200 Workplaces, 80 Notices: What NSW's Psychosocial Blitz Says About Your Risk Register

SafeWork NSW received 3,145 psychosocial requests for service in 2025-26. That is 20.5% of every request the regulator received, up from 10% in 2021-22. In the same period it ran its largest psychosocial blitz to date, covering more than 200 workplaces and issuing more than 80 improvement notices. On 22 September it responded by launching a Psychosocial Advisory Service with the Black Dog Institute, giving workers and employers access to trauma-trained advisors on bullying, harassment, work-related stress and mental harm.

Doubling in four years is not a blip. It tells me psychosocial risk has moved from the edge of the regulator's work to the middle of it. National Safe Work Month is a good moment to ask whether your own risk management has moved with it.

What 80 Notices From 200 Workplaces Suggests

Roughly two in every five workplaces visited in that blitz walked away with at least one improvement notice. I don't read that as 80 businesses that didn't care. I read it as 80 businesses that probably believed they had psychosocial risk covered because they had a policy, an EAP number on the wall or a wellbeing week on the calendar.

The Managing psychosocial hazards at work code has applied in NSW since 1 July 2026. Inspectors now work from a structured checklist. That changes the question from "do you care about mental health?" to "show me how you identified the hazards, what controls you chose and how you know they are working."

Ask Yourself Before an Inspector Does

• Have you identified psychosocial hazards the same way you identify physical ones, by looking at how work is designed? Or only by waiting for complaints?
• Can you name the specific hazards in your workplace? High job demands, poor role clarity, remote work, exposure to aggression, low recognition?
• For each one, is there a control that changes the work itself, not just a referral to counselling after harm has happened?
• Do your workers know where to raise a concern safely? Do they trust that raising it will not count against them?
• When did you last review whether any of those controls actually reduced the risk?

Book the Session That Shows You the Checklist

Safe Work Month is full of events this October and most are worth an hour. If I had to pick one, it would be Comcare's free webinar on 22 October presenting findings from its Psychosocial Inspection Program. It is rare to hear a regulator explain what it actually looked for when it inspected psychosocial risk and where businesses fell short. NT WorkSafe has a session on mental wellbeing and psychosocial hazards on 7 October. SafeWork SA says an online psychosocial hazards course is on the way.

None of these replace doing the work. They do give you a preview of the questions you will be asked.

One Thing to Do This Week

Take your current risk register and count how many entries relate to psychosocial hazards. Then count how many of those have a control that changes the design of the work rather than supporting someone after harm. If the second number is close to zero, you are in the same position as many of those 80 businesses.

If an inspector asked you to show the psychosocial controls in your workplace, would you be pointing at the work itself or at a poster?