Management guide to psychosocial hazards

This is written for human resources (HR) and executive leadership. It assumes most organizations have a Health and Safety Committee (HSC). For small business owners who do not have a HSC or maybe not even HR, this content will still be useful for you as the sole person responsible to employee safety.

How this information is organized

You do not need to start from scratch, but as every workplace is unique, it will likely require some customization to align with your work environment and goals. This information supports psychosocial hazard identification as part of organizational governance and risk oversight. It is grounded in the Canadian Standards Association (CSA/ASC) z1003 - Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (Latest edition) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 45003 - Occupational health and safety management — Psychological health and safety at work — Guidelines for managing psychosocial risks (Latest edition), which provide guidance on identifying psychosocial hazards and assessing the risk of harm.

ISO 45003 clause 6.1.2.1 emphasizes due diligence in risk management by stating that “the organization should understand the underlying sources of harm before control measures are considered to improve the effectiveness of activities to manage psychosocial risk.” 

This principle applies even where ISO 45003 has not been formally adopted.

What follows is an independent interpretation by Workplace Strategies for Mental Health. It outlines how psychosocial hazard identification can inform leadership oversight, governance decisions, and recommendations for psychological risk mitigation. The tools and resources referenced are available through Workplace Strategies for Mental Health. 

Guarding Minds at Work can be used to gather organization-wide information about psychosocial hazards. Survey results identify patterns of employee concern and emerging risks without identifying individuals or specific situations, supporting informed and evidence-based decision-making.

There may be psychosocial hazards impacting employees that are unique to the organization or the role of employees within the organization that are not included in the list below. It’s important to create opportunities and avenues for employees to share workplace challenges and struggles so the HSC can identify psychosocial hazards that haven’t been listed but may cause employees harm. 

Understanding underlying sources of harm is best supported through structured dialogue with employees and, where applicable, employee representatives, such as occupational health, HSC members, union representatives, and employee resource groups. 

Employees are also a key source of practical, role-specific solutions. Resources such as the On the agenda workshop series can support these discussions. Longer-term risk mitigation strategies may include strengthening leadership capability and building emotional intelligence and resilience across individuals and teams.

The Guarding Minds employee survey uses primarily positive statements to support solution-focused responses and reduce unintended dissatisfaction. Psychosocial hazards, which are framed in the negative, are not presented to employees and are intended for employer and leadership review when evaluating risks related to psychological health and safety (PHS).

ISO 45003 groups psychosocial hazards into three categories:

• Social factors at work
• Aspects of how work is organized
• Work environment, equipment, and hazardous tasks

For ease of use, all listed hazards are presented in alphabetical order. The list of psychosocial hazards below is not exhaustive, and they’re not listed in order of importance. This list has been developed to assist you on your journey of supporting the PHS of employees in your organization.

Examples within each category, along with the guidance and resources that follow, support leadership, HR, and HSCs in identifying psychosocial hazards and evaluating the adequacy of existing and planned controls.

Bullying and harassment

There are some differences between harassment and bullying. 

Harassment is unwanted, offensive, intimidating behaviours that are sexual or non-sexual in nature. These behaviours relate to one or more specific characteristics of the targeted individual including:

• Race
• Gender identity
• Religion or belief
• Sexual orientation
• Disability
• Age

Bullying involves teasing or comments that could psychologically hurt or isolate a person. These can be repeated acts or a patten of behaviour to offend, degrade, or humiliate another person or group. Repeated unreasonable behaviours can present a risk to health, safety and well-being at work. These behaviours can be overt or covert, including:

• Social or physical isolation
• Assigning meaningless or unfavourable tasks
• Name-calling, insults and intimidation
• Undermining behaviour
• Undue public criticism
• Withholding information or resources critical for one’s job
• Malicious rumours or gossiping
• Assigning impossible deadlines

Note: Bullying and harassment can occur in-person and electronically. This includes online meetings, emails or social media.

