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A practical orientation for directors, executives and employers. These guides summarise official sources; they are not legal advice and do not replace checking the law, regulator and codes that apply at each work location.
English, Spanish and French summaries are informational, not official legal translations or legal advice. Translations do not extend any duty, threshold or territorial scope. The applicable original legal text governs; follow the linked official sources and obtain local advice.
Annual assurance is a governance choice, not a universal audit law.
These guides distinguish ongoing legal risk-management duties from recommended assurance. Specific annual duties still apply: in France, DUERP updates are required at least annually from 11 employees and an annual prevention programme applies from 50. Neither is a universal independent psychosocial audit. Follow each guide’s thresholds and review triggers.
Recommended governance rhythm: review the risk-management system, worker feedback, training coverage, control effectiveness and board reporting at least annually.
Also review when controls are ineffective, work or hazards change, consultation raises concerns, incidents occur, or a health and safety representative or regulator identifies a need. Confirm the exact triggers in the law and code for your jurisdiction.
Guide available · check the local jurisdiction
Australia
Australia’s model work health and safety (WHS) laws address psychological as well as physical health. Safe Work Australia develops model laws and guidance; Commonwealth, state and territory regulators administer the laws. Adoption and local amendments differ, and Victoria uses a separate occupational health and safety framework.
Legal framework
Under the model WHS approach, a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) must eliminate psychosocial risks so far as is reasonably practicable, or minimise them where elimination is not reasonably practicable. The WHS Regulations include specific psychosocial risk-management requirements. Codes of practice can be relevant evidence of expected practice, but their approval and legal effect must be checked in the applicable jurisdiction.
What employers should do
Identify reasonably foreseeable psychosocial hazards in work design, systems, interactions and the work environment.
Assess risks where needed, considering exposure duration, frequency and severity, how hazards combine, and the design and management of work.
Select controls that address causes in work design and systems; provide suitable information, training, instruction and supervision.
Monitor whether controls work and revise them when the applicable review triggers are met.
Worker consultation
Consult workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected while identifying hazards, assessing risks, choosing controls and reviewing them. Use existing health and safety representatives and committees where applicable. Consultation should give workers a genuine opportunity to raise how work is experienced.
Training and systems
Build training into a broader risk-management system. Match information and instruction to roles, hazards and controls; support managers to respond and escalate concerns; and ensure workers know how to participate and raise issues. The cited model sources do not prescribe one universal psychological-safety course or a fixed number of annual training hours for every employer.
Review and audit
The model WHS approach requires control measures to be reviewed and, if necessary, revised to keep the workplace without risks so far as is reasonably practicable. Review is ongoing and can be required by matters such as ineffective controls, relevant consultation outcomes, changes in circumstances or a health and safety representative request. This is not the same as a blanket legal requirement for an annual independent audit.
Board oversight and recommended governance
Directors and officers should understand the applicable duty-holder structure, ask how psychosocial hazards are identified and controlled, test whether worker consultation reaches decision-makers, and receive evidence on actions, control effectiveness and emerging risks. Confirm officer duties and regulator expectations under the law that applies to each operation.
Guide available · confirm current WorkSafe guidance
Aotearoa New Zealand
The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) is New Zealand’s principal work health and safety law. WorkSafe New Zealand’s guidance explains how businesses can identify and manage psychosocial risks as part of health and safety at work.
Legal framework
A person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) has the primary duty to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and other people affected by the work. HSWA also places due-diligence duties on officers. Work-related mental health is part of health; psychosocial hazards should be managed through the same practical risk-management approach as other work risks.
What employers should do
Identify psychosocial hazards arising from how work is designed, organised, managed and experienced.
Eliminate risks where reasonably practicable; otherwise minimise them so far as reasonably practicable.
Put workable controls in place, support workers and managers to use them, and check whether the controls reduce exposure.
Review controls when they are not effective, risks or work change, or worker engagement and other information show a review is needed.
Worker consultation
Engage with workers and their representatives when making decisions about health and safety. WorkSafe’s psychosocial risk guidance treats worker participation as part of identifying hazards, selecting controls and checking whether those controls work.
Training and systems
Provide workers with the information, training, instruction and supervision needed for their work and the risks they may face. Include role-specific manager capability, clear reporting pathways and support for worker participation. The cited sources do not set one universal annual psychosocial-training course for every workplace.
Review and audit
HSWA requires risks to be managed on an ongoing basis; WorkSafe guidance describes monitoring and reviewing controls rather than relying on a one-off assessment. An annual governance review can support assurance, but the cited sources do not create a universal annual psychosocial-audit requirement. Review sooner when controls, work, risk information or worker feedback indicate a need.
Board oversight and recommended governance
Officers should exercise due diligence by understanding the organisation’s health and safety risks, ensuring appropriate resources and processes exist, and checking that those processes are used. Board reporting should show worker engagement, control implementation, unresolved risks and how effectiveness is tested—not only training completion or survey scores.
