What is WHS?
When you hear the term Work Health and Safety or WHS, more often than not you think of people in hard hats, construction sites, manufacturing, or other high risk jobs. However, WHS applies to all businesses, big or small – because its main goal is prevention of risk. This means it is not only through protecting people from getting hurt physically by ensuring safety standards are in place, but also through putting the right policies and insurances in place for when the need arises.
What kind of WHS risks come from making video games?
We are proud of having passionate and compassionate employees so we try to make sure our team has all the support they need to reach their goals. This includes making sure the team’s safety is prioritised by having the right policies in place. There is no way that anyone or any company is prepared for everything at once but as an independent studio, we’ve set up our reasonably practicable policies from our own surveys and knowledge of running the studio. Our team’s WHS risks are a bit different because of our size and how we work so these would usually arise from nature, ergonomics, and stress.
How do you deal with WHS as a studio?
Our Work Health and Safety Policy is short and sweet to make sure it’s easy to read and remember. It is reviewed periodically with our legal team, and we have a survey that acts as a checklist for our team’s work from home setup. This checklist allows us to see the risks our team faces who work outside the office and if there are areas of improvement with how we work.
At the same time, we trust our employees to keep their work from home stations free from risks like walkway and ergonomic hazards outside of when these surveys take place. For emergency situations, we have a Take Action Checklist (check out Business.gov’s template here). Additionally, we have our Purpose Chats and an open communication line with our director Reuben in case we need to chat about a potential risk.
Some of our policies and processes, like the ones below, aim to help with minimise psychosocial hazards:
- Anti-bullying and Anti-Harassment Policy
- Grievance Handling Policy
- Anti-Crunch Policy to address fatigue
- Regular Purpose Chats – a strict process where we have 1-1 regular meetings with Reuben to check-in, plan, or raise any topics we’re worried about.
- Staff Surveys – measure how the team is doing as a whole, and compares results from different times of the year, and the year before that.
- Workers Comp Mental Health Claims Hub
- Code of Conduct here – applies to event attendees as well.
While we have these procedures in place, we try to review and iterate regularly to reflect the growing needs of the business.
What do other studios do?
Other studios have their own ways of dealing with WHS. Some even show their commitment to these policies by having perks and policies like the ones below viewable online;
- Playside Studios
- Policies such as Code of Conduct here
- EAP for professional assistance and resources for mental health
- Half-price Gym Access to promote a healthy and active lifestyle
- EA (including Firemonkeys)
- Health & Wellbeing Benefits Program that focuses on physical, emotional, financial, career, and community wellness
- Employee Resource Groups to foster a culture of inclusion and allyship.
- Gameloft
- Subsidized private health insurance and gym memberships
- Flexible work schedule
- Nintendo Australia
- Gym & Wellbeing Benefits
- EAP Programs
- Online Safety Principles to protect younger players and guides their work
- Ubisoft
- Codes of conduct here
So, if you are thinking of starting a game studio or already running one, doing an audit of what you currently have in place is a great place to start in making sure you and your team are covered and your policies are up to date!
We hope you enjoyed reading this! Have a question or want to chat more about game development? Reach out to us!
Other places you can find us:
- Our other game development resources
- Join our Discord server