Suggested actions for bullying and harassment

It’s important to demonstrate management commitment to preventing bullying and harassment throughout all levels of the organization. Developing and maintaining a written policy and program that clearly defines bullying, harassment, and other forms of unacceptable behaviour is not only a good practice but is also required in almost all jurisdictions across Canada.

The program must establish clear reporting and response processes so employees know how to raise concerns, what steps will be followed, how confidentiality is protected, and how issues will be addressed in a timely and fair manner.

From an organizational perspective, it’s critical to take action to Prevent bullying and harassment. Leaders can use an approach to conflict resolution that leaves both parties with their dignity intact and a new way of interacting going forward. This helps to mend working relationships. For teams, the Psychologically safe interactions workshop is a way to open minds and change behaviours that may unintentionally be seen as intimidating or threatening. 

Providing regular training for employees, supervisors, and leadership to recognize inappropriate behaviours, understand reporting procedures, and build skills in respectful communication and conflict management can also be beneficial.
When discrimination, harassment and bullying are identified, they're legal concerns that need to be addressed at an organizational level.

When discrimination, harassment and bullying are identified, they're legal concerns that need to be addressed at an organizational level.

Always comply with applicable legislation related to the prevention of workplace harassment and violence.

Career development

Opportunities for growth and development are important, even in wo5rkplaces with limited potential for advancement. It’s important to understand how hazards related to a lack of career development opportunities may affect individuals differently. For example, disabled employees, employees with lived or living experience with trauma, or employees from under-represented or equity-seeking groups may be more likely to experience exclusion or reduced access to meaningful opportunities.

Examples of how career development may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Career stagnation and uncertainty
• Under-promotion or over-promotion
• Lack of opportunity or equitable access to learning and skill development
  

Suggested actions for career development

In organizations where there are few or no opportunities for advancement, it’s still possible to support the growth and development of employees. This can help keep them engaged and motivated. Use Putting growth and development on the agenda to have a team discussion about opportunities your employees would value. This can include personal development, communication techniques, team building activities or the opportunity to shadow other staff or leaders. Make sure to offer equitable access to development opportunities.

Organizations can also integrate career development into organizational planning to align workforce development needs with business goals and future skill requirements.

Leaders can also provide clarity around roles, expectations, and progression, including how skills, experience, and performance are considered for advancement or lateral movement. Consider offering access to learning and skill-building opportunities while providing tools and resources to help employees take an active role in their own development.

Civility and respect

Hazards related to a lack of civility and respect can worsen over time and escalate into hazards related to harassment or bullying.

Examples of how civility and respect may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Lack of trust, honesty, respect, civility and fairness
• Lack of respect and consideration in interactions among employees. This can also include with customers, clients and the public
  

Suggested actions for civility and respect

What your employees agree is both civil and respectful will vary. This is impacted by the individual’s perspective and role, as well as background and life experiences. Lead a discussion using Putting civility and respect on the agenda to help. This workshop ensures that your employees feel their work interactions are civil and respectful. Gathering together and managing expectations can change interactions from offensive to acceptable. 

Sometimes team members are unaware of the negative impact their words and behaviours have on each other. Use the Psychologically safe interactions workshop materials to respectfully build awareness around the importance and impact of the words and behaviour they use at work.

Civility and respect initiatives complement harassment and bullying prevention efforts by clarifying behavioural expectations and supporting consistent and fair responses when those expectations are not met.

For more actions, see Evidence-based actions for civility and respect. 

Harm and violence at work

Violence in the workplace is not limited to physical acts. Emotional or verbal violence can cause psychological harm. To reflect this broader impact, the term harm is used to capture both physical and psychological forms of workplace violence.

Examples of how harm may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Incidents involving an explicit or implicit challenge to health, safety or well-being at work. Violence experienced can be internal, external or client initiated. This can include:
  o    Abuse
  o    Threats
  o    Assault, including physical, verbal or sexual
  o    Gender-based violence

Suggested actions for harm

For organizations, a proactive approach to violence prevention is recommended. There's also a violence response for leaders resource that provides questions to help guide decision making about whether a potential risk exists. It also shares information about how to respond when it does. In addition, there are strategies to use when addressing employee domestic violence.

