Ready or Not, Here They Come: The Victorian Psychosocial Regulations and Compliance Code Explained

On 30 September 2025, the Victorian Minister for WorkSafe and TAC made:

• The Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 (the Victorian Regulations); and
• A Compliance Code entitled “Psychological health” (Edition 1, September 2025).

What do Employers Need to Know About the Regulations?

The primary focus of the Victorian Regulations is on psychosocial risk management. We have set out below the key aspects of the Victorian Regulations for all employers with any employees based in Victoria.

Commencement Date

The Victorian Regulations commence on 1 December 2025.

Key Concepts Under the Victorian Regulations

A “psychosocial hazard” is any factor or factors in work design, systems of work, the management of work, the carrying out of the work or personal or work-related interactions that may arise in the working environment and may cause an employee to experience one or more negative psychological responses that create a risk to the employee's health or safety.

A “psychological response” includes cognitive, emotional and behavioural responses and the physiological processes associated with them. 

• The Compliance Code includes various examples of psychological responses, including stress, feeling stressed, distress and feeling burnt out, as well as warning signs of psychological harm.

The term “work design” means the equipment, content and organisation of an employee's work tasks, activities, relationships and responsibilities within a job or role.

What Are the Key Obligations Under the Victorian Regulations?

An employer must, so far as is reasonably practicable:

• Identify psychosocial hazards;
• Eliminate any risk associated with a psychosocial hazard;
• If it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate such a risk – reduce the risk (again, so far as is reasonably practicable);
• Reducing the risk must be done by altering the management of work, plant, systems of work, work design or the workplace environment or through the use of information, instruction or training. However, the provision of information, instruction or training cannot be:
  • Relied on exclusively unless alteration is not reasonably practicable; or
  • The predominant control measure if the employer is also altering the management of work, plant, systems of work, work design or the workplace environment.

The guidance material published by WorkSafe Victoria notes that while this is similar to the traditional hierarchy of controls (in that employers are required to eliminate risks first, then apply more effective higher order controls), the traditional hierarchy is not as well suited to controlling the risks of exposure to psychosocial hazards. The tailored approach prescribed by the Victorian Regulations uses "different terminology applicable to controlling psychosocial risks, so it is easier to apply to psychosocial hazards".

• Review and, if necessary, revise any measures that it has implemented to control risks associated with psychosocial hazards:
  • Before altering anything, process or system of work that is likely to result in changes to the risks;
  • If new or additional information about a psychosocial hazard becomes available to the employer;
  • If any employee (or a person on their behalf) reports a psychological injury or a psychosocial hazard to the employer;
  • After any notifiable incident occurs involving one or more psychosocial hazards; and
  • After receiving a request from a health and safety representative, provided that the Health and Safety Representative believes on reasonable grounds that any of the circumstances referred to above exist or the employer has failed to properly review the risk control measures or take into account any of the circumstances referred to above when reviewing or revising risk control measures.

How Do the Victorian Regulations Differ to the Model Regulations Produced by Safe Work Australia?

The emphasis in the Victorian Regulations on psychosocial hazards causing employees to experience negative psychological responses (such as stress or feeling stressed) that create a risk to safety rather than causing psychosocial harm is notable. It suggests to us that the concept of psychosocial hazard under the Victorian Regulations would be interpreted in a somewhat broader fashion.

Unlike the Model Regulations, the Victorian Regulations do not prescribe a list of matters to which an employer must have regard when determining control measures to implement. For ease of reference, the Model Regulations included the following list:

• The duration, frequency and severity of the exposure of workers and other persons to the psychosocial hazards; 
• How the psychosocial hazards may interact or combine; 
• The design of work, including job demands and tasks; 
• The systems of work, including how work is managed, organised and supported; 
• The design and layout, and environmental conditions, of the workplace, including the provision of safe means of entering and exiting the workplace and facilities for the welfare of workers; 
• The design and layout, and environmental conditions, of workers’ accommodation; 
• The plant, substances and structures at the workplace; 
• Workplace interactions or behaviours; and
• The information, training, instruction and supervision provided to workers.

Despite this omission, consideration of these factors is likely unavoidable if employers are to conduct a robust risk assessment and selection of appropriate controls.

Unlike the Victorian Regulations, the Model Regulations do not prescribe when it is appropriate to use the provision of information, instruction or training as exclusive or predominant control measures.

What Was Not Included in the Victorian Regulations?

The exposure draft regulations released by the Victorian Government in 2022 included obligations to implement prevention plans and to report certain data relating to actual or reported psychosocial hazards.

Those requirements have not been included in the Victorian Regulations.

Guidance material published by WorkSafe Victoria in recent days notes that use of prevention plans is not mandatory, but that employers are nonetheless encouraged to use the prevention plan template that is available from WorkSafe Victoria's website. 

What do Employers Need to Know About the Compliance Code?

The Compliance Code takes effect on 1 December 2025.

A breach of the Compliance Code is not, of itself, a breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) (Act). However, an employer who complies with the Compliance Code will, to the extent it deals with their duties or obligations under the Act or the Victorian Regulations, be taken to have complied with those duties or obligations.

For that reason alone, employers should quickly familiarise themselves with it and its content. 

In addition, WorkSafe Victoria will regard the contents of the Compliance Code as being information about psychosocial hazards and ways of controlling them of which employers ought reasonably to know, for the purposes of determining what is reasonably practicable to discharge their key duties under the Act.

The Compliance Code is detailed and contains a great deal of guidance in relation to many aspects of identifying and managing psychosocial hazards, including guidance on how to consult with employees about those hazards in small and large organisations.

It also contains:

• Examples of how exposure to a psychosocial hazard can lead to harm;
• Factors and a range of other guidance to consider when identifying hazards;
• A list of examples of psychosocial hazards. This list closely mirrors the list of common psychosocial hazards set out in the Model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (Code of Practice) published by Safe Work Australia in 2022, save that it specifically calls out gendered violence as a hazard and, in terms of harassment, puts specific focus on sexual harassment but not other types of workplace harassment; and
• Examples of risk controls.

Key Actions for Employers

For many employers with workers based in other Australian states and territories, it will be important to:

• Update your board and executive team about the requirements of the Regulations and the existence and content of the Compliance Code;
• Review your existing system for managing psychosocial hazards against the Regulations and the existence and content of the Compliance Code. 

For example, your system may need to be updated to ensure that existing control measures are reviewed if one of the triggering events identified in the Regulations occurs.

For employers whose workforces are limited to Victoria, the making of the Regulations and the Compliance Code are a critical development. 

Going forward, WorkSafe Victoria will expect all employers to be able to demonstrate that they have in place safety management systems which align with the new requirements and help promote compliance with those requirements. 

Given the amount of information published about the management of psychosocial hazards in recent years, including the Model Regulations and Code of Practice published by Safe Work Australia, we expect that the regulator will be looking for employers to be able to demonstrate, quickly post-1 December 2025, a good understanding of the Regulations and the Compliance Code and evidence of robust steps having been taken to ensure compliance.

It is important for employers to remember that:

• Their obligations under the Victorian Regulations and the Act are limited by the concept of reasonable practicability. In other words, it is not necessary for an employer to identify every single work task or work situation that may give rise to stressors;
• The process of identifying key psychosocial hazards needs to be informed by data; and
• When selecting the controls to address psychosocial hazards, more of the focus and effort should be directed towards hazards which have greater severity or to which workers are, or will be, exposed on a more frequent or ongoing basis.