The employer's guide to workplace hearing tests

Why one claim follows you for three years

If your average performance premium (APP) is over $30,000, icare classes you as an experience-rated employer, and your claims history directly changes what you pay. Employers under that threshold are small employers, and their premium is not directly affected by claims costs.

At each renewal, icare divides your premium-impacting claims costs for the previous three years by your APP for the same three years. That figure, your Claims Performance Measure, is then compared with a scheme-wide benchmark to decide whether your premium gets a loading or a discount.

Note: Because the calculation draws on three years of history, a claim lodged this year can influence your premium at each of your next three renewals, not just the next one.

Source: icare, Premium calculation for experience-rated employers; SIRA, Premium calculation.

What a loading looks like on a renewal

icare's own sample renewal pack shows how quickly claims costs add up. The sample employer's premium-impacting claims costs over three years came to 10% of its APP, against a scheme benchmark of 4.3%. That put its Claims Performance Rate at 232.56%, and its premium was adjusted by a factor of 1.605, around 60% above its average performance premium.

icare's worked example of an employer with no claims experience shows the opposite effect, with a 7.5% discount taking a $99,200 APP down to $91,760.

Chart: Premium adjustment by claims performance, icare examples

• No claims experience: 7.5% below APP
• Claims costs 2.3 times the scheme benchmark: around 60% above APP

Source: icare, Renewal premium information pack; icare, Premium calculation for experience-rated employers. The 60% figure is Actevate's calculation from icare's adjustment factor.

Info: Not every dollar spent on a claim counts towards your premium. Costs that do count include weekly compensation, permanent impairment and commutation payments.

Note: icare caps how far an experience-rated employer's premium rate can move in a single year, so a large loading can be spread across more than one renewal.

Why a psychological injury claim weighs so much more

• 34.8 weeks median time off work for a mental health claim, compared with 7.0 weeks for other serious claims
• $68,600 median compensation paid, compared with $16,100 for other serious claims
• 17,900 serious mental health claims in 2024-25, or 12.2% of all serious claims
• 169% increase in these claims since 2014-15

Source: Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026. Time lost and compensation are for 2023-24, the most recent finalised year.

Weekly compensation is one of the costs that feeds the premium calculation, so a claim with almost five times the time off carries far more weight in your Claims Performance Measure. At the national medians, a single mental health claim attracts more compensation than four other serious claims combined.

For an experience-rated employer with a clean record, that single claim can be the difference between a discount and a loading for three renewals in a row.

Tip: Ask icare for your cost of claims report and check which open claims are still paying weekly compensation. Those are the claims that will shape your next three renewals, and the ones where return to work support has the most value.

The hazard that rarely gets attention: organisational justice

Safe Work Australia defines poor organisational justice as a lack of procedural justice, such as fair decision-making processes, or of informational fairness, such as keeping everyone up to date and in the loop. It becomes a hazard when it is severe, prolonged or frequent, and it sits in the Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice alongside better-known hazards like job demands and low job control.

The research linking fairness at work to absence is strong. A prospective study of 3,773 hospital employees in Finland found that low justice in decision-making procedures was associated with a 41% higher risk of sickness absence in men, and found no evidence that the link ran the other way, from poor health to perceptions of unfairness. A 2022 narrative review of 103 studies found the evidence that perceptions of workplace justice predict mental health and lower sickness absence to be relatively compelling.

Source: Safe Work Australia, Poor organisational justice; Kivimäki et al., Organisational justice and health of employees: prospective cohort study, Occupational and Environmental Medicine; Narrative review of organisational justice and health, 2022.

Where it shows up in claims

Harassment or workplace bullying caused 31.6% of serious mental stress claims in 2024-25, and work pressure caused 26.5%. In our experience, how fairly a bullying complaint is investigated and how workloads are shared out are often what decides whether a conflict stays a workplace issue or becomes a claim.

Safe Work Australia also notes that hazards combine. Poor organisational justice can create a higher risk in workplaces with low role clarity, where it isn't clear who should be making decisions.

Tip: Look for the early signs Safe Work Australia lists, such as gossip about decisions, unresolved issues or divisions among workers. Then check whether rosters and complaint outcomes are decided consistently, and whether workers are told how those decisions are made.

Protecting your premium starts before a claim

The three-year window works in both directions. Every renewal without a premium-impacting claim moves an older claim out of the calculation, and every claim kept short limits how much it adds.

