Psycho-social Hazards

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• ➤ Define psycho-social hazard and its effects on the health and safety of workers.
• ➤ Explain the causes and consequences of stress and fatigue in the workplace.
• ➤ Discuss the factors related to workplace violence and the effectiveness of prevention programs.
• ➤ Explain the root causes of bullying and how to properly manage bullying and harassment.
• ➤ Identify the hazards associated with working alone and discuss strategies for controlling them.

Meredith Boucher began working for Wal-Mart in 1999. She was well regarded and received a number of promotions over the years. In 2008, she was made a Lead Assistant Manager in a Windsor, Ontario, store. Initially, her relationship with the Store Manager, Jason Pinnock, was positive and her performance appraisals were glowing. Then, in May 2009, Pinnock asked Boucher to falsify a log recording temperature in meat and dairy coolers. Boucher refused. Pinnock, who was worried the incomplete logs would negatively affect the store’s ratings in an upcoming inspection, subjected Boucher to a disciplinary meeting.

Concerned about this unfair reprisal, Boucher approached a superior to express her concerns. When Pinnock learned of the complaint, “he subjected her to an unrelenting and increasing torrent of abuse. He regularly used profane language when he spoke to her. He belittled her. He demeaned her in front of other employees. He even called in other employees so he had an audience when he berated her and showed his disdain for her.”1 Boucher complained of Pinnock’s escalating harassment to senior management. Their investigation found her complaint was “unsubstantiated” and they threatened her with discipline for making the complaint.

Pinnock’s behaviour and Wal-Mart’s lack of response negatively affected Boucher’s health. “She said that she was stressed out. She could not eat or sleep. She had abdominal pain, constipation, and bloating. She lost weight and began vomiting blood. Co-workers testified that Boucher went from a fun-loving, lively, positive leader to a defeated and broken person.”2 On November 18, 2009, Pinnock once again berated Boucher over ten skids of product that were not unloaded. He “grabbed Boucher by the elbow in front of a group of co-workers. He told her to prove to him that she could count to ten.”3 Boucher was so humiliated that she ran out of the store. She never returned to work. Boucher sued for unfair dismissal. At appeal, she was awarded $300,000 in damages against Wal-Mart and $110,000 against Pinnock. After her departure from the store, Boucher’s health gradually improved.

Workplace harassment—often perpetrated by supervisors on subordinates—is a pervasive issue in workplaces. Wal-Mart’s unwillingness to protect Boucher when she complained is also not uncommon. Interestingly, the hazard posed by harassment and the injury it caused to Boucher were only recognized when she sued her employer, a process entirely separate from Ontario’s OHS and workers’ compensation systems. The case demonstrates both that workplace harassment has real health consequences and that employers are often reluctant to recognize psycho-social hazards as legitimate health and safety concerns.

Psycho-social hazards are the social and psychological factors that negatively affect worker health and safety. Psycho-social hazards can be hard to isolate in the workplace because they reside in the dynamics of human interactions and within the internal world of an individual’s psyche. Yet it is increasingly recognized that social and psychological aspects of work have real and measurable effects on workers’ health. Harassment, bullying, incivility, and violence are examples of psycho-social hazards. Other forms include stress, fatigue, and overwork. Even the absence of social interaction, in the form of working alone, produces its own hazards. Much of the challenge is recognizing that these hazards pose real threats to workers’ health. This chapter examines the types of psycho-social hazards and discusses their impact on health and safety.

We all experience stress at some point in our lives. Stress is a change in our physical and mental state in response to situations we perceive as challenging or threatening. Situations causing stress are known as stressors. Stress can have a positive effect, making us more alert or more prepared to take on an important challenge. Stress can also have a negative effect, causing a range of physical and mental ailments. There are four types of stressors:

• Acute stressors are time-specific events of high intensity and short duration that occur infrequently, such as a performance review, a car accident, or unexpected encounter.
• Episodic (or daily) stressors may be similar to acute stressors but occur more frequently, have a longer duration, and may be of lower intensity. Making repeated requests of a worker to work overtime is an example of an episodic stressor.
• Chronic stressors are stressors that persist over a sustained period of time, and include job insecurity, work overload, or lack of control.
• Catastrophic stressors are a subset of acute stressors but differ in their intensity, threatening life, safety, or property. Robbery and physical assault are examples of catastrophic stressors.

