When we think about workplace health and safety, most of us picture physical risks: unsafe equipment, manual handling, slips and trips, or poor working conditions.

Mental health might not be the first thing that comes to mind.

But work-related stress and other psychosocial risks are workplace health and safety issues too. The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) is clear that workplace stressors can be hazards where they may contribute to mental ill health, and that risk assessments should consider them alongside other workplace risks.

That raises a useful question for employers:

If you were asked today how your organisation identifies and manages psychosocial risks, what could you show?

Mental health is part of workplace health and safety

Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, employers have a duty, so far as is reasonably practicable, to protect the safety, health and welfare of employees.

That includes how work is organised, how people are managed, and whether employees have the information, training and support they need.

Section 19 of the Act also requires employers to identify hazards, assess the risks, keep a written risk assessment and review it when circumstances change.

Psychological risks should not be treated as something separate simply because they are harder to see. A mentally healthy workplace is not just about offering support when someone is struggling. It is also about how work is structured, managed and communicated.

What are psychosocial risks?

Psychosocial risks are workplace factors that can affect an employee’s mental or physical health.

They can be surprisingly ordinary things.

A team may face unrealistic deadlines. Someone may have very little control over how they do their job. Roles may be unclear. Communication may be poor. A manager may not realise how much pressure a team is under.

Other risks can include bullying, difficult working relationships, lack of support, poorly managed change or job insecurity.

Individually, these issues may not always look dramatic. But if they continue over time, they can contribute to stress, absence, poor morale and, in some cases, more serious mental health difficulties.

What might an employer need to show?

There is no single standalone “mental health audit” that every Irish employer has to complete.

The HSA is not asking managers to diagnose employees or carry out clinical mental health assessments.

The question is much more practical:

Have you identified workplace factors that could contribute to stress or psychological harm, assessed the risk, and taken reasonable steps to address it?

That might include the following.

1. You have considered psychosocial risks

A workplace risk assessment may cover fire safety, equipment and manual handling in detail, but say very little about stress or psychological risk.

That can leave an important gap.

The risks will differ from workplace to workplace. A small office will have different pressures from a healthcare setting, a busy hospitality business or a customer-facing service.

The important thing is to look at the reality of how people work in your organisation.

2. You have asked employees about their experience

Psychosocial risks are not always visible from management level.

Employees may be dealing with high workloads, unclear priorities or difficult team dynamics long before those issues show up in absence figures or formal complaints.

That does not mean asking people to disclose private information about their mental health.

It means asking sensible questions about the workplace itself.

Are workloads manageable? Are responsibilities clear? Do people feel supported? Are there recurring pressures that need attention?

The HSA specifically refers to staff consultation when assessing workplace stressors.

3. Issues lead to action

Identifying a problem is only useful if something happens afterwards.

If a team repeatedly says that workloads are too high, for example, the response cannot be limited to another wellbeing session or resilience webinar.

Depending on the problem, action might involve reviewing staffing, clarifying roles, improving communication, changing shift patterns, dealing with bullying or giving employees more control over how work is organised.

Sometimes the solution may also involve training managers or providing access to additional support.

The key point is that the response should match the risk.

4. Managers know how to respond

Managers are often the first people to notice when somebody is struggling.

An employee may become quieter than usual, seem overwhelmed, make more mistakes or start taking more time off.

Managers do not need to diagnose what is happening.

But they do need to know how to start an appropriate conversation, what support is available, what internal procedures apply and when an issue needs to be escalated or referred on.

Stress and burnout often show up gradually, which is why it helps to recognise the early signs before absence or performance begins to suffer.

Good manager training can make a real difference here.

5. You check whether things are improving

A psychosocial risk assessment should not be something that gets completed once and then disappears into a folder.

The HSA refers to control measures, monitoring and review when dealing with workplace stressors.

That means looking at what happens over time.

