders assess overall performance, zero-in on areas of uncontrolled psychosocial risk, and target organization-wide improvements to change workplace culture for the better.  

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot of uncertainty right now amongst employers about how far they should go to address mental health risks in the workplace, and where they should allocate their finite budgets to create a healthier and more inclusive work environment. Whatever direction you choose to head, remember that it all starts with a comprehensive psychosocial risk assessment. 

Organizations exploring how software can support these new psychosocial risk assessments would benefit from partnering with a vendor that has demonstrated expertise in managing occupational health issues. Furthermore, it’s important that the vendor has a robust application that can be easily configured to support the new psychosocial risk assessment methodologies that are coming onto the market. 

Mental health can be a scary topic. But managing it doesn’t need to be.

Let Cority help you along this next leg of your journey toward better workplace wellbeing.

To learn more about how Cority can help, check out the Health Cloud or request a demo today!

Sources 

¹ Mayer, K. 2024, March. Mental health-related absences up 33% in 2023. SHRM. Accessed at https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/benefits-compensation/mental-health-absences-surge-workplace-compsych  

² Golden, R. 2023, April. Large employers see ‘dire need’ for mental health services. HR Dive. Accessed at https://www.hrdive.com/news/large-employers-see-dire-need-mental-health-services-burnout/691772/  

³ Schulte, P.A., et al. 2024, April. An urgent call to address work-related psychosocial hazards and improve worker well-being. Amer. J. Ind. Med., 67: 499-514. 

⁴ Witters, D., and Agrawal, S. 2022, Nov. The economic cost of poor employee mental health. Gallup. Accessed at https://www.gallup.com/workplace/404174/economic-cost-poor-employee-mental-health.aspx  

⁵ Roussos, P.L. 2023, Jan. The psychosocial risks and impacts in the workplace assessment tool: Construction and psychometric evaluation. Behav. Sci., 13(2):104, 1-14. 

⁶ Shirneshan, E., et al. 2013 Oct. Incremental direct medical expenditures associated with anxiety disorders for the U.S. adult population: evidence from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. J. Anxiety Disord, 27(7): 720-727. 

⁷ Aarons-Mele, M. 2018, Nov. We need to talk more about mental health at work. Harvard Business Review. Accessed at https://hbr.org/2018/11/we-need-to-talk-more-about-mental-health-at-work  

⁸ 2022, Apr. Psychosocial hazards. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Accessed at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/learning/safetyculturehc/module-2/8.html  

⁹ Psychosocial hazards. Safe Work Australia. Accessed at https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/safety-topic/managing-health-and-safety/mental-health/psychosocial-hazards  

¹⁰ 2021. ISO 45003: 2021 – Occupational health and safety management – Psychological health and safety at work – Guidelines for managing psychosocial risks. International Organization for Standardisation (ISO). Geneva