Stress can arise from all aspects of our lives, including our work. Workplace stress is stress that is brought on by work-related stressors. According to Statistics Canada, work is the primary source of stress in Canadians’ lives, with slightly over 21% of all employed individuals reporting high or very high work-related stress.4 The most frequently identified workplace stressors are heavy workloads and challenges in achieving a balance between work and personal life. Work-related stress is also more common for people in health-care and social assistance jobs. Researchers typically identify five factors contributing to workplace stress:

1. characteristics of the job being performed, such as workload, pace, autonomy, and physical working conditions,
2. a worker’s level of responsibility in the workplace, including the clarity of their role,
3. job (in)security, promotion, and career development opportunities,
4. problematic interpersonal work relationships with supervisors, co-workers, or subordinates, including harassment and discrimination, and
5. overall organizational structure and climate, including organizational communication patterns, management style, and participation in decision making (job control).

These five factors demonstrate that workplace stress arises out of situations and events within the employer’s control. This, in turn, makes the occurrence of workplace stress an occupational health and safety issue.

Workplace stress produces a range of physical and mental health effects. Early physical signs of negative stress include increased heart rate, sweating, and nausea, reddening of the skin, muscle tension, and headaches. Early emotional and mental effects of negative stress include anxiety, depression, apathy, sleep disturbance, and irritability. Long-lasting or intensifying stress results in a worsening of these symptoms as well as the appearance of new symptoms, such as lasting depression, heart disease, chronic digestive issues, reduced sex drive, uneven metabolism, and increased susceptibility to infectious diseases.

Research led by Robert Karasek has revealed that job control is a key factor in determining how work-related stress affects us. His job demands-control model is explained in Box 7.1. It is also possible for negative effects of stress to manifest themselves in groups of workers and not just individuals, due to workplace dynamics and environment. Group manifestation can arise from so-called toxic workplaces. Toxic workplaces are characterized by “relentless demands, extreme pressure, and brutal ruthlessness,” and represent the extreme of stressful workplace environments.5

There are two main challenges associated with recognizing workplace stress as a hazard. First, stress is often perceived as an individual’s response to a situation, and any two individuals can react differently to the same stressor. This perception can lead managers to identify the issue with the individual rather than the stressor itself. This response is an example of an employer blaming the worker for an injury and a variation on the careless worker myth that we read about in Chapter 1. Faced with an explanation that blames the worker, it is important to be cognizant of the difference between root and proximate cause. “Stress is not merely a physiological response to a stressful situation. Stress is an interaction between that individual and source of demand within their environment.”12 In other words, while individuals may respond differently to stressors (which is the proximate cause of the health effect), the root cause of the reaction is the workplace dynamics that create the stressor.

Second, isolating workplace stressors can be difficult, especially chronic stressors. Non-work stressors do affect workers and can also be used by employers as an excuse to deny that stress-related health effects have workplace causes. Also, as with other types of ill health, individuals have different tolerances for stress, meaning the same stressors may affect one worker more than another. As a result, it can be difficult to have chronic stress recognized as a workplace hazard or the cause of a workplace injury or ill health. A workers’ compensation board, for example, is more likely to accept claims resulting in catastrophic or acute stress (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder) than chronic stress (see Box 7.2).

Workplace stress is the result of workplace factors. Consequently, preventing the negative effects of workplace stress requires changes to job design, workload, organizational culture, and interpersonal dynamics. These factors are both broadly known to employers and within their control. What the persistence of stressful workplaces reveals is that employers in such workplaces prioritize maintaining profitability, productivity, and control of the work process over workers’ health.

Related to stress is the experience of fatigue. Fatigue is the state of feeling tired, weary, or sleepy caused by insufficient sleep, prolonged mental or physical work, or extended periods of stress or anxiety. Acute, or short-term, fatigue can be caused by failure to get adequate sleep in the period before a work shift and is resolved quickly through appropriate sleep. Chronic fatigue can be the result of a prolonged period of sleep deficit and may require more involved treatment. Chronic fatigue syndrome is an ongoing, severe feeling of tiredness not relieved by sleep. The causes of chronic fatigue syndrome are unknown.

