An awareness campaign sits at the bottom of the hierarchy of controls. That does not make it worthless. It makes it the check on whether everything above it is working.
A safety tag is the least remarkable object on a site. A strip of weatherproof poly, a wire loop, a few words in permanent marker. It exists so that an invisible risk becomes visible to whoever walks past next.
Through September a run of them is carrying a different message. TUFFA, an Australian owned safety manufacturer with its head office at Condobolin in central west New South Wales, says it is sending 1,100 limited edition R U OK? tags out with orders dispatched from its Condobolin and Canning Vale sites. They are built to stay put afterwards, in toolboxes, lockers, workshops and crib rooms, once the day itself has passed.
The company’s marketing manager, Claire Standing, drew the comparison that most people on a site will recognise immediately. Workers are trained to speak up about a physical hazard, she said, and they help each other follow the isolation procedure without a second thought.
Saying “I’m not OK” can feel much more difficult than saying “I’ve got a problem with this machine”.
That is a reasonable proposition. It is also, as it turns out, a regulated one.
Poor support is a named hazard, and not noticing is one of its examples
The approved Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work code of practice lists poor support as a hazard a business has to manage. Most people read that as a training gap. The code’s own examples run considerably wider.
Among the things it lists as poor support are workplace cultures that discourage supervisors or other workers from supporting each other, working environments that discourage discussion because there is nowhere suitable to have one or because people are physically separated, and limited emotional support or unempathetic leadership. The example the code gives for that last one is supervisors who do not notice when workers are struggling, do not take issues seriously, or do not provide a safe space to raise them.
That is the R U OK? premise written up as a regulated hazard. A supervisor who walks past a bloke having a rough month is not committing a cultural failing that sits outside the safety system. The code has already put it on the list, under a duty that does not scale with headcount.
DEFINITION: POOR SUPPORT
A psychosocial hazard describing inadequate support at work, including insufficient support from supervisors or other workers, and not having the resources needed to do the job. The approved Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work code of practice lists examples including inadequate training for the task, supervisors being unavailable to provide support, workers being unable to ask for help, cultures that discourage people supporting each other, and limited emotional support where supervisors do not notice when workers are struggling.
The code puts awareness at the bottom of the hierarchy and says so
Here is where an awareness day gets complicated.
The same code is explicit that control measures for psychosocial hazards should predominantly be considered at an organisational, work and system design level rather than at an individual level, though some circumstances call for both. It then goes further. Focusing on higher level measures that address work design, it says, ensures the risk of harm is addressed at the source, rather than through inferior measures that only reduce the impact of harm after it has already occurred.
Read that against a barbecue and a wall of tags. A day of conversations does not change how many jobs are running at once, whether the supervisor has the span of control to actually supervise any of them, or whether the apprentice was shown the task properly before being left with it. It operates at the individual level. Under the code, that is the bottom of the order.
None of which makes the day pointless. It does mean a builder who runs the barbecue, hangs the tag and considers the matter closed has misread which end of the hierarchy they were working at. It is the same distinction that applies everywhere else compliance obligations sit in a building business. Intention is not a control. A control is something that changes the work.
The controls the code lists for poor support are scheduling decisions
The useful part is what the code puts at the top instead, because that list is not soft at all.
For poor support it names designing work so that supervisors carry manageable workloads and a span of control that allows effective supervision, with the specific example of supervisors having time to answer questions or help with a difficult task. It names information sharing good enough that people can get what they need to do the job. It names giving workers the right tools, equipment and systems, located so nobody has to compete for access to them. It names regular team meetings where challenges and support needs actually get discussed. It names building a culture that rewards cooperation rather than competition.
Every one of those is a scheduling and resourcing decision.
A supervisor running six jobs cannot notice anything, because noticing requires attention and the attention has already been allocated. That is not a wellbeing problem with a wellbeing solution. It is a resourcing problem with a wellbeing consequence, and it is indistinguishable from the ordinary work of running the business properly.
The day works as a test, not as a control
Which points to a more honest use for today.
If the controls above it are working, the conversation on the day should be unremarkable. Somebody notices, somebody asks, and it goes the way any other site conversation goes. If asking feels like a stunt, that is information worth having. It suggests the culture the code describes, the one that discourages people from supporting each other, is present. And it has been present on every other day of the year as well.
