ISO 45003
Also known as: ISO 45003:2021
ISO 45003:2021 is the international guidance standard for managing psychosocial risk within an ISO 45001 OHSMS. It is a guideline (not a certifiable standard) and was the first global ISO standard to address psychosocial hazards in occupational safety terms.
Legal context
ISO 45003 was published in June 2021 as a guidance standard to sit alongside ISO 45001. It defines psychosocial risk as risks to health from psychosocial hazards — work organisation, social factors at work, and the work environment, equipment and hazardous tasks. It maps the OHSMS clause structure onto psychosocial-specific examples and controls: leadership behaviours, worker participation in psychosocial risk identification, hazard categories (work organisation, work demands, social factors, work environment), control hierarchy, monitoring (engagement / sick-leave / incident data) and review. In Australia, the model Code of Practice "Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work" (Safe Work Australia, 2022) aligns to ISO 45003 and is referenced by all model jurisdictions.
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Related terms
Psychosocial hazard
A psychosocial hazard is a hazard that may cause psychological or physical harm and arises from how work is designed, organised and managed, or from the social context of work. Examples include high job demands, low job control, poor support, role conflict, exposure to traumatic events, harassment and bullying.
ISO 45001
ISO 45001:2018 is the international standard for occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS). It uses the Annex SL high-level structure shared with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, organised around Plan-Do-Check-Act and 10 clauses from context (4) through improvement (10).
Positive duty (sexual harassment)
The "positive duty" is the obligation under s47C of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) for employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, hostile workplace environments and victimisation. It is proactive — duty-holders must prevent harm, not just respond after it.
EAP
An Employee Assistance Program is a confidential counselling and short-term-support service provided to workers (and often their immediate family) by an external provider. EAP access is the most common mental-health control in Australian workplaces and a near-baseline requirement for psychosocial risk management.
Platform pillars
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47 WHS and HSWA terms with legal context, FAQs and regulator references.