While lack of sleep is the primary cause of fatigue, fatigue can be intensified by other factors, including drug or alcohol use, high temperatures, boring or monotonous work, loud noise, dim lighting, extended shifts, or rotating shifts. As with other conditions, workers have differing sensitivity to fatigue. Fatigue can also make workers more susceptible to stress and illness.

Fatigue is a legitimate health and safety concern because workers who are experiencing fatigue are more likely to be involved in workplace incidents. Lack of alertness and reduced decision-making capacity can have negative effects on safety. Research has shown that fatigue can impair judgment in a manner similar to alcohol. WorkSafeBC reports the following effects:

• 17 hours awake is equivalent to a blood alcohol content of 0.05 (the legal limit in B.C. and Alberta for driving)
• 21 hours awake is equivalent to a blood alcohol content of 0.08 (the legal limit in Canada for driving)
• 24–25 hours awake is equivalent to a blood alcohol content of 0.10.14

Most cases of fatigue are resolved through adequate sleep. The average person requires 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep a night (remember, this is an average—some require more, some less). While an employer cannot control how well a worker sleeps, they can adjust the workplace to mitigate fatigue. Shift scheduling is one of the most important administrative controls of fatigue: employers can ensure shifts are not too long or too close together as well as avoiding dramatic shift rotations (we discuss shift work in more detail in Chapter 8). Employers can also ensure that workplace temperatures are not too high, work is interesting and engaging without being too strenuous, and adequate opportunities for resting, eating, and sleeping (if necessary) are provided.

Workplace violence is any act in which a person is abused, threatened, intimidated, or assaulted in their employment. It can include physical attack, threats of physical attack, threatening language or behaviour (e.g., shaking a fist), or physically aggressive behaviour. The data around the prevalence of workplace violence is mixed. If judged by workers’ compensation claims, then workplace violence is rare: only 5.7% of all Canadian lost-time injury claims in 2023 were related to incidents of violence (just over 15,500 incidents).15 That said, Statistics Canada reports that 17% of all acts of criminal violence (violence illegal under the Criminal Code) occurred at a workplace. This would mean that there are more than 350,000 acts of workplace violence in Canada.16 However, this count likely excludes criminal acts that did not result in the acute injury of a worker and, therefore, no workers’ compensation claim was filed. This likely undercounting of workplace violence reinforces the limited value of workers’ compensation claim data as an indicator of hazardousness in the workplace.

Whether more or less prevalent, workplace violence can extract a significant toll on workers, leading to injury and psychological ill health (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder). Health-care workers and those in social and community services are most likely to experience workplace violence, followed by workers in sales and service occupations. It is notable that these occupations tend to be female-dominated. Customers, clients, and patients are the most common perpetrators of workplace violence, although violence from co-workers or supervisors remains prevalent. It is important for employers to determine the source of violence when considering different controls since they could depend on whether the source is a co-worker or customer.

A variety of factors can increase the risk of violence in the workplace. Common concerns are the presence of money, drugs, and alcohol (which make workplaces targets for theft and robbery). Late operating hours and extensive access to the public are also factors that heighten the risk of violence. One of the reasons health-care workers are at greatest risk is their close proximity to people under physical or mental stress. The workplace environment can also play a role leading to violence. Stressful work situations, insecure and precarious employment arrangements, work overload, and unhealthy interpersonal dynamics can also increase the risk of violence.

While acts of violence can be unpredictable, an employer can take steps to develop a violence-prevention plan to minimize both the risk of a violent act and the harm caused by the act. Violence prevention should be a part of the overall HRAC process. Particular actions to consider include workplace design to restrict access, increasing visibility and communication, and creating escape routes for workers. Administrative policies and work practices can reduce some of the common risks: these might include reducing the use of cash, eliminating the use of working alone, and implementing a buddy system. A prevention program should also incorporate training for managers to spot warning signs of violence, and steps to reduce stress levels in the workplace. Additional measures might be necessary to address unique workplace circumstances. For example, employers whose workers frequently work off site and interact with clients, patients, or others should prioritize good record-keeping practices to document these interactions. Additionally, they should implement strict administrative policies that empower workers to leave or refuse service when necessary.

