3 Ways to Optimize Quebec Law 27 Risk Assessments

Since October 2025, Quebec’s Law 27 requires every employer with workers in the province to identify, assess and prevent psychosocial risks with the same rigour applied to physical hazards.

Non-compliance comes with a price: The CNESST, which oversees worker rights and safety in Quebec, can inspect, issue corrective notices and impose penalties for employers that do not meet Law 27’s mandates.

However, many organizations are using off-the-shelf tools and assumptions about their workforce and treating Law 27 as a check-the-box exercise. The result has been assessments that look complete on paper but miss the mark in practice.

It also results in a missed opportunity to build a healthier, more resilient workplace.

Avoiding a generic approach to deliver a better picture

Those employers approaching Law 27 casually or in little detail risk falling into traps that can sink their efforts. Here are three ways for employers to optimize Law 27 compliance:

1. Analyze risk to reflect the workplace

   The CNESST identifies recognized psychosocial risk factors, including workload, lack of autonomy, harassment and workplace violence. Most organizations start there, but many don’t go further.

   A risk assessment needs account for your organization’s specific situation, as every operation will have different gaps. Consider that some companies have remote and hybrid arrangements, rotating shifts, customer-facing roles with high emotional demands and geographic isolation.

   Using CNESST’s recognized factors as a starting point is a start, but it’s also important to map your workforce’s dynamics and operational context to adjust risk assessments list accordingly.

2. Engage employees with risk assessment from the outset

   Workplaces with 20 or more employees must include worker representatives on committees that govern health and safety.

   However, while workers are represented on committees, risk assessments often rely on historical incident data or management assumptions about workplace conditions, without input from those same employees, who experience the health and safety environment daily.

   Involving workers in initial assessment not only will give a better picture of health and safety risk but give the results greater credibility. Focus groups, real-time consultations and anonymous surveys can capture current, on-the-ground feedback and get a more accurate picture of psychosocial risks.

3. Own the process, outsourced or not

   Many organizations delegate the entire assessment to a third-party vendor or consultant that applies a standardized methodology across all clients. The framework may be credible, but if it doesn’t incorporate the specifics of the workplace, it can skew findings and conclusions.

   And if CNESST reviews an assessment and finds it was conducted without proper workplace-specific consultation or evidence, the organization faces potential non-compliance and increased liability exposure.

   So while external expertise can add value, the organization must own the process. Any outside framework should be adapted to the specific work environment, grounded in direct evidence from the workplace and supported by worker consultation. An organization thus builds a defensible assessment for regulators and the workers alike.

    

HUB International’s Health & Performance experts work with employers across Canada to build assessment programs that are workplace-specific, compliant and built to last.