Violence and threats at work are legal concerns that need to be addressed at an organizational level. 

Across Canada, occupational health and safety legislation requires employers to take steps to prevent workplace violence, including assessing risks, implementing preventive measures, and responding to incidents. These requirements recognize that violence may include physical, emotional, or verbal behaviours that cause harm to employees.

Interpersonal relationships 

Poor interpersonal relationships at work can increase tension, reduce cooperation and create risk to individual and organizational wellbeing.

Examples of how interpersonal relationships may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Poor communication, including poor information sharing
• Poor relationships between managers, supervisors, co-workers, and clients or others who employees interact with
• Interpersonal conflict
• Harassment, bullying, victimization including using electronic tools such as email and social media, and third-party violence from clients or others
• Lack of social support
• Unequal power relationships between dominant and non-dominant groups of employees
• Social or physical isolation
• Incidents of physical intimidation or violence between employees at work or outside of it
  

Suggested actions for interpersonal relationships

How teams interact has a direct impact on psychological health and safety. Positive interpersonal relationships are built on trust, respect, and effective communication.

Organizations can support healthy workplace relationship by setting clear expectations, ensuring leadership models these expectations, fostering collaboration, and providing resources that can help teams work together effectively.

Some of the resources that can help improve these interactions include: 

• Psychologically safe teams, Psychologically safe interactions and many of the Team building activities. It's important leaders take part in these activities and the changes in behaviour that the process recommends.
• The Emotional intelligence workshop helps participants understand their own emotional triggers and explore the functions of emotions. They'll also reflect on when behaviours are a symptom of emotions and ways to respond more effectively to the emotions of others.
• For leader and employee relationships, it can be helpful to examine the criteria for Building trust for leaders. Use this information to make adjustments that will better develop trust with your team.
• Conflict response for leaders can help you find a more effective way to improve difficult working relationships between two people.
• Emotional intelligence for leaders provides resources to help leaders listen and connect with employees. 

Job control or autonomy

In terms of job control, autonomy is the degree to which an employee has meaningful choice and influence over how, when, and in what order their assigned work is done. More plainly, it’s about how much say someone has in shaping their day-to-day work, not employees picking and choosing the tasks and responsibilities assigned to them.

Examples of how job control or autonomy may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Limited opportunity to participate in decision-making
• Lack of control over workload
• Low levels of influence and independence. This includes not being able to influence the speed, order or schedule of work tasks and workload
• Having to consistently pause assigned tasks to receive instruction or direction from their direct supervisor
• Not knowing what decisions they’re allowed to make on their own and where they need to ask their direct supervisor
  

Suggested actions for job control or autonomy 

The level of work demands placed on an employee should be balanced with a reasonable amount  of control and autonomy over how they get their work done. When demands are high, consider whether employees have enough flexibility, influence and control to help manage stress. 

Explore ways to offer more options while maintaining productivity, by using Putting involvement and influence on the agenda to support team discussions. A more supportive and collaborative performance management process can also help employees have greater control of how they achieve success in their job tasks. 

To determine the appropriate level of flexibility, control and autonomy with the employee, you can ask the employee these 3 questions:

• What do you need to manage your work demands?
• What will you commit to that will help you successfully manage your work demands and well-being?
• How and when will we follow up on this?

Job demands

Similar to how physical job demands can be hazardous if they exceed the employee’s ability, psychosocial job demands can be hazardous if they exceed the employee’s capacity and available resources.

Examples of how job demands may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Underuse of skills
• Continual exposure or interaction with the public. This includes the community members, customers, students, and patients
• Having too much to do within a certain time or with a limited number of employees
• Conflicting demands and deadlines
• Unrealistic expectations of an employee’s competence or responsibilities
• Lack of task variety or performing highly repetitive tasks
• Meaningless work
• Requirements for excessive periods of alertness and concentration
• Working with aggressive or distressed people
• Exposure to events or situations that can cause trauma
  

Suggested actions for job demands

Job demands can be a risk to employee psychological safety in a variety of ways. It may be that it’s an issue of workload management, a lack of psychological or social support or insufficient psychological protection. 

Organizations can address job demands by reviewing workloads, staffing levels, and deadlines and adjusting them where demands are consistently high. They can also prioritize work to reduce conflicting deadlines and clarify what must be completed first. Offering training, increased variety or opportunities, and providing additional breaks, job rotation, or recovery time may also be beneficial depending on the job.

Sector-specific strategies for psychological health and safety describes the unique psychosocial risks and approaches for first responders, educators, call centres and more. Strategies are also provided for human services, technology, shift work, and dangerous or remote work.

For more actions, see Evidence-based actions for competencies and demands. 

Job security and precarious work

Uncertainty is a recognized driver of stress. Work environments without job security like gig, casual or temporary work can lack psychological safety. Employees in these types of precarious jobs may not speak up about concerns or ideas at work. Job insecurity can also cause employees to experience fear, stress, and uncertainty. 

Examples of how job security and precarious work may be a psychosocial hazard include: 

• Uncertainty regarding work availability, including work without set hours
• Possibility of redundancy or temporary loss of work with reduced pay
• Low-paid or insecure employment, including non-standard employment or gig work
• Working in situations that aren’t adequately covered or protected by employment standards, workers compensation, employment insurance, job protected leave and other protections
  

Suggested actions for job security and precarious work

Where possible, organizations can meet or exceed employment standards, including pay, hours of work and notice requirements. They can also ensure that employees are paid a living wage and have predictable and adequate hours of work. 

Where this isn’t possible, organizations can offer flexibility to allow employees to work more than one job. You might provide training or job shadowing, so they have more experience when seeking full-time work, and support career development through resume support, references or career counselling. 

Helping employees to manage change offers strategies to help address job insecurity as well as guidance for psychologically safe job terminations. 

Leadership

Leadership sets the tone for how work is done in the organization. When employees perceive leadership and supervision to be supportive, fair, and just, there is trust and safety within the team. When leadership is not supportive, it can create conflict, worry, and frustration within teams.

Examples of how leadership may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Lack of clear vision and objectives
• Management style unsuited to the nature of the work and its demands
• Discrediting employees’ concerns, not prioritizing or not acting to resolve complaints and suggestions
• Withholding information
• Providing inadequate communication and support
• Lack of accountability
• Lack of fairness
• Inconsistent and poor decision-making practices
• Abuse or misuse of power
  

Suggested actions for leadership

To help address leadership-related psychosocial risks, an organization can make sure leaders have the information and resources they need to make informed decisions.

At the leader level, they should clearly define and communicate goals, priorities, and expectations. They can also encourage meaningful two-way communication and act on employee feedback while applying policies and decisions fairly and consistently.

There are many resources that can help including the Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment, Building trust for leaders, Psychologically Safe Teams Assessment, Emotional intelligence self-assessment. You can also lead a discussion for Putting clear leadership and expectations on the agenda.

Organizational change management

Times of change can be stressful for many employees. How change is managed can make a difference. When not handled properly, change can create confusion, fear, and worry. This can lead to employees being distracted, overwhelmed, and frustrated.

Examples of how organizational change management may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Lack of practical support provided to assist employees during transition periods
• Prolonged or recurring restructuring
• Lack of consultation and communication about changes at work
• Consultation and communication that is of poor quality, untimely or not meaningful
  

Suggested actions for organizational change management 

Implement a change management process that includes a psychosocial risk assessment and clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and steps to support employees through change and reduce uncertainty.

Organizations can communicate changes early, clearly, and consistently and consult employees for their input where possible. Providing practical supports during transition periods, such as training or workload adjustments, may also be considered.

Helping employees to manage change has many ideas and strategies to lead employees through times of change. This resource is helpful even when the changes are outside of your control.

Leaders and employees can benefit from Coping with change. Explore how you can navigate change in ways that help you accept and adapt to changes that are outside your control.

