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    QHSEtech
    Updated 22 September 2026
    Software Guide · Reviewed 22 September 2026

    Psychosocial risk software: measure the work, not the worker

    Two quite different things are sold under the wellbeing heading. One is a benefit: an app offering meditation, counselling access or resilience content to individuals. The other is a risk control: measuring how work is designed and managed — demands, control, support, relationships, role, change — and altering it. Only the second is what a psychosocial risk obligation asks for, and buying the first while believing you have done the second is the most expensive mistake in this category.

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    Editorial responsibility: Dimitris Mitsios (Founder of The QHSE Standard; product marketing at Tekmon) · Tekmon pays for sponsored placements on this site (disclosure) · How pages are made · LinkedIn · Content date: 22 September 2026

    On this page (8 sections)

    The hazard is the work, not the person

    ISO 45003 gives guidance on managing psychosocial risk within an occupational health and safety management system. It is guidance rather than a certifiable requirement, and it sits alongside ISO 45001 rather than replacing any part of it — so treat a vendor claim of ISO 45003 compliance as something to examine, since there is no certification to hold. ISO 45003: psychological health and safety at work; ISO 45001 standard record

    Great Britain's HSE takes the same view in practical terms through its Management Standards, which frame work-related stress around six aspects of work design: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. That list is the most useful buying specification available, because it tells you what a survey has to measure to be actionable — and a tool that reports overall wellbeing scores without mapping to work design gives you a number you cannot act on. Great Britain HSE: work-related stress and the Management Standards

    This distinction drives everything else. If the output is an individual score, the implied intervention is to fix the individual. If the output is that one team reports low control and unclear role, the intervention is a management change, and it belongs in the risk register with an owner and a review date like any other control.

    Products whose records document psychosocial or wellbeing functions

    These products document psychosocial hazard, wellbeing or ISO 45003-oriented functions in their researched profiles. Some are modules inside an EHS platform and some rely on assessment tools from a partner, so read each profile for what is described. Reports of this kind are sensitive: before comparing features, decide who may see a concern, how it is kept apart from line management and how long it is retained.

    Ordered by how closely our sources document this process, not by quality. Sponsored placements are labelled. How lists are ordered

    Same rule for every product: tagged “Incident Management”, “Risk Assessment”, “Risk Management”, “Safety Management”, “EHS Management”, “Occupational Health”, “Compliance Management”, “Quality Management” or “Audits & Inspections”, with a sourced psychosocial risk or mental health and wellbeing capability in its record, or one the vendor stated to us, labelled as vendor-stated. 6 qualify.

    Three things to establish before buying

    Confidentiality thresholds

    The minimum group size below which results are suppressed, and whether that can be overridden. Ask what happens to a team of four. If results can be traced to individuals, participation collapses and the data becomes worse than none.

    What is measured

    Map the instrument to work design — demands, control, support, relationships, role, change — rather than to mood. Ask to see the actual item wording, not the category names, and whether the instrument has any published basis.

    Where findings go

    A finding that stays in a wellbeing dashboard changes nothing. Establish whether it can become a risk register entry with an owner, a control and a review date, in the same system as physical hazards.

    The demonstration: survey a team of four

    1

    Run a survey on a small team

    Use a group of four. Establish the suppression threshold, whether it is enforced or configurable, and who can change it. This single test tells you how seriously the vendor takes confidentiality.

    2

    Ask for the item wording

    Read the actual questions rather than the category labels, and ask what the instrument is based on. Many tools measure how people feel; far fewer measure how work is designed, and only the second produces an action.

    3

    Turn a finding into a risk register entry

    Take a result showing low control in one team and create a risk entry with an owner, a control and a review date. Confirm it lands in the same register as physical hazards rather than a parallel wellbeing system.

    4

    Re-run and compare

    Establish whether a later survey can be compared with the earlier one for the same team after a reorganisation, and how the platform handles teams that split or merge. Without that, you cannot show an intervention worked.

    5

    Ask what leaves the platform

    Establish what is stored about an identifiable individual, where it is hosted, who the processor is, what is shared with any third-party provider, and what is deleted when an employee leaves.

    Where the products are

    We hold no researched profile for a psychosocial risk or employee wellbeing product, so this page names none rather than listing vendors we have not checked. The two adjacent profiles we do hold evidence for are fatigue-specific, which is one psychosocial factor among several and is covered on the fatigue risk management guide.

    In practice the actionable half of this work is done in tools you may already own: risk assessment for the register entry and its review cycle, occupational health for case management where individual support is involved, and a protected reporting channel where the psychosocial hazard is a person's conduct. A survey tool that cannot feed those is a measurement exercise.

    Questions that separate candidates

    What is the minimum group size for reporting, and can it be overridden?
    Who can see results at team level, and who can see free-text comments?
    Does the instrument map to work design, or to individual mood?
    What is the published basis for the instrument, if any?
    Can a finding become a risk register entry with an owner and review date?
    Does it reach the same register as physical hazards?
    Can results be compared across time after a reorganisation?
    What is stored about an identifiable individual, and for how long?
    Who is the data processor, and where is the data hosted?
    What happens to an employee's data when they leave?

    Sources and evaluation limits

    3 sources, checked 22 Sep 2026

    Guidance and framing: ISO 45003: psychological health and safety at work; Great Britain HSE: work-related stress and the Management Standards; ISO 45001 standard record. All checked 22 September 2026.

    The previous version of this page said psychosocial regulations across the EU, UK, Canada and Australia were driving this requirement. Requirements differ substantially between and within those jurisdictions, and grouping them obscures which one applies to you. ISO 45003 is guidance and is not certifiable, so treat any claim of compliance with it as something to examine rather than a credential.

    Nothing here is clinical or legal advice. Individual mental health support is a different matter from organisational risk management, and software choices in that area should involve the people professionally responsible for it. We name no products, rank nothing, test nothing hands-on, and publish no figures on prevalence or on the effect of any intervention.

    Related Guides

    Fatigue Risk Management SoftwareOccupational Health SoftwareRisk Assessment SoftwareWhistleblower Management SoftwareWorkplace Violence Prevention SoftwareISO 45001 Software

    More related guides

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is psychosocial risk?
    Risk to health arising from how work is designed, organised and managed, and from the social context of work. Great Britain's HSE groups it into six areas — demands, control, support, relationships, role and change — which is the most practical specification available for what a survey needs to measure if the results are going to be actionable.
    Is ISO 45003 certifiable?
    No. It is guidance for managing psychosocial risk within an occupational health and safety management system, sitting alongside ISO 45001 rather than replacing part of it. There is no certificate to hold against it, so a vendor claiming ISO 45003 compliance is making a claim about alignment that you should examine rather than a credential you can verify.
    Is a wellbeing app enough?
    Not for a psychosocial risk obligation. An app offering meditation, counselling access or resilience content is a benefit provided to individuals; it may be valuable, but it does not identify or control a hazard arising from how work is designed. If the output of your system is an individual score, the implied fix is the individual, and the work that produced the risk is unchanged.
    What group size is safe to report on?
    That is the question to put to the vendor, and their answer tells you a lot. There should be a minimum group size below which results are suppressed, it should be enforced rather than advisory, and you should know who can override it. Test it with a team of four — if results can be traced back to individuals, participation drops and the data becomes actively misleading.
    Which products should we evaluate?
    We hold no dated evidence for products in this category and name none, rather than listing vendors we have not checked. Practically, the actionable half of the work happens in risk assessment, occupational health and a protected reporting channel — tools many organisations already have. Judge any survey product on whether its findings can reach those.