NSW Psychosocial Study

What evidence can NSW organisations actually produce that a psychosocial control was applied?

Not whether they assess psychosocial risk. Not whether they train managers. Whether, if asked, they could show that something was done, by whom, and that it was reviewed.

Two things changed this year.

Codes of practice became legally enforceable in New South Wales on 1 July 2026. Approved codes are no longer guidance. An organisation must either follow the applicable code or demonstrate a standard that equals or exceeds it.

People at Work is closing. It was the free, regulator-backed psychosocial risk assessment tool used by around 5,000 Australian organisations. New registrations closed on 1 June 2026, no new surveys could be launched after 1 July, and the platform shuts down on 2 October 2026, after which organisational data becomes unrecoverable.

The standard went up. The tool most organisations were leaning on went away. What happens next has not been documented, which is why this study exists.

NSW organisations of roughly 100 to 5,000 employees, across sectors.

Respondents are people with accountability for psychosocial risk: WHS, HSE and safety roles, HR and people and culture, risk and compliance, and operational managers who carry it without a formal safety title.

Participants are reached through direct outreach to a list built from public and commercial business data, through professional networks on LinkedIn, and through partner distribution where a partner is involved. Participation is voluntary and unpaid.

Survey. Nine core questions plus two optional, online, about three minutes. Self-report. Covers how psychosocial risk has been assessed, what happened to the findings, what has changed since 1 July, who owns the risk, what evidence could be produced on request, and whether the topic has reached board or executive level.

Interviews. Semi-structured, 15 to 30 minutes, with a subset of respondents who agree to a follow-up. Target 15 interviews. Interviews go where a survey cannot: what actually happened the last time a manager had to handle a difficult psychosocial conversation, and what record exists of it.

Focus groups. Planned for September–October 2026, recruited from survey respondents. Small groups, in order to hear practitioners disagree with each other about who owns this and what counts as evidence. That disagreement is itself a finding.

Stated up front, because they affect how the findings should be read.

This is a self-selecting sample, not a representative one. People who respond to a study about psychosocial risk are likely to be more engaged with the topic than those who do not. The findings describe the organisations that answered, not NSW organisations as a whole.

The survey is self-report, and self-report on this topic runs optimistic. What a respondent believes they could hand a regulator is an upper bound on what they could actually produce. The interviews exist specifically to test that gap, by asking to see the artefact rather than asking about it.

The sample will be small by formal research standards. Response counts will be published with the findings. Any breakdown by size band or sector will be reported with its own N, and cuts too small to be meaningful will be reported as such rather than dressed up.

NSW only. Other states have different timing and different enforcement settings.

Sector coverage is uneven at the start of fieldwork, particularly health and care. Where a sector is thin, that will be stated rather than smoothed over.

Individual responses are not published. Findings are reported in aggregate.

No organisation or individual is named without written permission.

Data is held in Australia. Contact details are used to send the findings and, where the respondent agrees, to arrange a follow-up interview. They are not sold, shared or used for unrelated marketing.

Any respondent can withdraw their response at any point before publication by emailing the address below.

I am the founder of The Wise Call, a company building coaching and evidence software for exactly this problem. I have a commercial interest in the finding that organisations struggle to evidence psychosocial controls.

That is the reason this note is published before fieldwork rather than after it. The question, the population, the instrument and the limitations are on the record now, so the findings can be judged against what was planned rather than what turned out to be convenient.

Three commitments follow from that:

• The survey instrument is available in full on request.
• Findings will be reported as they come, including any that undercut my position. If the data says organisations are handling this well, that is what will be published.
• There is no product content in this study, in the survey, or in the report.

The method will be reviewed by a former regulator or a Chartered OHS professional before findings are published. That reviewer will be named.

Survey closes 16 November 2026. Interviews and focus groups run alongside through November 2026.

Headline findings published openly in October 2026, free, with no registration required.

Respondents receive the fuller results, including breakdowns by size band and sector, ahead of general publication.

If you are a WHS, HSEQ or HR professional, or if you deal with psychosocial hazards in your organisation, we would value your perspective.

Take the survey: NSW Psychosocial Practice – Industry Scan.

Joe Anthony
Ansolabs Pty Ltd, Sydney
joe.anthony@thewisecall.com.au

Questions about the method, requests for the instrument, and withdrawal requests to the same address.