In workplaces where handling money is involved, additional measures could include engineering controls that create physical barriers between workers and the public. Moreover, it is important for such workplaces to distinguish between violence prevention strategies and robbery prevention strategies. Although there can be some overlap between them, their overall objectives differ. (See Box 7.4 for further details.)

Governments have also taken action by expanding the definition of violence as a workplace hazard (see Box 7.5).

A growing concern in workplaces is the issue of workplace harassment and bullying. Workplace harassment is behaviour aimed at an individual (or group) that is belittling or threatening in nature. This can include actions (e.g., unwanted touching) or words (e.g., insults, jokes) that have the effect of causing psychological harm to victim(s). Harassment can take a variety of forms, including racial/ethnic harassment, sexual harassment, and general workplace harassment. Bullying is similar to harassment and comprises repeated actions or verbal comments that lead to mental harm, isolation, or humiliation of a worker (or group), often with the intent to wield power over them. Workplace incivility is described as “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others.”24 Often harassment and bullying are used interchangeably and, indeed, the definitions between them and incivility are highly similar. In this book, we differentiate the terms for two reasons. First, harassment is often associated with specific grounds protected under human rights legislation, such as gender, race, age, and religion. Bullying applies more broadly to any set of behaviours that create harm. Incivility captures behaviour that might not meet the thresholds for bullying and harassment. Second, it is accepted that harassment can occur unintentionally, while bullying is a more intentional process and incivility might not have a clear target. However, all three groups of behaviours are ways for the harasser/bully to exercise control and power over the harassed/bullied through fear, humiliation, embarrassment, and denigration.

Harassment and bullying can involve physical contact but are distinguished from violence in that the purpose is not physical harm but emotional and psychological harm. Harassment and bullying can also include acts that indirectly affect the targeted worker(s), such as undesirable shift scheduling, unreasonable workloads, spreading rumours, or denying leave requests. Harassment, bullying, and violence can occur concurrently. Defining incivility can be particularly challenging since it encompasses behaviours considered uncivil, such as ignoring or belittling someone, displaying general hostility, engaging in gossip, raising one’s voice, or speaking condescendingly. It can also include violating social norms of a workplace such as invading privacy by entering an office, desk, or locker without permission, failing to seek input when expected, ignoring input received, failing to acknowledge work done, or addressing someone unprofessionally.

There is debate about how to best conceptualize harassment, bullying, and incivility. Many argue that it is a human rights issue and should be treated through human rights processes, usually meaning independent tribunals or the courts. Others suggest that harassment, bullying, and incivility are instances of individual misconduct best resolved through human resources processes such as better selection, training, and disciplinary practices. The authors of this text argue, without intending to reduce the significance of the human rights dimensions of harassment, that harassment, bullying, and incivility are also health and safety issues. Incivility specifically also tends not to rise to the threshold of a human rights complaint. The reason these are OHS issues is that they can be controlled by the employer and have clear health effects for the targeted worker(s) as well as co-workers.

The psychological effects of harassment, bullying, and incivility can be extensive and include anxiety, panic attacks, depression, shame, anger, burn out, and lower job satisfaction. The physical effects mirror those of stress and can include inability to sleep, stomach pain or headaches, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, and loss of concentration/memory, as well as eating and digestive disorders. Further, workers exposed to harassment are found to be more at risk of illness, injury, and assault.25 The negative health outcomes and increased risk of illness and injury can persist well after the harassment has ceased. In extreme cases, bullying and harassment can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is typically brought on by a terrifying event, and symptoms include flashbacks, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

While all workers can be victims of harassment and bullying, certain groups of workers are more likely to be the targets, because of their respective statuses in society at large. Two such groups include women and racialized workers (see Box 7.6), who make easier targets because the bullying and harassment are consistent with widely held prejudices (e.g., consider how common race and gender jokes are). Research has shown that experiencing multiple forms of harassment—gender and ethnic harassment along with general workplace harassment—compounds the negative health effects compared to experiencing one form, putting racialized women at particular risk of negative health effects from harassment.26

