What is Psychosocial Risk and How Can We Manage It on Mines?

If you want to guard against physical danger on a mine site, you can install a barrier or build separated roads... but how do you protect yourself from burn-out or mental illness?

Over a 12-month period, an estimated 8-10,000 mining employees (in New South Wales alone) experienced anxiety, depression or substance use disorders, with a report from the Mineral Council of Australia, placing the estimated annual costs in NSW between $320 million to $450 million.

SafeWork Australia defines psychosocial risks as ‘anything that could cause psychological harm,’ but the most common causes include bullying, harassment, unfair treatment, and exclusion. This can lead to burnout, anxiety, and depression as well as physical symptoms like a sore back and an unhealthy heart.

The very nature of mining work itself, often involving Fly-in, Fly-out (FIFO) rosters, can create risk: one third of FIFO workers (33%) reported experiencing “high” or “very high” psychological distress.

My colleagues and I at the Sustainable Mineral Institute research how risk management processes and health and safety systems are implemented in the mining and other high hazard industries, and Bowtie analysis has been used as a control analysis tool for physical hazards for about 40 years. 

The Bowtie risk assessment diagram takes its name from the shape created when consideration is given to the causes of an unwanted event, the “knot” or centre of the bowtie and the potential consequences. The tool allows for a visual representation of prevention controls (on the left-hand side to prevent the knot from occurring in the first place) and mitigation controls (on the right-hand side to prevent the consequences from occurring afterwards).

We use the Bowtie as a tool to break down psychosocial hazards and to understand how we prevent that incident, that loss of control and the consequences from occurring.

We already teach Bowtie facilitation courses around the country, so our opportunity is that in the same way that mine safety managers already use Bowties to think about preventing physical hazards, they can do the same to prevent, mitigate and reduce psychosocial risk.