Trauma is the psychological harm that may result from witnessing or experiencing a distressing or frightening event.
Traumatic events
Traumatic events or materials may include:
- witnessing or investigating a death, serious injury, abuse, neglect or other serious incidents
- sexual harassment or assault
- being exposed to extreme risks and natural disasters (e.g. such as emergency responders)
- supporting individuals who have experienced painful or traumatic events, including suicidal behaviour or acts of violence and aggression
- listening to or viewing traumatic materials such as victim testimonies or evidence of a crime
- encountering situations that trigger or bring back traumatic memories.
An event is more likely to be traumatic when it happens unexpectedly, feels outside a person’s control or involves intentional cruelty. Traumatic events or materials become a hazard when exposure is severe, prolonged or frequent.
People respond to trauma differently. Some feel the effects right away while for others the impacts surface later. Traumatic events can shape how someone thinks, feels, behaves and how safe they feel.
Identifying and assessing risks from traumatic events or materials
As a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), you must determine whether psychosocial hazards, including exposure to traumatic events or materials, exist in your workplace. You may do this by:
- Consulting with workers: workers may describe hazards in different ways such as feeling stressed, upset, anxious, on edge, burnt out, helpless or having difficulty sleeping.
- Using surveys or tools: these can support better engagement by allowing anonymous responses, making consultation easier for large or multi site workplaces, giving workers time to reflect on questions, and improving accessibility.
- Observing work and behaviours: such as tasks taking longer than usual, increased mistakes or reduced empathy may relate to exposure to traumatic events or materials.
- Reviewing available information: such as records of overtime, leave, injuries, incidents or workers’ compensation. You are probably already aware, through existing reporting, if workers are exposed to traumatic events (whether regularly or occasionally).
- Providing clear reporting pathways and encouraging reporting: taking workers’ concerns seriously and responding respectfully helps to build trust and promotes early reporting.
- Identifying other hazards and considering how they interact: multiple hazards can combine to create, change or increase risks, e.g. exposure to traumatic events or materials may lead to higher risks in environments with high job demands.
- Considering duration, frequency and severity of exposure: longer, more frequent or more severe exposure to traumatic events or materials increases the risk of harm.
Control measures for traumatic events or materials
Psychosocial risks must be eliminated wherever possible. If elimination is not reasonably practicable, the risks must be minimised so far as is reasonably practicable. Suitable control measures could include:
- reducing exposure to traumatic events (e.g. sending only essential personnel to a disaster site)
- flagging or password protecting files that contain distressing material to prevent accidental viewing
- preventing unnecessary exposure to traumatic content (e.g. authorising online moderators to remove users following a single serious breach thus reducing the need to review all distressing material)
- limiting exposure to the traumatic events or materials a worker is exposed to by rotating tasks among team members
- allowing recovery time, additional breaks and support for workers exposed to traumatic events or materials
- providing training on how to respond to incidents to reduce the number of decisions workers must make under pressure (e.g. procedures for bank or retail staff during an armed robbery)
- informing job applicants about the nature of the role and any potential exposure to trauma while on the job.
Reviewing control measures
Review your control measures regularly to ensure they are effective. Consult with workers to see what controls are working and whether any need to be adjusted.
Trauma informed approaches to workplace incidents
Traumatic events at work can significantly affect a person’s psychological health and sense of safety, which can influence their ability to perform in their job.
How an organisation responds to a potentially traumatic event can either support recovery or unintentionally cause further harm. Inappropriate or insensitive responses may increase the risk of re traumatisation, particularly during incident reporting, investigation processes or a worker’s return to the workplace.
Using a trauma informed approach helps reduce these risks by ensuring that communication, procedures and decision making prioritise the affected worker’s wellbeing. It also supports compliance with the Work Health and Safety Act 2020.
What organisations should consider
The aim of a trauma informed approach is to reduce the chance of harm. This includes not making current trauma symptoms worse or triggering past trauma again (often called “re traumatisation”).
When responding to a potentially traumatic event in the workplace, a trauma informed approach may involve:
- responding promptly and sensitively when a potentially traumatic event occurs
- minimising unnecessary retelling of the incident
- providing safe, appropriate spaces for communication
- ensuring confidentiality
- supporting workers’ individual needs during incident response and recovery.
Read the Trauma-informed approaches to workplace incident response and investigation: Information sheet for guidance on the application of trauma-informed approaches to minimise the risk of harm when responding to workplace incidents, including investigations.