There is no clear profile of who might be a harasser. The range of tactics, behaviours, and approaches used by bullies and harassers is extensive and reflective of specific contexts. One typology of bullies includes four categories:

• The screaming Mimi: A bully who displays mood swings and unpredictable anger and commonly uses public humiliation as a tool.
• The constant critic: A hypercritical nitpicker who regularly points out others’ inadequacies and errors, and uses negative evaluation of performance as a tool to belittle.
• The two-headed snake: Aimed at rising in the organization, they aim their bullying at those below them, using rumours and divide-and-conquer schemes to turn co-workers against the target.
• The gatekeeper: Obsessed with control, they allocate resources and information in ways to ensure the target’s failure and to create reasons to question their performance.28

These types of bullies may sound very familiar, but it is important to not forget that the issue of bullying is workplace-wide and not solely the result of an ill-mannered or calculating personality. The categories should be interpreted as strategies employed by bullies, rather than personality sketches.

Often, managers bully or harass subordinates (although bullying from co-workers and clients/customers is also common). This is not surprising, given that engaging in incivility, bullying and harassment are ways to wield power over another person. Managers, because of their role in an organization, already possess power over workers. Attempts to exercise this power can lead to management approaches that rely upon bullying. Some researchers suggest that employers may overtly or covertly encourage bullying by managers as a way to maximize the work the employer can extract from its workers.29

The line between “tough” management and “bullying” management can be difficult to ascertain, especially if the bullying takes the form of misuse of managerial prerogatives such as scheduling, work assignments, and the like. Usually bullying and incivility as a management technique is reflective of the organizational culture that has developed in a workplace. For their part, workers respond to OHS threats such as bullying and incivility with a range of behaviours that include exit, voice, patience, and neglect. These responses are explained more fully in Box 7.7.

There are several ways to address harassment, bullying, and incivility in the workplace. First, all jurisdictions in Canada require some version of harassment- and violence-prevention policies and programs. The administrative controls should outline acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and actions, indicate employer and worker responsibilities, and create a process for investigating and resolving complaints. Any investigation must proceed in a manner that is transparent, fair to both parties, and as confidential as is possible. Investigations should also identify the root cause of the incident and how to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Workplace policies are important, but they are only as effective as the degree of their implementation and enforcement. Effective policy implementation requires the employer to train all workers, including managers, on how to prevent and address harassment. Training for managers is particularly important. It can help managers spot possible harassment and teach them the difference between legitimate management discretion and bullying management techniques. Training workers around respectful interactions and cultural sensitivity can help distinguish between legitimate interpersonal conflict and bullying, harassment, and incivility.

Finally, research shows that the leading indicator of workplace incivility, bullying, and harassment is the organization’s climate. In workplaces where workers feel unsafe, incidents of all three behaviours are more frequent. Conversely, creating a safe and respectful climate increases workers’ sense of safety and lowers the negative consequences of bullying and harassment.32 Creating a safe workplace climate is a multi-levelled process, requiring a high degree of commitment to respectful interactions, clear communication, transparent management, and individual and collective accountability.

It may seem strange to include working alone as a psycho-social hazard, given that it is a working condition that removes psycho-social interactions from the workplace. Yet it is precisely the absence of other people that makes working alone a significant psycho-social hazard. Working alone is a unique type of hazard in that, in and of itself, it may not be hazardous. Nevertheless, working alone exacerbates other hazards present in the workplace.

Working alone occurs when a worker is performing tasks out of contact with persons capable of offering assistance in case of emergency. If an incident were to occur (e.g., if the worker became unconscious) there would be no one available to respond, increasing the risks of harm to the worker. The key to working alone is that the worker is isolated in some fashion from co-workers or responsible individuals. A worker can be working alone even if there are other people present in the workplace. For example, a receptionist in the front room is working alone if others in the office cannot hear or see them.

