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The Australian WHS Survey (the Survey) is an initiative from the Centre for Work Health and Safety (the Centre). It is the first of its kind in Australia and provides a platform for workers from across the nation to share their first-hand experiences of Work Health and Safety (WHS).

The Survey helps characterising the current state of WHS in Australia in three aspects. It provides:

• the WHS profile of Australian workers, e.g., their exposure to physical and psychosocial hazards, including harassment, their awareness of WHS rights and responsibilities, and their feelings of empowerment to participate in, and influence, health and safety at work;
• the WHS profile of Australian workplaces through respondents’ perceptions of their workplace’s existing WHS policies and systems, demonstrated WHS commitment and practices, and views about the barriers and potential enablers to improve WHS in their workplaces;
• the new or emerging WHS issues observed or experienced by the respondents and their suggestions for potential harm prevention measures.

This information is critical in assisting Australian businesses, WHS regulators and affiliated bodies to prevent workers from being harmed in the workplace. The Survey will be open for response every six months. This 2023 Spring Edition provides insights based on data collected in August 2023, and insights based on comparisons made with data collected for the 2023 Autumn Edition.

The following findings are of particular importance.

Higher exposure to hazards associated with MSD, lower exposure to psychosocial hazards and harassment.

A total of 1,493 participants completed the survey between 1^st and 31^st August 2023, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2023 Autumn Edition.

While the survey is not representative of the Australian workforce, when compared to the 2023 Autumn Edition, results showed a higher prevalence of workers’ exposure to hazards associated with Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD) and a lower prevalence of exposure to harassment and psychosocial hazards. Over 81% of participants were indeed exposed to at least one form of MSD-related hazards on a daily or weekly basis, an increase of approximately 20% compared to the Autumn edition six months ago.

In contrast, while more than half of participants (769 or 51.5%) reported having experienced bullying and/or harassment at work at least once since employment, results showed a systematically lower prevalence of exposure to nearly all forms of harassment in comparison to six months ago. This included exposure to verbal harassment (53.3% vs 63.5% in Autumn), sexual (17.2% vs. 24.7%, respectively), physical (11.2% vs. 20.0%, respectively) and discrimination (23.8% vs. 25.8% respectively).

Participants also reported lower prevalence of exposure to psychosocial hazards: high job demand (23.1% vs. 28.4% in Autumn), low job control (22.0% vs. 27.2%), low job security (22.8% vs. 30.7%), and low effort-reward fairness (21.3% vs. 35.1%). As a result, a lower proportion of participants was found to be ‘at risk’ of psychosocial harm (7.5% vs. 16.3%).

While the prevalence of exposure to psychosocial hazards decreased, the prevalence of burnout remains at a high level with two out of three participants feeling burnout (63.4%), similar to the Autumn’s proportion.

Little action taken after the occurrence of sexual harassment

Female workers, young workers, and those working in small/micro businesses were the groups found most likely to experience sexual harassment. This is consistent with findings from the previous edition and other older reports (the National inquiry into sexual harassment in Australian workplaces in 2020).

Results showed that nearly 4 out of 10 victims of sexual harassment would systematically report the incident, while 2 out of 10 would never do so. The greatest reason for not reporting sexual harassment was fear: fear of not being taken seriously, fear of the potential negative impact on the relationships at work, or on the career more generally.

Interestingly, while 1 out of 2 victims of sexual harassment wishes incidents would lead to changes in existing policies, only 1 out of 20 (of those who actually reported the incident) witnessed real changes in existing policies, and 4 out of 10 witnessed no changes of any kind.

Greater confidence in workplaces’ WHS systems and commitment – lack of time and resources still the greatest barrier to good WHS

Participants felt more confident about the WHS systems and practices in place in their workplace, and about their workplace’s commitment to WHS, in comparison to the previous edition.

The most common barriers to good WHS were similar to those reported in Autumn: the lack of time or resources came first (45%), followed by the de-prioritisation of WHS over other business priorities (38%) and the cost implications of setting up good WHS (31%). These 3 top barriers were consistent across sectors and business sizes.

Training and education (48%), strong leadership and commitment (45%), and active risk assessment and management (42%) were also consistently selected across sectors and business sizes as the top three enablers of good WHS. Workers of the Health care sector were an exception as they preferred communication and consultation as the top enabler of good WHS for their sector.

Finally, WHS being more valued by workers, the potential impact of WHS on the reputation of the business, and the thoughts of someone getting seriously hurt, were found as the top drivers of good WHS overall. WHS being more financially rewarding, and simpler to understand were the top drivers for workers in Agriculture.

Workers working from home only (WFH), working from the office/multiple work site(s) and those in hybrid arrangements experience different WHS realities.

Two out of three participants reported working from the office/multiple work site(s), which is an increase compared to the 58.8% found in the Autumn Edition, six months ago. In contrast, only 3.7% of participants reported working from home only (WFH), which is a decrease compared to the 4.6% of the last edition. There was also a decrease in the proportion of participants worked in a hybrid way, that is flexibly, 28.0% compared to the 32.9% of the previous edition. All together, these results could indicate that workers have initiated their return to the office.

While workers from the office/multiple work site(s) were the ones most likely to experience verbal harassment, workers WFH were found significantly more likely to experience physical abuse/harassment than workers from the office/multiple work site(s) or those working in hybrid arrangements. They also expressed lower level of WHS awareness than workers from the office/multiple work site(s), and felt less confident about their workplace’s WHS system than those working in hybrid arrangements. These results support well documented concerns for this group of workers due to the challenge in setting the boundaries between work and personal life, and higher risk of domestic violence as well as higher prevalence of alcohol consumption than other work arrangements (from the office/multiple work site(s), or hybrid).

Another call for prioritisation of WHS for Health care workers

The largest cohort of participants came from the Health care sector. Similar to our findings in Autumn, this sector was among the top 3 showing the highest prevalence of exposure to harassments (particularly verbal, psychological and discrimination), and to nearly all major psychosocial job quality hazards (including high job demand, low job control and low effort-reward fairness). While the sector showed the second highest level of WHS awareness (rank second behind the Construction sector), it came fifth (i.e. before last, among the six sectors being compared) in terms of WHS empowerment. In a similar vein, Health care workers were the least appreciative of their workplace’s WHS system and commitment to good WHS, ranking sixth and last in our comparison.

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