• Check which past claims drop out of the calculation at your next renewal, so you can forecast your premium rather than be surprised by it.
• Act in the first weeks of a claim, because fewer than half of claimants are back at work within four weeks and another 22.7% return between week 4 and week 13. Early contact and suitable duties in that window keep a claim from becoming a long one.
• Put organisational justice on your risk register with a control and a review date, the same as any other psychosocial hazard, rather than leaving it as an HR matter.

Source: Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026, return to work insights from workers compensation data.

Note: This article explains the NSW scheme run by icare. Victoria, Queensland and the other states use their own premium formulas, though most also factor in claims history for larger employers.

How Actevate can help

Actevate supports employers across the whole employee lifecycle. Our pre-employment health assessments match workers to the demands of their role, our return to work services help injured workers recover and return sooner, and our mental health training and Employee Assistance Program help you manage psychosocial risk before it becomes a claim. To talk through your claims history and what it means for your premium, call 1300 663 155 or get in touch.

Sources

• icare, Premium calculation for experience-rated employers
• icare, Renewal premium information pack
• SIRA, Premium calculation
• GIO, How do claim costs impact my premium?
• Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026
• Safe Work Australia, Poor organisational justice
• Kivimäki et al., Organisational justice and health of employees: prospective cohort study, Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• Narrative review of organisational justice and health, 2022

Disclaimer

This article is general information only and does not constitute legal, insurance or health and safety advice. Premium calculations depend on your policy, industry classification and claims history, so speak to your insurer about your own premium. icare examples are illustrative and may not reflect current rates. Figures marked as calculated are Actevate's own analysis. icare and Safe Work Australia have not reviewed or endorsed this article.

What the Code of Practice means by fatigue

The Code of Practice describes fatigue as a state of physical, mental or emotional impairment. It is more than tiredness. Fatigue can be short term or long term, and it builds when demands stay high without recovery.

Note: In NSW, fatigue is addressed under role overload and workload management in the psychosocial framework. It now also has its own approved Code of Practice, covered below.

What the numbers show and what NSW now expects

• 12.4% of Australian workers work 50 or more hours a week, and some work more than 80
• 46% of workers in mining work more than 50 hours a week, the highest of any industry
• Workers with long hours are more likely to face other psychosocial hazards, such as role overload and emotional demands

Source: Safe Work Australia, fatigue infographic, using ABS Census 2021 and People at Work survey data.

Fatigue is also a safety risk. It reduces alertness, slows reaction times and impairs judgement. The risk is highest for workers who drive, operate machinery or do safety-critical tasks, and it includes the drive home after a long shift.

In February 2026, NSW approved a dedicated Code of Practice, Managing the risk of fatigue at work, based on Safe Work Australia's national model Code. Under section 26A of the WHS Act, which took effect in NSW on 1 July 2026, a business must manage the risks covered by an approved code to a standard equal to or higher than the code.

In our recent technical briefing on the new NSW psychosocial risk laws (watch the replay here), workplace lawyer James Mattson said businesses now need to go through approved codes "with a fine tooth comb", and he named fatigue alongside psychosocial hazards.

Info: The right to disconnect now applies to all national system employees. It began in August 2024 for businesses with 15 or more employees and on 26 August 2025 for small businesses. Employees can refuse to monitor, read or respond to out-of-hours contact unless the refusal is unreasonable.

What fatigue looks like

Fatigued workers may be yawning, making mistakes, or appearing irritable or forgetful.

Signs and symptoms to look out for

• Trouble concentrating or making decisions
• Poor memory and slower reactions
• Low motivation and less interest in work they used to enjoy
• Headaches, dizziness, blurred vision and more frequent illness
• Arriving late or more unplanned absences

Common causes

• Long overtime hours, on-call duties and too few breaks
• Poor sleep and ongoing work stress
• Time pressure and a lack of resources to do the job
• Blurred boundaries between work and home
• Shift work without recovery time, including consecutive night shifts
• Intense, sustained focus without a pause
• High mental, physical or emotional demands, and other psychosocial hazards
• Environmental conditions such as extreme temperatures, poor lighting and vibration

Who is most at risk

• Shift and night workers
• Emergency services and frontline health workers
• Workers on long rosters, overtime or on-call duties
• Workers with long commutes, especially after a shift

Fatigue, stress and burnout

Some pressure at work is normal. The risk comes from high demands without enough recovery time. Over time, this leads to fatigue and burnout.

Psychologist Kelly Hunt, who presented at our technical briefing, drew the link to workload directly: "It's the constant and excessive high workload that will then lead to fatigue, which is another one under this code."

