Hi Renata – I’m seeking guidance about low staffing levels. Staff are expected to do extra tasks and cover larger areas due to not enough staff on shift. We are also having increasing rates of staff out on sick leave. Do the new Psychological Regulations have any bearing on this issue?
Staffing shortages and increased workload demands in your workplace present not only physical, but also serious psychosocial hazards, specifically high job demands, poor work design and potential fatigue risks.
Under the OHS Act your employer has a duty to:
- provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and without risks to health (s.21)
- ensure that workloads and work systems don't create health and safety risks
- consult with workers about health and safety matters (s.35-36)
High job demands and role overload can occur when staff levels are low - remaining workers then face:
- excessive work intensification - doing more tasks in the same amount of paid time
- extended work areas - covering larger physical areas
- un-documented role expansion - taking on duties beyond normal responsibilities and in addition to your role description
- fatigue risks - physical and mental exhaustion from overwork
When multiple staff call in sick, this creates additional risks of acute workload spikes for the remaining staff, pressure to work while unwell (presenteeism), compromised safety due to rushing or cutting corners, and increased stress and burnout risk.
Signs that these hazards are impacting staff can include staff regularly working through breaks, multiple workers reporting stress/burnout, increased errors or near-misses, high sick leave/turnover rates, workers crying or showing distress.
Under the new Psychological Regulations your employer has specific legal duties to:
- Regulation 14 - Identify Psychosocial Hazards
- Regulation 15 - Control the Risk. Conduct a risk assessment. Employers must eliminate psychosocial risks where reasonably practicable. If elimination isn't possible, they must reduce risks by altering:
- management of work – e.g. how tasks are allocated when short-staffed
- systems of work – e.g. contingency plans for sick leave
- work design – e.g. ensuring sustainable workloads
- workplace environment - adequate resources and support
- training alone is unlikely to be considered sufficient – your employer can't just tell you to "manage stress better".
- Regulation 16 - Review Control Measures – when a psychological injury occurs, when an incident involves a psychosocial hazard, when an HSR requests a review, and when changes to work systems occur.
Consult with your DWG members to gather information about how these hazards are affecting them. Ensure that all identified hazards are documented using your workplace’s hazard/incident reporting system. You and your colleagues can also keep a record of:
- hours worked and overtime
- additional tasks/areas you're covering
- any incidents or near-misses
- health impacts you're experiencing
Your employer must, so far as is reasonably practicably, plan for contingencies with systems to manage predictable staff shortages and monitor workloads by regularly assessing if work demands are sustainable. A key part of designing safe work is providing adequate resources to ensure sufficient staffing for safe operations. Your employer cannot ignore the hazard because "it's just busy", rely solely on resilience training, blame workers for not coping, or wait for injuries to occur before acting to control these hazards.
To reduce the risk presented by these hazards your employer could implement short and long term controls such as:
- Short term – review task priorities during shortage, review staffing levels to ensure adequate coverage, use agency or relief staff during shortages, redistribute workloads equitably among available staff, provide additional breaks during high-demand periods, monitor actual hours worked and fatigue levels, implement fatigue management systems, consult with workers about sustainable solutions.
- Long term - maintain adequate baseline staffing levels, develop minimum safe staffing policies with automatic triggers for additional support, create on-call or relief pools, review and address causes of high sick leave, implement workload monitoring systems.
Work with other HSRs in your workplace to collectively raise these concerns with your employer and seek union support for help in advocating for safe staffing levels. Contact WorkSafe if your employer doesn't consult with you or fails to address the identified risks.
An important point on "Reasonably Practicable" - while employers may claim staff shortages make controls impractical, they must demonstrate that they have explored all reasonable options. Cost alone is not sufficient reason to maintain unsafe workloads.
If your employer fails to consult, fails to control the hazards or chooses controls that are inappropriate/ineffective you can use your HSR powers to:
- Issue a PIN for breach of Regulation 14 or 15
- Request review of the controls under Regulation 16
- Issue a direction to cease work if there is an immediate psychological or physical injury risk
You can find more information about how to identify and manage psychosocial hazards at WorkSafe’s Compliance Code: Psychological Health and our Psychosocial Health - OHS Reps page.
If you have any questions about OHS we encourage to fill out an Ask Renata query and one of our officials will get back to you shortly. Alternatively give Ask Renatabot a try!