Organizational and workgroup culture

Hazards related to workplace culture show up at the organizational level as well as the workgroup level.

Examples of how organizational and workgroup culture may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Poor communication
• Low levels of support for problem-solving and personal development
• Lack of definition of, or agreement on, organizational objectives
• Inconsistent and untimely application of policies and procedures, or unfair decision-making

Suggested actions for organizational and workgroup culture

Supporting a healthy organizational and workgroup culture may include clearly defining and communicating organizational values, goals, and expectations. 

It can also include encouraging respectful, open, two-way communication at all levels and assessing current leadership and potential candidates on their communication skills. 

Organizations can ensure policies and procedures are applied consistently, fairly, and in a timely manner while supporting team-based problem solving and continuous improvement.

Organizations can provide questions to ask leaders about the type of organizational culture they have now, and what they would like it to be. Putting organizational culture on the agenda helps teams decide what type of organizational culture they want. They’ll also reflect on what they are willing to do to contribute to it. 

For more actions, see Evidence-based actions for organizational culture. 

Recognition and reward

Hazards related to recognition and reward affect how employees feel about the effort they give. It affects engagement and organizational and team culture, and can impact how employees feel they’re treated in the workplace.

Examples of how recognition and reward may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Imbalance between employees’ effort and formal and informal recognition and reward
• Lack of appropriate acknowledgement and appreciation of employees’ efforts in a fair and timely manner
• Lack of clear and equitable pay or promotion opportunities 

Suggested actions for recognition and reward

Organizations and leadership can identify what types of recognition are meaningful and motivating for employees. Recognition for both day-to-day efforts and significant contributions should be provided in a timely manner and applied consistently and fairly across teams. Consider balancing informal appreciation with formal recognition programs where appropriate.

Understanding the type of recognition that actually motivates employees can help guide the leader’s efforts. Putting recognition and reward on the agenda has forms to gather recognition preferences to help guide this conversation. Evidence-based actions for recognition and reward provides ideas to share with the team.

Remote and isolated work

Employers in Canada are legally responsible for protecting employees who are remote, working alone, or in isolated conditions, but the exact requirement to have a written policy depends on the jurisdiction and the specific risk involved.  In the context of psychosocial hazards, the concern is not limited to ability to contact someone in an emergency because loneliness is also a known driver of stress. 

When identifying hazards and evaluating controls, it’s important to understand the distinctions.

Remote work or telework policies often deal with ergonomic, communication, and workplace injury issues for employees working from home or off-site. These are increasingly expected as part of a comprehensive occupational health and safety program.

There should also be programs to specifically address situations where an employee may be unable to summon immediate help, such as field workers, late-shift staff, or remote locations. These programs almost always must be written where the situation exists.

Examples of how remote and isolated work may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Working in locations that are far from loved ones and usual support networks. This scenario can include isolated work, working far from an established community, or “fly-in-fly-out” work arrangements.
• Working alone in non-remote locations without social or human interaction at work. This scenario can include working at home, underwater or underground for extended periods.
• Working in private homes, including providing care or services in other people’s homes.

Suggested actions for remote and isolated work

One of the risks of isolated or remote work is employees feeling disconnected and alone while working. Hybrid teams has several suggestions for addressing these risks. Mentoring is one of those suggestions and a free toolkit is available to support this approach. 

For employees who work alone, consider their unique need to support their physical and psychological health and safety on the job. Occupational health and safety laws may have additional requirements to provide support and emergency assistance to lone, isolated or remote employees. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has resources that provide guidance to assist when employees are working alone.

If any of your team works remotely, or is feeling lonely or socially isolated at work, provide more opportunities for social interaction at work. Team building activities or the On the agenda workshop series can support team discussions about creating a more connective and supportive work environment.

Sector-specific strategies for psychological health and safety includes strategies for remote and isolated employees.