Early warning signs of fatigue in your team

Kelly's case study showed how fatigue can build without anyone noticing. Kevin, a long-serving manager, "used to have a great work-life balance", but under sustained stress he couldn't sleep and would "work all through the night" to show his managers he was trying. The emails he sent at three or four o'clock in the morning were one of the clearest signs.

Behaviour change

• Emails or messages sent late at night or very early in the morning
• Mistakes, missed deadlines or disorganisation from someone who was previously reliable
• Irritability, forgetfulness or withdrawal from the team

Organisational data

• Overtime hours and timesheets that keep climbing
• Leave balances building up because people aren't taking time off
• Rising sick leave, absenteeism, near misses and incidents

Tip: Kelly's advice is to respond directly when you see after-hours emails. Ask, "What's going on? Why do you feel the need to send an email at 3 o'clock in the morning?" Then monitor whether it becomes an ongoing pattern.

Practical ways to manage fatigue

Review rosters and hours

Ensure adequate rest between shifts, limit excessive overtime, and rotate demanding tasks to give recovery time. SafeWork NSW also recommends reviewing rosters, timesheets, near misses and incident reports with your workers, and avoiding pay or other incentives that reward excessive hours.

Design safer schedules

Avoid back-to-back night shifts or very long shifts, and use job rotation so the same person isn't always doing the most tiring tasks. Where night work is needed, use forward-rotating shifts, keep complex and safety-critical tasks away from likely fatigue periods, and allow recovery time after a run of night shifts.

Note: The NSW fatigue Code says caffeine and other stimulants should not be relied on as a control. Workplace napping can support other controls, but it should not be the only one.

Promote recovery

Encourage micro-breaks (brief pauses to rest eyes or stretch), and make sure team members take their leave and time off to recharge. When leaders model the right to disconnect, staff feel able to follow it.

Workers can support their own recovery too. A consistent sleep routine, time away from screens before bed and regular movement during the day all help.

Consult and write it down

Talk with workers about the hazards that lead to fatigue before rosters are finalised. A fatigue policy is not mandatory, but SafeWork NSW recommends developing one with your workers. It should cover responsibilities, excessive hours, fitness for work and how to report fatigue.

Tip: Ask your managers one question this week: on average, how many extra hours are people in your teams working each week?

A five-minute fatigue check for managers

Run through these questions for your team:

• Has anyone worked long or back-to-back shifts this month without a proper recovery break?
• Are the same people always covering nights, call-outs or the most demanding tasks?
• Is anyone sending emails or messages well outside their normal hours?
• When did each person last take annual leave?

An uncomfortable answer to any of these is a reason to review that roster and talk with the person, not a reason to wait for the next incident.

How Actevate can help

Our mental health training helps managers recognise early warning signs and handle the conversations that follow, and our Employee Assistance Program gives your people access to qualified clinicians who understand your business.

If you would like to talk through fatigue or other psychosocial risks in your workplace, request a callback and our team will be in touch to book a time to meet.

Sources

• Safe Work Australia, fatigue infographic
• SafeWork NSW, Code of Practice: Managing the risk of fatigue at work (February 2026)
• SafeWork NSW, Fatigue: employer responsibilities
• Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice (February 2026)
• Fair Work Ombudsman, right to disconnect for small business employees
• Actevate, New NSW Psychosocial Risk Laws technical briefing

Disclaimer

This article is general information only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Obtain independent advice specific to your organisation before acting on any information presented.

The review at a glance

Safe Work Australia released the final report of its Best Practice Review of the model WHS laws in October 2026, with 21 recommendations to strengthen and modernise them. It is the first national review of the model laws since 2018, and it examined how states and territories have varied the laws as well as the findings of recent government reviews and inquiries.

Source: Safe Work Australia, Best Practice Review of the model WHS laws, final report, October 2026.

Note: Each recommendation takes effect only if WHS ministers agree and each state and territory then amends its own legislation. Even if the model laws change, how and when each jurisdiction follows is still uncertain, and Victoria sits outside the model framework, so the changes would not flow directly into Victorian law.

Even so, the report is the clearest signal in years of where regulators expect employers to be heading, particularly on psychosocial risk.

