Annick Rogiers  Founder, Sustainable Wellbeing Solutions - Connecting Psychological Safety, Psychosocial Risk and Organisational Practice

How should psychosocial risk be governed?

At corporate level, effective governance of psychosocial risk requires clear responsibility, appropriate authority, and organisational structures that keep it visible when strategic decisions are made. Without those three, governance remains a paper reality.

This matters most under pressure. During restructuring, crisis, sustained workload, public scrutiny or operational disruption, decision-making accelerates, tolerance for ambiguity decreases, and the human impact of organisational decisions intensifies. Those are precisely the moments when governance proves itself — or doesn't.

Why is psychosocial risk a governance blind spot?

If psychosocial risk has no clear place within governance structures, it does not disappear. It moves.

Responsibility shifts downward: into teams, individual leaders and informal coping mechanisms. Early signals stay local. Responsibility becomes personalised. And organisational attention only increases once harm or disruption has already become visible.

Blind spots don't exist because organisations don't care. They exist because responsibility, authority and visibility have not been sufficiently defined.

Where do organisations misread the challenge?

Organisations misread it when the response is another initiative, tool, policy or training programme — while the underlying governance question remains unanswered: who is responsible for psychosocial risk at corporate level, and do they have the authority to act?

Without an explicit answer, even well-intended actions depend on personal commitment, local leadership or temporary organisational attention. When pressure rises or priorities shift, that creates a vulnerability. Not through neglect, but through ambiguity.

From blind spot to governance positioning

Closing this blind spot does not begin with another policy. It begins by positioning psychosocial risk as a governance issue that needs to be visible, owned, discussed and reviewed alongside other organisational risks.

Before organisations determine indicators, reporting structures or interventions, more fundamental questions need answering:

• Who holds responsibility for psychosocial risk?
• Who has the authority to make decisions when concerns emerge?
• Where can information be escalated when normal reporting lines are part of the concern?
• Who connects information across HR, HSE, leadership, risk and governance?
• Who determines whether organisational responses have been effective?
• What happens when difficult information challenges existing power or decisions?

These are not policy questions. They are questions of organisational capability.

Six principles for stronger governance

1. A broad, integrated approach Psychosocial risk should not be reduced to individual resilience, wellbeing interventions or isolated incidents. A broader perspective considers the conditions in which work is designed, managed and experienced — and how leadership, systems and organisational decisions influence risk.

2. Internal ownership and support Responsibility needs to be explicit. When everyone assumes someone else owns psychosocial risk, accountability becomes diffuse. Organisations need clarity about where responsibility sits, how different functions contribute, and who has the authority to act.

3. Context-specific practice Generic solutions provide structure, but they do not automatically address the organisation's actual risk landscape. Governance needs to reflect organisational context, workforce characteristics, work design, operational realities and the psychosocial hazards that may be present.

4. A long-term perspective Psychosocial risk management cannot depend solely on responding after problems become visible. A stronger approach creates the conditions to identify risk, review controls, learn from organisational experience and adapt as circumstances change.

5. Participation and dialogue Employees and organisational functions need meaningful ways to contribute information about how work is experienced. But participation alone is not sufficient. The organisational test is what happens to that information once it enters the system: can it travel upward? Can different signals be connected? Can difficult information influence decisions?

6. Relevant expertise Internal and external expertise can help organisations challenge assumptions and identify practices that may otherwise become normalised. This matters most where established ways of working make it difficult to recognise emerging risks or question existing practice.

Together, these six address one deeper governance challenge: how does an organisation ensure that responsibility for psychosocial risk remains visible, connected and actionable?

From governance principles to organisational capability

These are not six isolated actions. A broad approach without ownership remains abstract. Participation without organisational response loses impact. Long-term ambition without governance fades when priorities change. And responsibility without authority exists on paper without functioning in practice.

Effective governance therefore requires psychosocial risk to become:

• visible where strategic decisions are made
• connected across organisational functions
• owned rather than informally delegated
• supported by appropriate authority
• reviewed rather than assumed
• capable of influencing organisational decisions
• strengthened through learning and adaptation

Governance must work when conditions become difficult

Governance is not demonstrated only when organisational systems operate under normal conditions. Its capability becomes visible when circumstances become difficult.

When pressure increases. When information is uncomfortable. When responsibilities overlap. When interests conflict. When leadership itself forms part of the concern. Or when acting carries organisational consequences.

The stronger question is therefore not: does the organisation have a governance process for psychosocial risk? It is: can that governance process still function when conditions become difficult?

That is where governance connects directly with leadership and accountability within The Organisational Capability Framework™.

Knowing who is responsible is only the beginning. What matters is whether the organisation creates the conditions in which responsibility can become meaningful action.

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