GraceX Launches Psychological Safety Platform as Psychological Injury Claims Hit $1 Billion
Australia’s approach to workplace mental health has entered a new and consequential chapter. Work Health and Safety (WHS) regulators are no longer limiting their role to guidance and education, officers are now conducting workplace inspections and issuing fines where employers have failed to adequately identify and manage psychosocial hazards.
As organisations look to get ahead of these changes, GraceX has officially launched its psychological safety platform, which acts as an early detection system and prevention of psychological injury and psychosocial risk claims. Designed to close the gap between intent and demonstrable action.
The platform enables organisations to systematically identify psychosocial hazards through regular review cycles, understand where risk is concentrated, and follow clear, guided pathways to intervention, creating a documented record of how risk is being identified, assessed and addressed.
Roland Illyes, CEO at GraceX, said the regulatory environment has shifted in a way that is permanent.
“Employers who have been meaning to get to this, who know it matters but haven’t yet built the infrastructure to act on it, are running out of runway,” said Mr Illyes.
According to the latest Psychological Injury in Australian Workplaces data, mental injury compensation claims hit $1 billion in annual costs in 2024-25, a threshold CEDA had not projected until 2030. National claim statistics (2023-24) show psychological injuries now result in nearly five times longer absence from work, with a 161% increase over the past decade and a 14.7% rise from the previous year alone.
“A well-designed psychosocial risk role starts with expertise, someone who knows what good looks like, what the evidence says, what best practice demands. But they also need to be someone who can engage and influence across functions and have the kinds of conversations that build critical mass for change,” says leading workplace psychosocial risk consultant Shannon Nolan, Founder of Human Leadership.
Specialist Employment and Work Health & Safety lawyer Antonino Meduri, Principal at AM Law and Partners, said psychosocial risk is now a core legal obligation for employers.
“It cannot be managed through policy alone; it depends on how work is designed, how people are led, and how issues are addressed in practice. For small businesses in particular, the risk is not complexity, but inconsistent practices.”
For many organisations this new chapter has brought on a sobering realisation; good intentions are no substitute for a credible, documented system of risk management, and that's exactly the gap GraceX was built to close.
Sources
Safe Work Australia Key WHS Statistics 2025:
https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/media-centre/media release/key-work-health-and-safety-statistics-2024-media-release
Safetysure analysis:
https://www.safetysure.com.au/research/mental-health workplace-claims-australia-2025-statistics/
Howden Group: https://www.howdengroup.com/au en/australias-work-health-safety-data
InCheq analysis: https://www.incheq.co/blog-posts/australias-1- billion-reality-check-arrives-five-years-early-australias-mental-injury claims-crisis
NSW Treasurer Mookhey Ministerial Statement (March 2025) via Stacks Law: https://stacklaw.com.au/news/personal/workers compensation/changes-coming-to-nsw-
