As conversations about psychosocial safety at work become more commonplace, HR practitioners play an important role in supporting managers to help teams delineate between feeling stretched versus feeling unsafe.

Working with a leadership team recently, I explained how common it is for people to conflate unhelpful, uncomfortable and unsafe experiences, even though they may sit at opposite ends of the psychosocial risk spectrum.

One of the leaders bolted upright, eager to share his own experience. He had spoken with a group of high school students who complained that a challenging school assignment was impacting their mental health. The project wasn’t related to any sensitive matters, it was targeted to their year’s skill level, and the class had the right resources and full support of the teacher. 

He recalled feeling confused as to why the students would feel this way. Then he said to me, “I get it now. They are misinterpreting the discomfort they’re feeling due to being stretched beyond their comfort zones as feeling unsafe.”

This is a common trend I’m noticing in workplaces too. As work becomes more complex and external pressures mount, many employees feel stretched in unfamiliar and often uncomfortable directions. The rapid pace of change means they’re expected to quickly adapt to new systems, processes and nuances. 

For HR practitioners and managers, this creates a challenging environment to navigate because the reality is that there are increased complexities and potential psychosocial risks in our modern workplaces. However, these challenges and risks can, and often do, exist independently of each other.

Of course, individual variances, genuine safety risks, mental health conditions and increasingly complex operating environments – to name only a few factors – mean that legitimately unsafe situations need to be of key concern to HR practitioners, managers and leaders.

However, as constructs such as psychological safety become more commonly known, along with our national WHS regulations and associated state-based codes of practice for the management of psychosocial risks in the workplace, an overcorrection is emerging, and HR practitioners play an important role in curbing it.

Identifying real psychosocial risk

All managers and leaders need to know how to discern between genuine instances of psychological risks and situations that might simply constitute stretching employees outside their comfort zone. 

HR practitioners can help equip managers and the broader workforce with examples to correct the overemphasis on the word ‘unsafe’ and make it clear that no work environment is completely free of discomfort, stress or challenge. 

The examples below illustrate some common workplace scenarios that – all other things being equal – could objectively be considered uncomfortable and unhelpful, but not unsafe:

• Someone not agreeing with an idea you have a deep emotional attachment to is uncomfortable. But, assuming that disagreement is delivered reasonably, this would not be considered unsafe.
• Receiving corrective feedback in line with reasonable management action can be uncomfortable, but if leaders have delivered this in line with best-practice principles, it should not be unsafe.
• Having a colleague snipe at you, uncharacteristically because they’ve had a bad morning is unhelpful if you’re trying to build a positive culture, but not necessarily unsafe.

Examples of workplace behaviours that could reasonably be considered unsafe include, but are not limited to: discrimination; harassment; bullying; sexually predatory behaviour; unmanaged, prolonged, severe work stress; hostile personal attacks; gaslighting; making changes that directly and significantly impact someone’s working conditions without consultation; and fear-based work environments that dissuade speaking up about safety risks (physical or psychological).

It’s also important to not let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction and place everything in the ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘unhelpful’ categories. Each situation requires detailed assessment. 

Access free psychosocial risk resources, including a risk assessment template, through AHRI’s member portal. Not an AHRI member? Join here for exclusive benefits.

Stretch, stress or strain?

As we talk more about work-related stress as part of managing psychosocial risks, sometimes a lack of understanding and appreciation for the positive role stress can play in our lives arises.

As HR practitioners know, when conducted appropriately, stretch tasks can be highly beneficial. They can help provide stimulating work for employees, which is an important component of effective work design, and keeps people from stagnating in their comfort zones.  

Moderate levels of stress can be beneficial because stress is often a motivator. It helps us get out of bed and achieve our goals. This form of positive, motivating stress is known as ‘eustress’.

On the flip side, prolonged, unmanaged, severe stress is where we don’t want people to be. This is ‘distress’, and if it’s not managed or supported, it can lead to mental strain or injury. 

We don’t want an absence of stress in the workplace, or in our personal life for that matter, but we do want to ensure stress is successfully managed. This is why proactive identification, assessment and control of psychosocial risks are critical.

Supporting managers

We need to keep the time-poor manager in mind when co-designing solutions to help them clarify the difference between stretch, stress and strain with their teams – especially when we consider the fact that many managers themselves might be sitting in the ‘strain’ bucket.

To make it easier for managers to assess existing or emerging psychosocial risks, arm managers with a template of set questions to help them have consistent and transparent check-ins. Below are my ‘super six’ questions:

1. Celebrate the wins: What has been your greatest accomplishment this month? 
2. Understand their perspective: What is your biggest challenge right now? What steps have you taken to address this challenge? How can I support you to overcome this? 
3. Quality improvement opportunities: What could we do differently to be more effective as a team? 
4. Assess resources: Do you require any resources or equipment to achieve your goals and meet expectations?
5. Manager support: How can I help you be successful in your role? Discuss skills development, support needs, ways of working, items needing escalation and workload management.
6. Identify broader stress factors: How are you (and your team) feeling? Are there any work-related stress factors we need to discuss? Are you clear on the support available for you and your team? 

“All managers and leaders need to know how to discern between genuine instances of psychological risks and situations that might simply constitute stretching employees outside their comfort zone.”

While a list of consistent questions is helpful, make sure this doesn’t turn into a formulaic, tick-and-flick exercise for managers. Introducing coaching questions, such as the ones below, can help to avoid this: 

• What challenges do you anticipate with the project and how can we prepare for them? This sets the expectation that challenges are normal and expected, and that we should prepare for them. 
• How do you prefer to receive feedback, and how can I best support you in reaching your potential? This normalises the role of feedback and shows an openness to help develop others.
• Which aspects of your job drain you? Which aspects energise you? This sets the expectation that there will always be energy drainers, but to maximise engagement and motivation, we should try to balance those with energisers.
• What other options exist? This empowers employees to take an active role in addressing workplace challenges, rather than relying solely on their manager to resolve issues for them.

I also like to remind managers of the three key principles of effective coaching: active listening; holding space for others (e.g. avoid filling the silence with your own opinions or thoughts and instead let the employee’s thoughts, feelings and concerns slowly bubble to the surface); and the avoidance of asking ‘why’ and instead using: ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘tell me more’.

When to seek external support 

When they are dealing with claims of psychologically unsafe situations at work, HR leaders should always partner with IR/HR legal specialists. The complexities around mental health in the workplace, particularly when performance is diminished or individuals aren’t meeting the inherent requirements of their role, can be precarious to navigate technically and morally.  

Over and above those complexities, HR should ensure people leaders are trained in the principles of ‘Reasonable Management Action’ as set out by the Fair Work Commission, which offers legal protections for managers to address performance concerns that may be uncomfortable for an employee to hear. 

HR-facilitated training and resources equip managers and leaders with the confidence to navigate these issues head-on, ensuring they don’t shy away from having tough but critical conversations with their teams when issues arise.

We need to find a way to bring the pendulum back to balance, ensuring fairness and perspective are restored. This means addressing extremes, fostering open dialogue and striving for solutions that reflect both reason and compassion, and benefit all parties involved. 

A shorter version of this article appeared in the February/March 2025 issue of HRM magazine.

Hear more from Tanya Heaney-Voogt on building psychosocial safety by listening to the below episode of AHRI’s podcast, Let’s Take This Offline. Listen below or access via Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts.