Where does grief fit in psychosocial safety at work?

Over the past few years, psychosocial safety has become one of the most talked about topics in Australian workplaces.

Most of the conversation is about workload, bullying, burnout and unclear roles. All of those matter.

But there's one experience almost every workplace will face that rarely gets named in this conversation.

Grief.

I'm not a lawyer/WHS specialist, and this isn't legal/risk advice. It's how I read the landscape, based on what I've lived and what I see in the organisations I work with.

What is a psychosocial hazard?

In simple terms, it's anything connected to work that can cause psychological harm, and sometimes physical harm too. That includes how work is designed, how it's managed and how people treat each other.

Since 2022, the national model laws have asked employers to identify the psychosocial risks they could reasonably foresee and take reasonably practicable steps to manage them.

From December 2025, every Australian jurisdiction has had regulations in place for managing psychological hazards. Queensland goes further than the model in some areas, and Victoria runs its own set of regulations. The detail depends on where you are, and your state regulator is the right place to check it. The principle is the same everywhere.

Where grief isn't named

Here's the part I think we should be honest about.

Grief isn't on the list of common psychosocial hazards. There is no line that says bereavement.

But the list does include something called traumatic events or material.

Why I believe grief belongs under trauma

Regulators describe this hazard as witnessing, investigating or being directly exposed to traumatic events, and they include indirect exposure, repeated exposure and situations that bring up traumatic memories. They also note that an event is more likely to feel traumatic when it is unexpected.

That description is usually applied to emergency services, health care and policing. But read it again with grief in mind.

A sudden death is unexpected. It is deeply personal. The effects can last for years. And it can return without warning on an anniversary, a birthday, a song or a date on the calendar.

Grief also changes concentration, memory, sleep and decision-making. Those are the things most jobs rely on.

I believe grief belongs in the trauma category. Not because every loss is a clinical trauma, but because the exposure is real, the effects are predictable and the workplace is where they show up.

But grief doesn't come from work, so is it the employer's problem?

This is a question, and it's a fair one.

If the death didn't happen at work, an employer didn't cause it. I don't think anyone is arguing they should be responsible for the loss itself.

What the law looks at is work: how it's designed, managed and supported. So the question isn't "did work cause the grief?"

It's "is work making a foreseeable situation harder?"

And grief is foreseeable. In the organisations I work with, around one in four employees are grieving at any given time.

Grief makes every other hazard heavier

Grief rarely sits on its own. It changes how everything else lands.

The same workload, for a brain that can't hold it. A manager who doesn't know what to say, a restructure that arrives in month two, an expectation that someone is "back to normal" because they're back at their desk.

None of those are new hazards. Grief just makes each of them harder to carry.

What good looks like

It looks like managers who know what to say and what not to say. Check-ins at month three, month six and the anniversary, not just the first fortnight. A workload and return-to-work plan that flexes. And a record of what you did and why, because that's what shows an organisation took it seriously.

A better question to ask

Maybe the question isn't "is grief a psychosocial hazard?"

Maybe it's this. If one of our people lost someone tomorrow, what would our workplace actually do in week one, in month three and on the anniversary?

If you're not sure, that's normal. Most workplaces aren't, because nobody has ever shown them. I've created a free guide, 5 Tips to Support a Grieving Employee, for managers, HR teams and anyone who wants to get this right.

Grief will come to every workplace. Whether it finds a plan is up to us.

Sources and further reading

Safe Work Australia, Managing psychosocial hazards at work (Model Code of Practice): https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-08/model_code_of_practice_-_managing_psychosocial_hazards_at_work_25082022_0.pdf

Safe Work Australia, Traumatic events or material: https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/safety-topic/managing-health-and-safety/mental-health/psychosocial-hazards/traumatic-events-or-materials