England, Scotland and Wales · onshore workplace overview
Official sources checked:
United Kingdom — Great Britain only
This guide covers the Great Britain framework, not Northern Ireland, which has separate legislation and HSENI oversight. HSE and local authorities enforce health and safety according to the activity. Offshore and sector-specific arrangements need separate checks.
Legal framework
Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to ensure employees’ health, safety and welfare so far as reasonably practicable. Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. HSE confirms this includes work-related stress and action to address it. HSE’s Management Standards are guidance, not a separately mandatory certification scheme.
What employers should do
Assess work-related stress risks and act on the findings; include work design and organisational causes, not just individual coping.
With five or more employees, record significant assessment findings and groups especially at risk (reg.3(6)); the assessment duty also applies below that threshold.
Use HSE’s six work-design areas as a recommended aid: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change.
Worker consultation
Consult employees or their representatives in good time on health and safety measures, risk information and training arrangements. Recognised-union appointed safety representatives fall under the 1977 Regulations; for employees not represented through those arrangements, the 1996 Regulations provide for direct consultation or elected representatives. Both sets can apply in one workplace. HSE’s cited consultation leaflet concerns onshore workplaces.
Training and systems
Regulation 13 requires adequate health and safety training on recruitment and exposure to new or increased risks, including relevant role, technology or work-system changes. Repeat periodically where appropriate, adapt to changed risks, and provide it during working hours. Role-specific stress prevention and manager response training is a recommended way to support the system; these sources do not prescribe one annual psychological-safety course.
Review and audit
Legal duty: review the assessment when there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid or a significant relevant change occurs (reg.3(3)), and amend it as required. HSE guidance recommends monitoring action delivery and asking employees whether solutions work; do not wait for a scheduled review if they fail. An annual independent psychosocial audit is not a blanket requirement in these sources.
Board oversight and recommended governance
Recommended governance, distinct from the employer duties above: assign an accountable executive, resource changes to work design, and track consultation, overdue actions and evidence of effectiveness. An annual board assurance review can help, but should not delay legally triggered reassessment or be described as a statutory audit.
Code du travail framework · check sector and territorial scope
Official sources checked:
France
This overview concerns employers within the Code du travail framework. Public-service regimes and overseas territories with their own labour law, including New Caledonia and French Polynesia, require separate verification. Check applicable collective agreements and establishment arrangements; the Ministry of Labour provides official psychosocial-risk guidance.
Legal framework
Articles L4121-1 and L4121-2 require measures to protect workers’ physical and mental health: prevention, information, training, adapted organisation and resources, with collective protection prioritised. L4121-3 and L4121-3-1 require risk assessment and recording in the document unique d’évaluation des risques professionnels (DUERP). Psychosocial risks belong in this occupational-risk process, not in a separate universal audit certificate.
What employers should do
Assess psychosocial risks by work unit and record them in the DUERP; address causes in work organisation and relationships.
For 50 or more employees, translate the assessment into an annual prevention programme (PAPRIPACT), with measures, resources, indicators, costs and timetable (L4121-3-1).
Below 50 employees, define prevention and protection actions and record the list in the DUERP and its updates; smaller size does not remove prevention duties.
Worker consultation
Under L4121-3, the social and economic committee (CSE) and its health, safety and working conditions commission, if they exist, contribute to assessment; the CSE must be consulted on the DUERP and its updates. The designated prevention staff and the occupational prevention and health service also contribute. Recommended practice: involve workers in examining real work situations rather than relying only on a survey.
Training and systems
L4121-1 includes information and training in prevention measures. L4141-2 requires practical, appropriate safety training for recruits, workers changing jobs or techniques, temporary employees subject to its exception, and certain returning workers at the occupational physician’s request; repetition follows regulatory or collective-agreement rules. Adapt psychosocial-risk content to work and roles; no single annual course is prescribed by these provisions.
Review and audit
R4121-2 requires a DUERP update at least annually for enterprises with at least 11 employees. At every size, update for major changes affecting health, safety or working conditions, or additional information relevant to a risk assessment; update the prevention programme or action list if necessary. These are document and prevention duties, not a universal annual independent psychosocial-audit requirement.
Board oversight and recommended governance
Recommended governance, not an additional statutory board-audit duty: ensure the DUERP leads to funded work-design improvements, check CSE consultation, and monitor the applicable annual programme or action list. Independent assurance can test implementation but does not replace employer duties, consultation or legally required DUERP updates.
Other countries
More countries can be selected in the assessment, but a country-specific legal guide is not published until local legislation and regulator sources have been checked. Do not treat another country’s guide as a substitute.
This is general information, not legal advice, an audit, a compliance determination or a guarantee of safety. Requirements, regulator practice and code status can differ by state, territory, sector and work arrangement. Check current official sources and obtain qualified local advice for decisions.