Roles and expectations

Clarity helps people understand the parameters of their job and tasks as well as who to go to for answers to questions. Similar to providing instructions, information and supervision to protect employees from physical hazards, clarity is needed to protect employees from psychosocial hazards related to unclear roles and expectations.

Examples of how roles and expectations may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Role ambiguity
• Role conflict
• Duty of care for other people
• Scenarios where employees don’t have clear guidelines on the tasks they are expected to do or not do
• Expectations within a role that undermine other objectives, such as being expected to provide good customer service while not being allowed to spend a long time with customers
• Uncertainty about, or frequent changes to, tasks and work standards
• Performing work of little value or purpose

Suggested actions for roles and expectations 

Organizations can have clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and boundaries, including what is in scope and out of scope for a position. Leaders can review workloads and expectations to ensure they are realistic and aligned with available time, resources, and authority. 

To help employees understand the value of what they do, leaders can make sure work has a clear purpose and connection to organizational objectives.

Putting clear leadership and expectations on the agenda helps to guide conversations about what employees need to do their job well. Performance management can help supervisors or leaders work with individuals on their specific role and expectations, and Supporting employee success can help develop an accommodation or work plan when psychological, emotional, cognitive or physical challenges may be impacting an employee. There are many additional ideas in Evidence-based actions for clear leadership and expectations.

Supervision

Evaluating supervision is about how supervision is provided, not about the specific person. Where hazards related to supervision exist, the organization should take action. Improving supervision is critical, not only to prevent harm to employees from related hazards, but to protect supervisors who have legal duties for the protection of employee health and safety.

Examples of how supervision may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Lack of constructive performance feedback and evaluation processes
• Lack of encouragement and acknowledgement
• Lack of communication
• Lack of shared organizational vision and clear objectives
• Lack of support or resources to facilitate improvements in performance
• Lack of fairness
• Misuse of digital surveillance

Suggested actions for supervision

Organizations can provide supervisors with the skills and tools to give clear, constructive, and regular feedback while ensuring they understand and communicate organizational goals, priorities, and expectations. 

Supervisors can recognize effort and progress, not just outcomes, but should also be supported to address performance issues in a fair, respectful, and consistent manner. 

Monitoring and digital tools should be used transparently and for work-related purposes.

There are many resources that can help including the Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment, Building trust for leaders, Psychologically Safe Team Assessment, Performance management, Emotional intelligence self-assessment, Strengthening leadership skills or the workshop materials of Putting clear leadership and expectations on the agenda.

Support

Hazards related to support affect the potential for individuals and teams to succeed at work, including in times of stress or illness. 

Examples of how support may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Lack of support from supervisors and co-workers
• Lack of access to support services
• Lack of information and training to support work performance
  

Suggested actions for support

Organizations can make sure employees know what support is available and how to access it. They can also provide supervisors and teams with the skills and time to offer practical support, training, and information to help employees.

Putting psychological and social support on the agenda helps teams identify what types of support would be most helpful at work, and where gaps may exist.

A tool to support employee success is a collaborative process for the employee and employer to develop solutions that support productivity and well-being. Supporting Employee Success is for any employee, including those needing accommodation.

Evidence-based actions for psychological and social support has additional ideas you can explore with your employees.

Work environment, equipment and hazardous tasks

The physical work environment can be a psychosocial hazard when unsafe equipment, hazardous tasks, or poorly designed workspaces create ongoing fear, uncertainty, or a sense of lack of control for employees. Over time, this can increase stress, reduce trust in the employer’s commitment to safety, and contribute to psychological harm.

Examples of how the work environment, equipment and hazardous tasks may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Inadequate equipment availability, suitability, reliability, maintenance or repair
• Poor working conditions such as a lack of space, poor lighting, poor air quality and excessive noise
• Lack of the necessary tools, equipment or other resources to complete work tasks safely
• Working in extreme conditions or situations, such as very high or low temperatures, or extreme heights or depths
• Working in unstable environments such as conflict zones
  

Suggested actions for work environment, equipment and hazardous tasks

An unsafe work environment or inadequate equipment, including personal protective equipment, is not only a psychosocial hazard, it may also be an occupational health and safety concern that must be addressed.