The big picture

The review found that harmonisation still has broad support across industry, unions and regulators, and credits it with contributing to the fall in workplace fatalities since 2012. It also found the job is unfinished, recording growing frustration that the states have drifted further apart, with more differences between jurisdictions every year. Its overarching recommendations are:

• A renewed national commitment to harmonisation, with a clearer and more transparent process for managing future state variations
• A National Compliance and Enforcement Policy to make enforcement more consistent and predictable, backed by an annual scorecard of how each jurisdiction varies from the model laws
• Dedicated national strategies for the risks the review expects to reshape work: artificial intelligence and digital technology, climate change, and harmful workplace behaviours, including harassment, violence and racism
• A more modern framework where current protections are falling short, including in high-risk industries, in worker consultation and through practical, industry-based Codes of Practice

Info: An annual scorecard would make differences between jurisdictions far more visible. For employers working across several states, that points towards a more consistent standard everywhere they operate.

Psychosocial risk moves into the core of WHS duty

For the employers we work with, this is the part of the review that matters most. Mental health conditions made up 12.2% of serious workers compensation claims in 2024-25, with a median of 34.8 weeks off work, and the review proposes treating the hazards behind those claims the same way as any physical risk. Our breakdown of Safe Work Australia's 2026 claims data has the full picture.

Harmful behaviour would become an express safety duty

Almost 20,000 workers compensation claims in 2023-24 were linked to harmful workplace behaviours, and the review notes this is likely only a fraction of the true number. It recommends amending the primary duty of care in section 19 of the model WHS Act to make clear it covers managing the risks from harmful behaviours such as bullying, harassment, occupational violence, racism and other forms of discrimination.

In practice, these behaviours would stop being only an HR matter. They would need to be identified, assessed and controlled through your WHS system, with the same records you keep for a physical hazard. Naming them in the primary duty also gives regulators a clearer path to enforce the psychosocial risk regulations, and to prosecute where risk management falls short.

Note: The 20,000 figure is drawn from the review report and covers claims linked to harmful behaviours in 2023-24. Because many incidents never become a claim, the review treats it as an undercount.

The hierarchy of controls would apply to psychosocial risk

The structured approach used for physical risks would apply to psychological ones, and the risk management process would be written into the model WHS Act so it clearly covers all work. Some jurisdictions already take this approach.

For most employers, this is the biggest shift. Support such as an Employee Assistance Program and training will remain essential, and they will need to sit alongside evidence that each hazard has been assessed and the work designed to reduce it, from workloads and rostering to role clarity and how customer aggression is handled.

Tip: Map each psychosocial hazard on your register to the full set of controls you rely on for it, from how the work is designed to the support available to your people. Any hazard managed with a single control is the place to strengthen first.

New rules on violence, harassment and facilities

New model regulations are proposed on preventing work-related violence and harassment, including gender-related violence, and on access to facilities, including female-designated toilets. Customer-facing and frontline workforces, from health care to retail and transport, should expect specific, enforceable obligations rather than general guidance.

Limits on non-disclosure agreements

The model WHS Act would be amended to limit NDAs that stop a worker from raising a WHS concern, making a complaint to a regulator or taking part in a WHS investigation. The change follows Victoria's Restricting Non-disclosure Agreements (Sexual Harassment at Work) Act 2025.

Confidentiality has long been a standard part of settling harassment claims, so this is a real change in practice. Privacy and a victim-led approach still matter, but regulators expect the underlying risk to be visible and managed, not closed off by an agreement. Settlement and confidentiality templates may need rewording so they can't be read as silencing a worker on safety.

Consultation and representation

Stronger roles for HSRs and committees

Changes are proposed to health and safety representative elections, powers, functions and training, to health and safety committees and consultation processes, to the right to cease unsafe work and to union right of entry. Consultation would become much harder to treat as a formality.

Tip: Check your HSRs are elected, trained and involved in decisions about psychosocial risk, not just physical hazards. Their input is often the earliest sign that work pressure is building in a team.

A WHS Information Statement for every worker

Employers would give workers a statement setting out the fundamentals of WHS, modelled on the Fair Work Information Statement, with a separate version for small business owners. Expect it to become part of standard onboarding, alongside your pre-employment and induction processes.

New and emerging hazards

The review recommends a dedicated Safe Work Australia strategy for each of the risks it expects to reshape work, so employers can expect more targeted guidance, and in some areas new regulations, over the next few years.

Climate-related regulations

New model regulations are proposed for extreme heat, air quality and vector-borne diseases, supported by ongoing monitoring and research. Employers with outdoor, remote or non-air-conditioned workforces would need documented controls for each, and matching workers to the physical demands of hot environments becomes a bigger part of hiring and return to work planning.

