The way employees interact at work can become a psychosocial hazard depending on whether those interactions are positively or negatively experienced. Workplace bullying, harassment (sexual and otherwise), incivility, destructive conflict are behaviours that increase harm and injury risk.
As psychosocial risk management increases on workplace and employee radars, employers have a duty to be proactive under work health and safety legislation. They are required to identify hazards and associated risks to prevent harm.
Historically HR have been considered the go to when it comes to workplace behaviours. However, with psychosocial hazards now firmly embedded within work health and safety regulations, this article explores the respective roles of these two workplace functions through a recent Fair Work unfair dismissal decision. In doing so, it considers whether their roles are divergent or increasingly collaborative.
The Claim of Unfair Dismissal and Harmful Workplace Behaviour
This matter was a recent decision heard by Fair Work in July 2026. The application was by a manager in an aged care facility whose employment had been terminated by her employer on the grounds that she:
- created ‘an unsafe psychosocial environment and negatively impacted the health and safety of the team members who reported to her’;
- ‘failed to follow lawful and reasonable directions’ from her employer; and
- created an unsafe environment for residents. This point was not agreed with by the Commission.
In the decision, the applicant’s team members described her behaviour as being ‘yelled at and spoken to rudely’. Her approach to working with her team was described as ‘a very abrupt manner’. She implemented a points system for staff suspension without upper management consultation or any authority to do either.
Within 10 months of her employment commencement in January 2025, two of the team had resigned and two others were talking about resigning with signs of heightened distress and crying. One of the two employees who attended their GP because of the behaviour had their depression medication increased, which affected their skin. The manager on seeing and hearing about the impact, laughed off her condition.
The Human Resources Response
The HR perspective to behavioural risk management was reactive but effective in managing the situation according to the Fair Work Commission’s decision. Ultimately, these actions also aligned with the health and safety Hierarchy of Controls by eliminating the immediate risk through terminating the manager’s employment.
The employer utilised the following strategies:
- The manager participated in regular monthly meetings with her manager who provided coaching on how she could manage her team.
- She was instructed to scale back activities in June for the residents which were placing an unreasonable workload strain on her team. The manager failed to comply with this and described her team as being ‘lazy’.
- In October, after the resignation of the two employees and the distress experienced by employees, she was instructed by her manager to take a week off to relieve team stress and provide time for a decision to be made as to how to ‘rebuild the team’. She was instructed to leave the laptop and phone at the office, but the manager continued to email her team members over the next week.
- The employer completed an investigation and formally raised concerns with her. They offered her the opportunity for a support person, a new meeting when she was unwell and/or given the option to respond in writing.
In it’s consideration, the Fair Work Commission agreed that the matter was serious enough to terminate the manager’s employment, which had occurred in November 2025.
The Work Health and Safety Prevention Perspective
The decision documentation itself does not delve into any actions that might have taken place from a health and safety perspective, but it creates an opportunity to consider what could be done adopting that lens.
Employers are required to take a preventative approach to workplace harm and injury. The events that have occurred in this matter provide an opportunity to learn how to prevent harm and injury in future, but how might you do that?
Integrate your work health and safety expert into your investigation process where an incident has occurred
Employees skilled in work health and safety will explore an incident through a preventative lens. Their training focuses on the risk management cycle of hazard identification, risk assessment, control implementation and review. Integrating them into your investigation process sets the expectation for all employees, reduces the need for double handling through separate investigation processes, and ensures compliance with health and safety legislation.
Explore for root causes of an incident
A systems approach to psychosocial safety recognises that harm often originates from ineffective or absent workplace systems. To improve the system, you need to swim upstream to understand why the incident occurred.
In the above example, one system worth reviewing is recruitment. Does your recruitment process maximise opportunities for identifying those who might engage in risk behaviours? The above decision documentation indicates the team had experienced behavioural concerns of the new manager early in her employment. This was initially viewed as team members needing to adjust to a new management approach. Could your culture lead to blindness in relation to behavioural issues? Could a less hierarchical open-door policy have prevented the situation of 2 team members resigning and another 2 team members having needed to seek medical assistance (ie. being harmed)?
These are ideas that may or may not be relevant for your workplace, but asking the questions is important to find more effective preventative solutions.
Bring HR and WHS Together
Ultimately, this case demonstrates that HR and work health and safety are not competing functions when it comes to psychosocial safety; they are complementary.
HR plays an important role in responding to harmful behaviour and managing employment processes, while work health and safety provides the preventative risk management framework to reduce the likelihood of those behaviours occurring in the first place. Organisations that integrate both perspectives are likely to achieve stronger psychosocial safety outcomes than those relying on either function alone.
Reference: Fair Work Decision [2026] FWC 2484
