Safe work is for life – including the person signing the payslips

October is National Safe Work Month, and this year's theme is a simple one: safe work is for life.

For most business owners, that lands as a message about their team. Check the equipment, review the risk register, run the toolbox talk, make sure everyone goes home in one piece. All of it matters. But there's a person in almost every small business who tends to sit outside the frame entirely – the one responsible for maintaining it for everyone else.

The owner.

It's worth pausing on this now, because the ground has shifted underneath it. Psychosocial hazards – the workplace factors that affect mental health, not just physical safety – are no longer a soft, optional part of work health and safety. Every Australian jurisdiction now requires businesses to identify, assess and control them, using the same structured approach applied to a physical hazard. And here in New South Wales, the change went further still: from 1 July this year, the Code of Practice for managing psychosocial hazards became an enforceable benchmark, not just guidance. Businesses must either follow it or prove they're managing the risk to an equivalent standard, with evidence.

What counts as a psychosocial hazard? High job demands. Low control over how work gets done. Poor support. Job insecurity. These are the named pressure points a business is now expected to manage for its workers.

Read that list again with an owner-operator in mind.

High job demands? They're carrying the ones nobody else will. Low control? Their livelihood is at the mercy of a late payer, a rate rise, a slow quarter. Job insecurity? For an owner, the whole business is the job – and the security. The very hazards the law now expects businesses to manage for their staff describe the daily experience of the person running the place almost perfectly. Yet they're the one person the framework was never really built to protect.

The data bears out what that costs. Research this year found nearly one in three Australian small business owners had considered walking away because of stress. Separate research put ongoing stress or anxiety among owners at 76%, with more than half dealing with burnout. This isn't a fringe experience. For owner-operators, it's close to the norm.

We see where that leads. In our work, financial distress and personal distress arrive together, feeding each other. And the pattern is consistent: the owner white-knuckles it alone, treats their own wellbeing as the one line item that can always be deferred, and by the time anything gives, the options have narrowed.

So while the compliance conversation this month will rightly focus on protecting workers, here's the point we'd add to it. Safe work is for life. That has to include the life of the person who signs the payslips.

Three things worth doing this month, if you're that person:

Treat your own load as a real risk, not a character test. You'd never tell a worker that crushing job demands and zero control were just part of the job. Extend yourself to the same standard.

Get the financial pressure into the open. Money stress is one of the biggest drivers of poor mental health among owners, and it's also the most treatable – but only if it's named early, while there are still options. Avoidance is the thing that closes doors.

Use the support that exists. Beyond Blue's NewAccess for Small Business Owners is a free, confidential coaching program built specifically for people running a business, no GP referral needed. It exists because this problem is common enough to warrant it.

A safe workplace protects everyone in it. The owner is in it too.

If financial pressure is the hazard weighing on you this month, that's the one we can help you control. A confidential conversation with Anthony on our team costs nothing and often changes what feels possible. You'd manage this risk for your people. Manage it for yourself too.

If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available:
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
Lifeline: 13 11 14