A national approach to AI and digital technology

The review notes that the current WHS laws already apply to AI-powered systems. It stops short of adding the digital work system duty that NSW introduced into its WHS Act in February 2026. Instead, Safe Work Australia would monitor how the existing laws apply and introduce new regulations, Codes of Practice or amendments only where it finds gaps.

For employers, that means AI tools are already inside your WHS duty today. Digital rostering, performance monitoring and workload tools can create work pressure of their own, so they belong in your psychosocial risk assessment now, and NSW employers have a specific duty to meet.

Codes of Practice and compliance

Codes of Practice as a safe harbour

An employer that complies with a Code of Practice would be taken to have met its duty on the matters the Code covers. New industry Codes are planned, starting with retail, education and training, agriculture and construction, alongside more support and guidance for small business, including dedicated toolkits. Model Codes could also become national Codes that apply automatically once WHS ministers agree to them.

That makes the Codes your clearest defence. Closing the gaps between your procedures and the Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code is the most practical place to start.

Changes to reviews and infringement notices

The time to seek an internal review of a regulator's decision would be extended from 14 to 21 calendar days, with further extension by agreement with the regulator. Workers, HSRs and unions involved in a matter would gain standing in external reviews, and failing to pay a WHS infringement notice would become an offence. A nationally consistent infringement notice scheme would also be developed.

Officers, boards and prosecutions

WHS prosecutions already end in a financial penalty almost every time, and the average penalty reached a record $147,985 in 2025, as our analysis of the prosecutions data shows. Three changes would raise the stakes for leaders further.

No insurance for prosecution legal fees

Insurance contracts and indemnities could no longer cover the legal fees of anyone prosecuted for a WHS offence. This could be one of the most significant changes for leaders, because officers would carry their own defence costs. Boards should review their insurance and indemnity arrangements and make sure every officer understands what the change would mean personally.

Anyone could bring a prosecution

General standing would allow any person or organisation, such as a union, to bring a WHS prosecution where the regulator has decided not to, informed by the NSW and New Zealand approaches. A regulator's decision not to act would no longer be the end of the matter.

Penalties scaled to the size of the business

Safe Work Australia is also reviewing how the current penalty scheme applies to corporations, drawing on recent updates to Commonwealth civil penalty regimes. The aim is to give courts more flexibility to set penalties according to the size of the business, so that WHS risk carries the same weight in the boardroom as other business priorities.

Tip: Officers have a personal duty to exercise due diligence. Ask for evidence that the controls for your critical risks work on the ground, not only a report that they exist.

Other changes still in train

Amendments to the model WHS Act announced last year, including significant changes to incident notification requirements, are yet to be enacted. Separately, the Australian Government announced in May 2026 that all mandatory Australian Standards, including WHS standards, will be made free to access. Between those changes and this review, WHS law is set to keep moving for some time.

What happens next

The recommendations will now go through Safe Work Australia's tripartite Member process, where representatives of governments, employers and workers assess and consult on them. Any changes that are agreed would then be considered and implemented by the Commonwealth, states and territories in their own laws, on their own timelines. We will update this article as that process moves forward.

Our take

Read alongside this year's claims and prosecutions data, the review confirms what we are already seeing with clients. Psychosocial risk is moving out of HR policy and into the core of WHS duty, the hierarchy of controls will be the test, and leaders will be held more personally accountable for whether controls work.

The recommendations still have a long way to go, but employers who start now won't be scrambling once their state adopts them. Where we would start:

• Map every psychosocial hazard on your register to the controls you rely on, and strengthen any that depend on a single measure
• Compare your procedures with the Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code and close the gaps
• Review settlement and confidentiality templates so none could stop someone raising a safety concern
• Brief your board on the proposed insurance change and what evidence of due diligence it would expect to see

How Actevate can help

Actevate helps employers identify and control psychosocial risk across the whole employee lifecycle. Our mental health training builds managers' confidence to act early, our Employee Assistance Program supports your people, and our pre-employment health assessments match workers to the demands of their role. To talk through what the review means for your workplace, call 1300 663 155 or get in touch.

Sources

• Safe Work Australia, Best Practice Review of the model WHS laws, final report, October 2026
• Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026
• Safe Work Australia, WHS prosecutions dashboard

Disclaimer

This article is general information only and does not constitute legal or health and safety advice. The Best Practice Review recommendations described are proposals and are not yet law, and they may change as they are assessed and consulted on. Safe Work Australia has not reviewed or endorsed this article. Please refer to the original report and seek advice on your specific situation before acting.