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A Human-Centred Approach to Psychosocial Hazards

Young man in a group therapy session listening

Work in community social services involves far more than completing tasks. It requires building relationships, providing emotional and social support, responding to crises, and navigating complex systems. To sustain this work and provide quality service to communities, individuals at every level of the organization need an environment that supports and protects their wellbeing.

Whether you are a frontline worker, administrator, supervisor, manager, or executive leader, psychological safety is foundational. Creating a psychologically safe workplace requires collaboration from all levels of the organization.

This article is the first in a series exploring psychosocial hazards using WorkSafeBC’s framework.1 In this article, we:

  • Recognize psychosocial hazards through a human-centred lens
  • Examine how they show up in daily work
  • Clarify shared roles and responsibilities in preventing harm

Future articles will explore each of WorkSafeBC’s five psychosocial hazard categories in depth.

Psychosocial Hazards and Their Impact on Human Needs

Psychosocial hazards are workplace factors that may cause psychological harm. Psychological harm rarely begins with a formal complaint or incident report. It often begins quietly.

The first sign of a psychosocial hazard is frequently a negative emotional response. Frustration, withdrawal, irritability, anxiety, or disengagement are not weaknesses. They are signals and often indicate a core human need may not be fully supported.

Everyone has a different stress threshold. What feels manageable to one person may feel overwhelming to another. For this reason, it is important, whenever possible, to ask about lived experience rather than assume. At the same time, organizations do not need to wait for visible harm before reflecting.

A practical guiding question is: Which core human need may be affected by this situation?

Stress is often information that something essential is at risk. Across roles and positions; we share core human needs. These needs do not disappear when we enter the workplace. In high-stress sectors such as community social services, they become even more essential.

Core Human Needs2

  • Physical Needs: Physical wellbeing and capacity to function. This includes rest, nourishment, health, and recovery time. When unmet, the body absorbs the cost.
  • Security Needs: Sense of safety, predictability, and stability. This includes clear expectations, consistent communication, protection from harm, and freedom from retaliation.
  • Connection Needs: Belonging and relational safety. This includes trust, inclusion, mutual respect, and culturally safe connection.
  • Confidence Needs: Belief in one’s abilities. This includes autonomy, clarity in role expectations, opportunities to use skills, and having professional judgment respected.
  • Fulfillment Needs: Purpose and personal satisfaction. This includes meaningful contribution, recognition, growth, and alignment between strengths and work.

When workplace conditions repeatedly threaten these needs, psychosocial hazards emerge. Viewing psychosocial hazards through a human-centred lens strengthens formal hazard identification processes. While regulatory systems categorize hazards structurally, the human-needs perspective helps individuals and teams recognize early warning signs before harm escalates. By noticing emotional signals and identifying which needs may be affected, workplaces can respond proactively rather than reactively. Prevention becomes a shared commitment to dignity and sustainable work.

How Challenges to Human Needs Show Up at Work

Psychosocial hazards are not always dramatic or obvious. They often appear in everyday moments that gradually affects wellbeing.

Below are examples of how challenges to core needs may appear in the workplace:

  • Physical needs can be compromised when workloads, limited breaks, overtime becomes chronic, or compensation requires additional employment to meet basic living needs.
  • Security needs can be challenged when organizational changes are unclear, expectations shift unpredictably, or employees fear negative consequences for raising concerns.
  • Connection needs can be impacted when workplace culture tolerates exclusion, leaves conflict unresolved, or lacks culturally safe spaces for belonging, which over time can erode trust and collaboration.
  • Confidence needs can be affected when workers are micromanaged, excluded from decisions within their scope, or unclear about their role and expectations.
  • Fulfillment needs can be diminished when strengths are underutilized, contributions go unrecognized, or personal values feel misaligned with organizational practices.

In a high-stress environments, workers are regularly exposed to emotionally demanding situations. When core needs are supported individuals are better able to respond to those demands. When needs are repeatedly compromised, stress accumulates and capacity decreases.