A second key aspect of the concept is that the contact needs to be with someone capable of and responsible for responding. A worker can be working alone even if there are members of the public present (e.g., a crowded street). The public are not responsible for the worker and so may not respond (or even be aware of the need to respond) should something happen. Certain types of working alone situations come quickly to mind (e.g., the gas station and convenience store attendants discussed in Box 7.4), but there are many types of working alone that may not be as obvious (see Box 7.8).

The risks associated with working alone are diverse. Common concerns include the possibility of theft, assault, or attack by an outside party or a worker’s client or patient. This risk is increased by the presence of money, drugs, or other valuables. Women are also more at risk of assault when working alone in these situations. Other risks include uncontrolled hazards causing harm to a worker without others noticing and taking action. For example, a worker working alone may pass out from gas exposure or fall on a slippery surface and have no one to come to their aid. Even injuries like heart attacks or other health issues can be made worse by the lack of immediate response.

There are two basic ways to control the hazard posed by working alone. The first approach is to eliminate it by ensuring workers are never in a situation where they are out of contact with other workers. Policies that require a minimum of two workers to be on shift at a time, or prohibiting late night overtime, can administratively control working alone. Prohibiting working alone is a central practice of emergency first responders (i.e., police, fire, ambulance). Keep in mind that eliminating working alone does not eliminate other hazards, which may require other controls. For example, two workers in a remote location will still require some communication strategy in case something happens to either or both of them.

The second approach to controlling working alone is to establish a two-step communication process with workers working alone. First, the worker needs a way to communicate to another person if they are in need. Radios, telephones, or panic buttons can all work as outgoing communication devices. Second, there needs to be incoming communication of some form on a regular basis in case the worker is unable to communicate (e.g., they are unconscious). This incoming communication can take the form of a regular check-in to the worker or an automatic response if the worker fails to complete a periodic check-in. The frequency of check-ins is determined by the nature of the hazards to which the worker is exposed. It’s important to remember that this is a two-step process, a method for the worker to communicate as well as a check-in procedure/automatic response, and implementing only one of the steps is insufficient.

The choice between hazard elimination and communication controls is controversial. Employers argue that prohibiting working alone is too costly and inefficient. Some also argue that employing two workers is not necessarily safer than one worker (e.g., two workers can just as easily be rendered unconscious by hydrogen sulfide gas on a remote worksite as one). This latter argument confuses hazards associated with working alone (e.g., lack of assistance) with other hazards of the work (e.g., chemical hazards). Worker advocates, on the other hand, argue that communication devices, while useful, are not fail-safe and do not address all the risks associated with working alone (see Box 7.9).

There are times when prohibiting working alone is not practicable. Yet the bulk of the debate about working alone rests around issues of cost, efficiency, and employer control over the work process. Working alone is another example of how employer and worker interests may conflict around issues of health and safety.

In attempts to curb the spread of COVID-19, many employers shifted to telework (i.e., working from home) on a much larger scale than ever before. Given the abrupt nature of this change, more workers faced two common hazards of working from home (WFH): work-home conflict and social isolation. Work-home conflict occurs when workers struggle to separate their personal lives from their professional ones. Essentially, it arises when the demands from work and those from home are in conflict or cannot be reconciled with each other. For instance, caring for young children at home while trying to attend a work meeting would constitute a home-work conflict. This type of conflict existed before WFH arrangements, but in some cases the increase in WFH exacerbated these conflicts, especially as family demands grew with the closure of child-care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some workers have found that WFH offers increased flexibility, allowing them to better balance personal and professional demands.36 However, research has shown that this increased flexibility can lead to work intensification, and workers can end up burning out from excessive workloads.37 This intensification can stem from attempts by workers to overcompensate for the perceived benefits of flexible work, as well as increased workload demands from employers, such as the expectation to answer emails at all hours and work during time off. Work-home conflict can lead to poor psychological health outcomes, such as depression and anxiety, increased stress and the associated ill health that can affect sleep, cardiometabolic risks, and increased emotional exhaustion.38 Research has also shown that there is a gendered effect of WFM, with women, especially women with children, more likely to report negative outcomes than men.39

