Overview
This course equips leaders, HR and HSEQ professionals to identify and control psychosocial risks created or intensified by organisational transformation. It focuses on practical ways to manage uncertainty, workload, consultation, role clarity, support and decision-making during restructures, technology rollouts, process redesign, service changes and operating model shifts.
The course is grounded in current WHS expectations. Safe Work Australia identifies poor organisational change management as a psychosocial hazard that can cause psychological and physical harm, including where change is poorly planned, communicated, supported or consulted on. WorkSafe WA guidance reinforces the need for proactive, integrated risk management, consultation and communication when managing psychosocial hazards.
Participants will learn how to build psychosocial risk controls into change planning, implementation and review so transformation is better paced, clearer, more consultative and less likely to create avoidable psychosocial harm.
Course Content
- Psychosocial risks commonly triggered by change: uncertainty, workload, low control, poor support, role ambiguity and
perceived unfairness - How change decisions alter work design, reporting lines, capability demands, consultation needs and team functioning
- Identifying and assessing psychosocial risks before, during and after organisational transformation
- Designing controls for communication, consultation, workload pacing, role clarity, support and escalation
- Leader, HR and HSEQ responsibilities for change governance, monitoring and review
- Using indicators, feedback loops and lessons learned to adapt psychosocial risk controls as change unfolds
Course Outcomes
By the end of this course attendees should be able to:
- Recognise poor organisational change management as a psychosocial hazard
- Identify change-related risks linked to uncertainty, workload, control, consultation, support and role clarity
- Assess how transformation may create, combine or increase psychosocial risks across teams
- Select practical controls that reduce harm while supporting effective change delivery
- Clarify leader, HR and HSEQ roles in planning, consultation, escalation and assurance
- Monitor change impacts and adjust controls using worker feedback, indicators and review points
Benefits to the Individual
- Confidence to spot psychosocial risk before organisational change impacts escalate
- Practical tools for asking better questions about workload, clarity, support and consultation
- Clearer understanding of your role in preventing psychosocial harm during organisational transformation
- More constructive conversations with leaders, project teams and affected workers
Benefits to the Organisation
- Stronger integration of psychosocial risk management into transformation planning
- Clearer accountability for consultation, communication, workload and role-related psychosocial risk controls
- Earlier identification and escalation of change-related psychosocial risk signals
- Reduced likelihood of avoidable psychosocial harm, disruption and loss of trust during organisational change
- Better evidence for governance, assurance and continuous improvement of change practices