Useful indicators may include:

  • sickness absence
  • employee turnover
  • exit interviews
  • grievances or bullying complaints
  • staff surveys
  • recurring workload concerns
  • feedback from managers and teams
  • EAP usage trends, where these are reported anonymously and appropriately

Regular mental health checks can also give employers a clearer picture of how people are doing before problems become more serious.

The aim is not to overanalyse every difficult week. It is to notice patterns.

If one person is having a stressful few days, that may be temporary. If an entire team is consistently reporting the same problem, that deserves a closer look.

Six areas to assess for workplace stress

Employers wondering where to begin do not have to invent a system from scratch.

The HSA promotes Work Positive, a psychosocial risk management tool designed to help organisations identify sources of work-related stress and take appropriate action. The HSA says the tool can help employers and employees identify where the main sources of stress are coming from within an organisation.

A practical way of thinking about psychosocial risk is to consider six areas:

Demands
Are workload, deadlines, working hours and emotional demands reasonable?

Control
Do employees have an appropriate level of say over how they carry out their work?

Support
Do employees receive adequate information, resources and support from managers and colleagues?

Relationships
Is inappropriate behaviour dealt with? Are conflict, bullying or poor working relationships creating risk?

Role
Do employees understand what is expected of them, or are responsibilities unclear or contradictory?

Change
Is organisational change communicated and managed properly?

These questions are useful because they move workplace mental health away from vague ideas about “wellbeing” and towards identifiable workplace conditions that can actually be changed.

Areas employers may need to review

Many organisations care deeply about employee wellbeing.

But in practice, support can still be quite reactive.

Help is often offered once somebody is already struggling, off sick or raising a formal concern.

It can be useful to review whether:

  • psychosocial risks appear in the formal risk assessment
  • managers have had appropriate training
  • employee feedback leads to practical change
  • stress is being measured without its causes being addressed
  • support is available early, rather than only once a problem has escalated
  • wellbeing initiatives are matched by a look at working conditions themselves

The aim is not to criticise what employers are already doing.

It is to make sure workplace mental health support is not focused only on helping individuals cope, while the workplace pressures themselves stay the same.

How an EAP fits into workplace risk management

An Employee Assistance Programme can be a very valuable part of workplace mental health support.

It gives employees somewhere confidential to turn when they need help and can provide access to counselling, psychotherapy or further support.

But it works best as part of a broader approach.

If employees are dealing with excessive workloads, bullying or consistently poor communication, counselling may support the individual, but it will not remove the workplace issue causing the pressure in the first place.

The strongest approach does both:

reduce avoidable workplace risks where possible, while making good support available when people need it.

BetterCare’s EAP gives employees access to psychotherapy and onward referral where appropriate, while our wider workplace services can help organisations take a more proactive approach to mental health.

A few questions worth asking

You do not need to wait for an inspection to look at this.

A useful starting point is to ask:

  • Does our risk assessment include psychosocial risks?
  • What are the main sources of work-related stress in our organisation?
  • When did we last ask employees about them?
  • Have we made any changes as a result?
  • Are managers confident about responding when someone is struggling?
  • Do employees know where they can get confidential support?
  • Are actions from risk assessments actually followed through?
  • How do we know whether our approach is working?

If some of those questions are difficult to answer, that does not mean your organisation is doing badly.

It simply shows where there may be room to strengthen your approach.

What this means for Irish employers

Workplace mental health is becoming a much more important part of the wider health and safety conversation.

EU-OSHA’s 2026–2028 Healthy Workplaces Campaign is specifically focused on mental health at work and the prevention and management of psychosocial risks.

For employers, the practical message is fairly simple.

You do not need to wait until somebody is off sick, a complaint is made or an inspection takes place.

It makes far more sense to look at the risks in your workplace now, speak to employees and deal with problems early where you can.

How BetterCare can help

BetterCare works with organisations across Ireland to provide practical workplace mental health support.

Our services include Employee Assistance Programmes, employee mental health checks, manager and HR training, workshops and access to clinical support.

We support individual employees, but we also help organisations respond earlier and build a more practical approach to workplace mental health.

If you would like to talk about what might work for your organisation, contact the BetterCare team.

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