Employers are responsible for providing a work environment that is safe, maintaining equipment in good working order, and ensuring hazardous tasks and exposures are identified and controlled.

Organizations should have processes in place for conducting risk assessments on hazardous tasks and all employees must have the appropriate training, equipment, information, and supervision to do the task safely. There should also be preventive maintenance programs in place to repair and replace equipment in a timely manner.

Employees should be able to report safety concerns or refuse unsafe work without fear of reprisal. Establishing clear procedures for reporting unsafe work, hazards, or equipment concerns may help.  

If the team is unsure why employees’ responses indicate that there is a risk, it is important to explore the issue by asking the employee directly. Have a team discussion about physical safety using Putting protection of physical safety on the agenda. This discussion helps employees identify the issues, but be sure to address any concerns that are occupational health and safety violations promptly. 

Work and life balance

Work and life balance affects employees’ energy and focus, both at work and outside of work. A lack of balance can have a significant impact on physical, emotional and psychological health.

Examples of how work and life balance may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Work tasks, roles, schedules or expectations that cause employees to continue working on their own time
• Conflicting demands of work and home
• Work that impacts the employees’ ability to recover
  

Suggested actions for work and life balance

Organizations can set clear expectations about working hours, availability, and response times. There are also increasing requirements for the right to disconnect from work, and some provinces have adopted this into legislation. Organizations can also support flexibility where possible, such as flexible hours or alternative work arrangements.

Leaders can review workloads and schedules to ensure they are realistic and allow for recovery time while encouraging regular breaks, time away from work, and the use of vacation time. Leaders should model these healthy work-life balance behaviours.

There are many tips for work and life balance available to share with your employees. Share healthy break activities to stay balanced while at work. Have a team discussion about Putting balance on the agenda to come up with ideas and strategies unique to your work environment.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has resources on Disconnecting from Work. 

Evidence-based actions for balance has additional ideas you may want to explore with your employees.

Working hours and schedule

Hazards related to working hours and schedule can affect employees’ energy and focus, at work and outside of work. These hazards are closely related to job demands, workload and work pace, support, and work and life balance.

Examples of how working hours and schedule may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Lack of variety of work
• Shift work
• Inflexible work schedules
• Unpredictable hours
• Long or unsociable hours
• Fragmented work
• Work that isn’t meaningful
• Continual requirements to complete work at short notice
  

Suggested actions for working hours and schedule

There are many ways to improve the experience of your employees who are required to meet scheduling requirements. Where possible, engage employees in discussions about scheduling challenges and solutions specific to the work environment. For example, sharing the operational requirements, coverage needs and constraints and working together to identify options that better support employees while maintaining service needs. 

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety provides information on the health effects of shiftwork and guidance on flexible work arrangements that can support both employees and organizational success.

For ways to reduce stress related to working hours and schedule, review the ideas and suggestions in Sector-specific strategies and evidence-based actions for balance or workload management. 

One of the benefits of addressing the issue of work hours and schedule is the prevention of employee turnover and burnout. See Burnout response for leaders which offers information on how to take proactive steps.

Workload and work pace

Hazards related to workload and work pace may contribute to errors, omissions, lapses in judgment and incidents. These are often in relation to distraction or fatigue.

Examples of how workload and work pace may be a psychosocial hazard include:

• Work overload or underload
• High levels of time pressure
• Continually being subject to tight deadlines
• Machine pacing
• High level of repetitive work
  

Suggested actions for workload and work pace

An effective way to address workload and work pace stress is to have a conversation with the affected employees. Putting workload management on the agenda provides a framework to help identify stressors, competing priorities and practical options for redistributing or adjusting work.

Addressing workload and work pace can also support retention and prevent burnout. Burnout response for leaders offers information on proactive steps leaders can take to recognize workload-related warning signs and respond early.

Share this page with a leader or human resources personnel who is working to reduce the impact of psychosocial hazards at work.