Psychosocial health benchmarking campaign
Understanding psychosocial hazards in Australia's offshore energy industry
Protecting worker mental health and wellbeing is a NOPSEMA National Priority. To support this priority, NOPSEMA is conducting an industry-wide benchmarking campaign to better understand the psychosocial hazards experienced by workers in Australia's offshore energy industry. The campaign will collect anonymous survey responses from workers across NOPSEMA-regulated offshore facilities to help identify common hazards, emerging trends and opportunities for improvement across the sector.
About the campaign
Why is NOPSEMA conducting this campaign?
Psychosocial hazards are aspects of work that can cause psychological or physical harm. Examples include:
- high job demands
- remote or isolated work
- bullying and harassment
- workplace conflict
- poor organisational change management
- inadequate role clarity.
Recent changes to offshore work health and safety legislation require psychosocial hazards to be managed in the same way as physical hazards. This benchmarking campaign will help NOPSEMA better understand psychosocial risks across the offshore industry and assist both regulators and duty holders to improve worker health and wellbeing.
How the campaign works
Industry-wide worker survey
NOPSEMA will conduct an anonymous and voluntary worker survey across all manned facilities within NOPSEMA's jurisdiction.
The survey:
- uses a validated psychosocial risk assessment tool developed by Australian WHS regulators
- measures recognised psychosocial hazards referenced in the Model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work by Safe Work Australia
- collects standardised information from workers across the industry
- allows comparison of trends across different facility types and operators
- does not collect names or personal identifiers.
- only collects quantitative data and cannot record any free text. It cannot be used to report specific psychosocial incidents such as bullying.
Survey deployment
When will the survey be available?
The survey will be open from:
11 January 2027 to 5 March 2027
This allows workers across a range of rosters and swings the opportunity to participate.
Which facilities are included?
The survey will be available at all manned NOPSEMA-regulated facilities, including:
- Floating Production Storage and Offloading facilities (FPSOs)
- Production platforms
- Offshore vessels
- Mobile Offshore Drilling Units (MODUs)
The survey will be deployed remotely at all manned NOPSEMA-regulated facilities during the same survey period (11 January 2027 to 5 March 2027).
Who can participate?
The survey is available to all workers located on participating facilities during the survey period.
This includes:
- employees
- contractors
- labour hire personnel
- service providers
- other personnel working offshore.
Participation is entirely voluntary. Workers are strongly encouraged to respond to capture an accurate snapshot of the types of psychosocial hazards that workers are exposed to.
How workers access the survey
The survey is not available through a public website link as it is only open to workers on NOPSEMA-regulated facilities from 11 Jan – 5 March 2027.
Workers can access the survey by:
- Looking for campaign posters and promotional materials on their facility.
- Scanning the facility-specific QR code displayed on those materials.
- Completing the survey online.
Each participating facility will have its own unique QR code. Promotional materials containing the QR codes will be displayed throughout the survey period.
Protecting privacy and confidentiality
NOPSEMA is committed to protecting the privacy of survey participants.
Key privacy protections include:
- no names are collected
- individual responses remain anonymous
- raw survey responses will not be provided to operators
- results will only be reported in aggregated form
- facility-level reports will only be produced where sufficient responses exist to protect anonymity
- information that could identify an individual worker will not be published or disclosed.
How survey results will be used
Survey results will be used to:
- build an evidence base on psychosocial hazards in offshore workplaces
- identify common hazards and emerging industry trends
- inform future regulatory initiatives and guidance
- support continuous improvement across the offshore industry.
NOPSEMA intends to publish an industry-level report summarising aggregated findings following completion of the campaign. Where response rates permit, participating operators may also receive summary information about their facility.
Further guidance
Managing psychosocial risks
Guidance for duty holders and workers is available in:
Psychosocial risk management in the offshore energy industry
Preventing sexual harassment in the offshore energy industry
NOPSEMA National Priorities
Frequently asked questions
NOPSEMA is conducting the survey to better understand psychosocial hazards across the offshore energy industry and support improvements to worker health and wellbeing.
No. Participation is voluntary.
Any worker on a participating FPSO, vessel, platform or MODU during the survey period.
By scanning the unique QR code displayed on posters and promotional materials at your facility.
No. The survey is only accessible through facility-specific QR codes.
Approximately 10 minutes.
Yes. Names are not collected and individual responses are not shared with operators.
The three demographic questions (covering gender and employment type) are to assist in establishing industry trends offshore. Trends between different groups will only be provided if there are enough responses to protect the privacy of those who respond.
No. Operators will not receive individual responses or raw data. If there are sufficient survey responses at a facility (at least 20 people and more than 50% of the average workforce during the survey period), NOPSEMA will provide a summary to the operator.
NOPSEMA will analyse aggregated results to identify trends and prepare industry benchmarking information. This report will be shared publicly in mid-2027.
No. The survey uses standardised questions and is not designed to record details of individual incidents, complaints or investigations. If you have concerns about a specific psychosocial hazard at work or an incident relating to sexual harassment, bullying or harassment at the facility, this should be reported using workplace mechanisms. If you have reported a psychosocial issue at work and believe the duty holder has not taken reasonably practicable steps to manage the risk after this was reported, please contact NOPSEMA at 1300 674 472.
This is an independent regulator-led survey using a nationally recognised assessment tool. The purpose is to benchmark psychosocial hazards across the offshore industry rather than assess organisational culture within a single company. See below for further detail:
| NOPSEMA benchmarking campaign | Employee engagement / workforce survey |
| Measures specific work design factors like job demands, low job control, poor support, and bullying that can cause psychological or physical harm | Measures general employee morale, leadership perception, engagement, corporate value and broad employee sentiment, |
| Runs 11 Jan – 5 March 2027 only | Runs annually |
| Targets only worker on offshore facilities | Typically organisation-wide |
| Results go to NOPSEMA regulator specialist in Psychosocial health | Results go to management / executive team in the organisation |
| Uses a validated psychosocial risk assessment tool created by WHS regulators | Frequently custom-built in-house |
No. The survey is designed to provide benchmarking information about psychosocial hazards and industry trends. The data collected is not intended to be used as evidence for individual compliance matters.
NOPSEMA intends to publish aggregated industry findings following completion of the campaign and analysis of the results in mid-2027.
Posters and PowerPoint slides with a QR code to the survey will be provided to the facility operator prior to 11 January 2027. If these are not on display, check with your HSR or managers on the facility. Note: If you are on a vessel or mobile facility, check that you are still within Commonwealth waters.
If you are on a manned NOPSEMA-regulated facility and still unable to locate your QR code during the survey period, email NOPSEMA Psychosocial Regulatory Specialist, Kath Jones on kath.jones@nopsema.gov.au.