The national numbers give the cost some shape. Mental health conditions accounted for 12 per cent of all serious workers compensation claims in the 2023 to 2024 year, on preliminary figures, a 14.7 per cent rise on the year before and a 161 per cent increase on a decade earlier. The median time lost from work on those claims was almost five times that recorded across all other injuries and diseases. Within construction specifically, the industry has already counted the cost often enough that the argument does not need making again.
It shows up early, too. Mental health accounted for one in ten of the apprentices leaving in their first year, which is a workforce problem as much as a wellbeing one.
Workers carry a duty here as well, and it is worth stating plainly because it is the half of the equation the day actually addresses. Under the work health and safety framework a worker must take reasonable care not to adversely affect the health and safety of other people at the workplace, and health is defined to include psychological health. Asking is not outside the safety system either. It just is not the whole of it.
THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE
The tag is a well chosen object for this, precisely because of what a tag normally does.
A lockout tag is a physical thing that makes an invisible risk visible to the next person along. Nobody has ever mistaken a tag for the safety system. It is the last visible point in a chain that started weeks earlier, when somebody decided how the work would be done and who would be there to do it.
The same logic holds here. A tag in the crib room does not manage a psychosocial risk. What it does is give one person a reason to ask a question they were already half thinking about, and that is worth something.
But whether the question lands is decided a long way upstream of September. It is decided by how many jobs are running, who is supervising them, and whether anybody on that site has the time to look up.
Frequently asked questions
R U OK? Day 2026 is Thursday 10 September. The day falls on the second Thursday of September each year, so the date moves annually. R U OK? notes that the campaign is intended to prompt conversations year round rather than on a single day, and workplaces commonly run their activities anywhere in the week around the date.
Yes. The approved Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work code of practice lists poor support as a psychosocial hazard. It is defined as inadequate support, including insufficient support from supervisors or other workers, and not having the resources needed to do the job. Listed examples include inadequate training for the task, supervisors being unavailable, workers being unable to ask for help, working environments that discourage discussion, cultures that discourage people from supporting each other, and limited emotional support or unempathetic leadership, with supervisors not noticing when workers are struggling given as an example of the last of these.
No. The approved code states that control measures for psychosocial hazards should predominantly be considered at an organisational, work and system design level rather than at an individual level, and that focusing on higher level measures addressing work design ensures harm is addressed at the source rather than through inferior measures that only reduce the impact of harm after it has occurred. An awareness activity operates at the individual level. It can sit alongside higher level controls, but it does not replace them, and the duty is discharged through a process of identifying, assessing, controlling and reviewing risk that can be shown.
The code sets out examples across work design, the physical work environment and increasing support. They include designing work so supervisors have manageable workloads and a span of control that allows effective supervision, implementing information sharing systems so workers can get what they need, establishing regular and constructive feedback discussions between workers and supervisors, providing clear reporting lines, giving workers the tools and equipment they need with sufficient access to them, designing the work environment so people can ask for help, holding regular team meetings that cover challenges and support needs, and building a culture that values cooperation over competition. These are examples only, and a business must identify and implement controls that eliminate or minimise the risks in its own workplace so far as is reasonably practicable.
Related articles
- Site Pressure Is a Named Safety Hazard Under the Law, and the Free Tool Builders Used To Measure It Closes 2 October
- The Number That Should Stop the Construction Industry in Their Tracks
- Australia’s Largest Survey of First Year Apprentices Finds Small Employers Train Best but Carry the Highest Retention Risk
If you or someone on your crew is struggling, the services Safe Work Australia points businesses to include Ahead for Business, which is built for small business owners, Beyond Blue work and mental health resources, and NewAccess for Small Business Owners. Lifeline is available on 13 11 14.
Sources: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice, approved code as published February 2026, sections 5.1 and Appendix A, and the poor support hazard and control tables; Work Health and Safety Act 2011 sections 19 and 28 and the definition of health; Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025, noting that 2023 to 2024 figures are preliminary; R U OK?, campaign date and materials; TUFFA Products, company information and initiative detail as supplied.
Last updated: 10 September 2026.
General information only. This article describes published regulator guidance and the work health and safety framework. It does not constitute legal, work health and safety or medical advice, and obligations differ between states and territories. Victoria operates outside the model laws under its own psychological health regulations. Businesses should obtain qualified guidance specific to their own jurisdiction and circumstances.
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