Cultural blind spots: Identifying hidden psychosocial hazards in the workplace

Abstract

AbstractIssue AddressedThis article presents a framework to identify hidden psychosocial hazards and emerging mental health risks in the workplace, thereby assisting Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking. The framework adds value to the processes outlined in SafeWork NSW's Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards At Work. Specifically, the article documents a framework to analyse microcultures and back stage sites of enactment where psychosocial hazards and risks may be hidden or obscured in workplace settings.BackgroundThe article's framework aims to bring to the surface both the intra and interpersonal tensions employees experience in the social reality they inhabit while they perform their work, thereby positively contributing to organisations and PCBUs by helping them create healthy workplace cultures and psychological safety.MethodsSpecifically, the article discusses partnering with an organisational ethnographer when a PCBU embarks upon psychosocial investigations to: gain access, select employee participants, start conversations, establish rapport, build trust, collect and analyse data.ConclusionThis article theoretically contributes to health promotion literatures by offering organisations a complementary way of extracting deeper insights and understandings of psychosocial hazards and emerging mental health risks which are not apparent with traditional methods of inquiry.