Safe Work Month and Mental Health Month both start in October: a psychosocial documentation check to run first

October is a busy month for workplace mental health. National Safe Work Month runs across the whole month, National Mental Health Month runs alongside it, and World Mental Health Day falls on 10 October. Safe Work Australia released its 2026 National Safe Work Month activity kit on 8 September, with templates, videos and weekly discussion prompts for workplaces to use. The awareness activities are worthwhile. They also tend to surface questions from workers and managers about what the organisation is actually doing on psychosocial risk, so it helps to know the answer before the month starts. Here is a short check to run in September. One. Is there a current psychosocial hazard register, and does it name the specific hazards in your work rather than a generic list. Job demands, job control, support, role clarity, change, recognition, organisational justice, exposure to distressing work, bullying, harassment, workplace relationships. Two. Does each identified hazard have a control recorded against it, and is that control something concrete rather than a policy reference. Three. Does each control have a named owner. Not a team, a person. Four. Is there a review date against each hazard, and were the last review dates met, or did they pass without action. Five. Is there a record of consultation with workers on psychosocial risk in the last twelve months that is more than a single survey. Six. If a regulator asked today, could you produce all of the above in a few minutes rather than a few weeks. If the answers are mostly yes, October is a chance to build on solid ground. If several are no, the awareness month is a useful deadline to work back from. The activities run by everyone else in October will raise the profile of this topic inside your organisation, and it is better to have the records in order before that attention arrives than after.