Social isolation in the context of work refers to the limited interaction between some workers and their colleagues, intensified by WFH. Social isolation is associated with increased risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, depression, anxiety, and earlier death. Additionally, socially isolated workers can experience more issues with their jobs. For example, they might also experience professional isolation and be given few promotions or opportunities to advance in their careers because they have very limited interactions with their managers.40 Additionally, remote work can mean less access to information that workers need to perform their job tasks. Getting information from other colleagues can be difficult, which goes beyond interpersonal issues between people, for it can be harder to find information and tools needed when there is not someone readily available to ask.41

Employers can address these concerns through administrative policies that involve regularly checking in with workers and planning social engagement events, whether in person or online, to facilitate connections among employees. Providing opportunities for non-work-related social engagement can also foster a connected office culture. Despite these challenges, flexible and remote work opportunities are generally seen as perks for many workers since they can lead to cost and time savings associated with commuting and other work-related expenses. However, employers must also address the hazards and challenges associated with remote and WFH arrangements to ensure the well-being of their employees.

Somewhat ironically, Meredith Boucher’s experience of harassment at Wal-Mart occurred because she refused to create a safety hazard by falsifying food-inspection data. Her supervisor’s subsequent decision to expose her to a psycho-social hazard (which her employer failed to control despite repeated requests) was only resolved when she sued her employer and manager. A faster and less costly way to resolve this issue would have been to treat the harassment she experienced as a health and safety issue. This would have allowed Boucher to refuse the unsafe work and force an investigation when Wal-Mart failed to remediate the hazard. It also would have made her eligible for workers’ compensation benefits if the harassment caused her to experience ill health.

Psycho-social hazards—such as stress, fatigue, violence, harassment, bullying, and incivility—are the result of inadequately controlled workplace hazards. Working alone is a product of choices about how to prioritize safety and efficiency. While not all aspects of psycho-social hazards are within the control of employers (e.g., how much an employee sleeps at night), employer decisions about job design, workplace culture, and acceptable behaviour from co-workers, supervisors, and members of the public are among the root causes of the injuries caused by psycho-social hazards.

Write a definition for each bold italic word in this chapter.

Select a workplace with which you are familiar and identify a job task performed by a worker that exposes them to a psycho-social hazard. For example, you might select a job that interacts with the public or people in crisis.

Using the HRAC process set out in Chapter 3, perform a hazard assessment for this task. Your completed hazard assessment should include:

• ➤ A description of the workplace and the work being assessed.
• ➤ A description of the hazard that could lead to the psycho-social harm. Remember that the hazard is not the ill-health effects, such as stress, fatigue, or isolation, but the aspects of a workplace/work that could lead to stress, fatigue, or isolation.
• ➤ The risk of injury that the hazard poses to the workers, including probability, exposure, and consequences.
• ➤ Three ways to control the hazard. For each potential control, identify which kind of control it is on the hierarchy of controls, how it would be implemented, and the expected cost and effectiveness of the control.
• ➤ A recommended control or controls based on your analysis, including a justification for why you recommended this control instead of the other options that you developed.

Briefly discuss with a partner or write 250-word responses to the following questions:

1. What are the four types of stressors? Which stressors have you experienced the most in your workplace?
2. What are five factors that research has found that contribute to stress? Which factors have you experienced the most in your workplace?
3. How does the degree of control that a worker has over their job affect job-related stress according to Karasek? Does this align with your experience?
4. What is the difference between bullying, harassment, and incivility in the workplace? Can you give examples of all three?
5. What are the various ways in which workers can be considered working alone, and how can this hazard be controlled?

Write 250-word responses to the following questions:

1. Are psycho-social injuries treated differently from physical injuries by the workers’ compensation system in your jurisdiction? Have your prior employers treated these injuries differently in the workplace?
2. How does the myth of the disgruntled employee overlap with the myth of the careless worker? In which ways do these myths detract responsibility from employers when it comes to OHS?
3. What is the difference between violence-prevention and robbery-prevention programs? How do they overlap, and how do they differ?
4. Considering how Albert Hirschman’s work on how workers respond to harmful work environments, have you yourself, or someone you know, ever responded in these ways in your workplaces?
5. Have you ever found yourself working alone? Was this hazard properly controlled by your employer?