Recognizing Psychosocial Hazards in Everyday Scenarios

Psychosocial hazards often manifest subtly. You may feel that something is wrong but struggle to identify why.

Consider the following scenarios and the needs that may be affected:

  • Scenario 1:
    A group of coworkers regularly go out for lunch together without inviting you.
    Needs Under Strain: Connection
  • Scenario 2:
    A coworker is on leave. You assume their responsibilities in addition to your own for an extended period.
    Needs Under Strain: Physical (fatigue), Security (unclear sustainability), and Fulfillment (reduced capacity for meaningful work)
  • Scenario 3:
    You were supporting a community member alone in their residence and later learn they previously assaulted a staff member.
    Needs Under Strain: Physical (risk of injury), Security (protection from harm), Confidence (uncertainty about procedures).
  • Scenario 4:
    You inform your supervisor that you feel unsafe working with a community member who made inappropriate comments. Your concern is dismissed when the supervisor shrugs it off, saying, “I’ve known them for years. That’s just the way they are.”
    Needs Under Strain: Security (lack of protection), Confidence (concerns not taken seriously), and Connection (lack of validation)
  • Scenario 5:
    After witnessing a traumatic incident, no structured check-in or debrief occurs.
    Needs Under Strain: Physical (lack of recovery support), Connection (absence of care), and Security (lack of support)

Individually, these situations may not seem severe. However, when left unaddressed or repeated, they accumulate and can become significant psychosocial hazards that affect your wellbeing, confidence, and ability to work safely. Pay attention to how different situations may challenge your core human needs.

Shared Responsibility for Protecting Human Needs

Psychological safety is a shared responsibility.

  • Employers: Typically, senior directors or organizational leaders with authority to set standards. They are responsible for setting standards, allocating resources, and designing systems that protect all employees’ wellbeing.
  • Managers and supervisors: Individuals who instruct and guide others to perform duties3, including team leads who may not have a formal supervisor title. They address issues, support employees, implement procedures, and ensure alignment with organizational expectations and standards.
  • Employees: Everyone in the workplace, including leaders and managers. They contribute to a respectful, safe culture and are at risk for psychosocial hazards. All employees share responsibility for identifying hazards, addressing them, and raising concerns to support one another’s well-being.
  • Joint Occupational Health & Safety Committees (JOHSC): Representatives of both employers and employees. They consult with workers, monitor risks, make recommendations, and support harm-reduction strategies.

Supporting one another is essential, particularly in sectors where resource constraints are common. Protecting human needs is not optional; it is a shared workplace responsibility that benefits everyone.

For a manger’s guide, read our article on Responding to Psychosocial Hazard Reports. 

WorkSafeBC Framework and Series Overview

WorkSafeBC groups psychosocial hazards into five categories that address workplace systems, conditions, and organizational practices. While these categories describe structural factors, each ultimately impacts one or more core human needs.

Viewing psychosocial hazards through a human-needs lens moves the conversation beyond compliance and toward prevention, dignity, and sustainable work environments.

This article is the first in our series exploring psychosocial hazards in community social services. The following articles will examine each of WorkSafeBC’s five categories in depth, including role-specific prevention strategies:

  • Article 1: Human-Centred Approach to Psychosocial Hazards
  • Article 2: Preventing Interpersonal Hazards
  • Article 3: Job Design
  • Article 4: Workplace Conditions
  • Article 5: Need for Employer Supports
  • Article 6: Exposure to Traumatic Events

Understanding psychosocial hazards is the first step. The next articles will guide you through each category and provide practical strategies to protect human needs and strengthen workplace safety.

Download our Human-centred Approach to Psychosocial Hazards quick reference guide for easy access.

References

  1. WorkSafeBC. (2024) Psychological Health and Safety: A Framework for Success.
  2. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396.
  3. WorkSafeBC. (2019) Roles, Rights & Responsibilities – WorkSafeBC.