If your business was using the People at Work tool to support its psychosocial risk assessment obligations, you may now need to review how those risks are assessed and documented.
Safe Work Australia’s People at Work survey platform was decommissioned on 2 October 2026. The final access date has passed, but the legal obligations the tool helped businesses address remain in place.
For some businesses, that distinction will feel obvious. For others, particularly those that treated the tool as the entirety of their psychosocial risk management approach, its removal may have exposed some important gaps in their current processes.
What People at Work Actually Was
Before getting into what replaces it, it helps to be clear on what the tool was and was not.
People at Work was a free online psychosocial risk assessment survey. More than 5,000 organisations had registered to use it, with more than 100,000 workers responding to the survey since it was digitised in November 2020. It assessed 14 psychosocial hazards, providing organisations with structured information about what their workers were experiencing, including job demands, control over work, support from managers, workplace relationships and role clarity.
It was a useful starting point, but it was never the legal requirement itself. It was one tool to help businesses identify and assess psychosocial risks.
That distinction matters because, when the tool disappears, some organisations may feel they have lost their compliance solution. What they have actually lost is one method of gathering information. The underlying obligation to identify, assess and control psychosocial risks remains.
What the Law Actually Requires
Under the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws, persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) must eliminate psychosocial risks so far as is reasonably practicable. Where elimination is not reasonably practicable, they must minimise those risks so far as is reasonably practicable.
The Model WHS Regulations include specific provisions for managing psychosocial risks, including requirements relating to the identification of hazards, risk assessment where required, the implementation of control measures and the review of those controls. The exact legal requirements depend on the legislation adopted in each state or territory. Victoria operates under a separate occupational health and safety framework, so businesses should check the laws that apply to their jurisdiction.
Managing psychosocial risks requires a structured process similar to the approach used for physical hazards. Businesses need to identify hazards, assess the risks they create, implement appropriate controls and review whether those controls are working.
The Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work provides practical guidance on how to manage these risks.
However, the Model Code does not automatically have legal effect in every jurisdiction. It must be approved as a code of practice in the relevant jurisdiction. Where approved, it can be used as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk or control and may help determine what is reasonably practicable.
The decommissioning did not change these underlying duties. What changed is that one specific survey tool used to support the identification and assessment stages is no longer available.
What to Use Instead
The good news is that People at Work was never the only possible approach to psychosocial risk assessment. Businesses can use other suitable methods to identify hazards and understand the risks workers may face.
The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire is one possible assessment tool. The UK Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards Indicator Tool is another. Both can provide structured information about psychosocial factors in the workplace.
However, neither should automatically be treated as a direct replacement for People at Work. Businesses need to consider whether a particular tool is suitable for their workplace, the hazards they need to assess and the requirements that apply in their jurisdiction.
For guidance on the broader risk management process, businesses can refer to Safe Work Australia’s information on managing risks.
Beyond specific tools, the most important shift is from tool-dependent assessment to a properly managed process.
A survey is only one source of information. A comprehensive psychosocial risk management approach can also draw on:
- Direct consultation with workers and health and safety representatives.
- Observation of work conditions and how tasks are performed.
- Reviews of incidents, near misses and complaints.
- Return-to-work records and absenteeism patterns.
- Feedback from performance management processes.
- Information about workload, work design, workplace relationships and management practices.
When these sources are considered together, they can provide a more complete picture of psychosocial risks than a single survey alone. They can also help a business explain how it identified risks, selected controls and assessed whether those controls were effective.
The Governance Gap Many Businesses Need to Address
The expectations around psychosocial risk management have developed significantly in recent years. Businesses need to manage psychosocial hazards systematically, apply appropriate controls, document relevant assessments and review whether their approach is effective.
Yet some organisations may have relied heavily on a wellbeing programme, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), a training module or periodic use of the People at Work survey.
These activities can have a place in a broader approach, but they do not necessarily demonstrate that an organisation has identified and controlled the causes of psychosocial risks.
That is the gap the decommissioning of People at Work may have exposed. If the survey was the only structured activity an organisation used to assess psychosocial risks, its removal leaves an important question: what process is now in place?
The consequences of work-related mental health conditions also make this an important issue for employers.
According to Safe Work Australia’s Key Work Health and Safety Statistics, mental health conditions accounted for 14,600 serious workers’ compensation claims in 2022–23, representing 10.5% of serious claims.
For 2021–22, serious claims for mental health conditions resulted in 584,029 working weeks lost from work. The median time lost was 37.0 working weeks per serious claim, compared with 7.2 weeks across all serious claims.
These figures demonstrate the significant impact of work-related mental health conditions and the importance of effective psychosocial risk management.
Building Something That Actually Works
The decommissioning of People at Work provides a timely opportunity to ask a harder question: does your organisation have a genuine psychosocial risk management system, or was it relying on a survey conducted periodically?
A genuine system identifies hazards through multiple methods, including consultation, data review, observation and assessment. It documents the risks identified and the controls selected. It assigns responsibility at leadership level, rather than leaving the issue solely to the WHS officer or HR team.
It also reviews control effectiveness regularly, escalates significant findings through management review and maintains records that demonstrate how psychosocial risks are being managed.
This creates a clearer connection between identifying a hazard, deciding how to control it and checking whether the chosen controls are working.
At Anitech, we work with Australian businesses to develop psychosocial risk management frameworks that connect hazard identification with documented controls, leadership oversight and formal review processes.
For organisations that relied on People at Work as a key part of their assessment process, the priority now is to establish what has replaced it and how that approach fits into their wider WHS and risk management systems.
The obligation is not going anywhere. The tool is. Those are two very different things.
Visit anitechgroup.com to learn more about how Anitech supports Australian businesses with risk management and compliance.
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