Australia Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work A1: Appendix A: Control job demands, both high and low

Job demands include sustained or intense physical, mental or emotional effort that is unreasonable or beyond workers' skills, and sustained low effort. High demands include long, irregular or on-call hours, short or interrupted breaks, no chance to recover or use leave, heavy workloads, hazardous manual tasks and fast paced work; mental demands such as complex tasks beyond capacity, long vigilance, high consequence of error, no systems to prevent individual error and constant task switching; and emotional demands such as de-escalating aggression or hiding emotions. Low demands include too little work, long idle periods, monotony and work well below skill. Example controls: schedule tasks to avoid sustained extremes and plan shifts for rest and recovery; manage supply chains to avoid demand swings; design the workplace to remove demanding tasks, provide quiet and break areas and use systems that reduce error; staff enough skilled people, roster for breaks, rotate demanding or repetitive tasks and support peaks; allow discretion to ease emotional demands; set achievable targets, train, and describe emotional demands in position descriptions and at selection.