Social Dialogue and Psychosocial Risk Management: Added Value of Manager and Employee Representative Agreement in Risk Perception and Awareness

The impact of national legislation on psychosocial risks on organisational action plans, psychosocial working conditions, and employee work-related stress in Europe

Work-related psychosocial hazards are recognised as a key priority in the future of work. Even though European Union (EU) legislation requires employers to assess and manage all types of risks to workers' health and safety associated with all types of hazards in the work environment, it does not include clear reference to psychosocial risks and work-related stress. In several EU member states, there is now more specific legislation on psychosocial risks that clarifies employer responsibilities. The aim of this study is to explore whether the introduction of specific legislation on psychosocial risks and/or work-related stress is related to organisations implementing action plans to prevent work-related stress, and in turn, better psychosocial working conditions (job demands and resources), and less reported work-related stress in the workforce. It does so by comparing EU member states and candidate countries that have introduced more specific legislation to those that have not, conducting multilevel modelling analysis by linking two representative European-level datasets, the 2014 employer European Survey of Enterprises on New & Emerging Risks and the 2015 employee European Working Conditions Survey. Findings indicate that the presence of specific national stress legislation is associated with more enterprises having a work-related stress action plan. The existence of action plans was found to be associated with increased job resources but not decreased job demands. Furthermore, only in those countries with specific national legislation on stress, job resources were found to be associated with less reported stress through the existence of organisational action plans. Findings lend support to the argument for more specific legislation on psychosocial risks/work-related stress in the EU. However, they also raise questions on whether current interventions implemented at organisational level to deal with work-related stress may be geared more towards the development of individual resources and less towards better work organisation and job design.

Development of the Level of Preventive Action Method by Observation of the Characteristic Value for the Assessment of Occupational Risks on Construction Sites

The special circumstances of the high accident rate in the construction industry compared to other sectors are significant and represent a major concern for many countries. Construction work involves a large number of risks that cause or may cause accidents with serious consequences for the worker’s health, even death. The Level of Preventive Action is a novel methodology of occupational risk assessment adapted to building works. It is based on the development of the mathematical formulation of William T. Fine’s method. Its implementation covers four of the techniques for combating risk: Safety at Work, Industrial Hygiene, Ergonomics and Psychosociology. It evaluates, quantitatively, the amount of preventive action required based on the characteristic complexity of the work units, their location and their interdependence. The method protocol defines a new observation parameter called Characteristic Value which is inherent to the real situation of the construction process. The aim of this study is to develop the characterisation of the Characteristic Value in the Level of Preventive Action method. It also justifies the procedure to obtain this Characteristic Value and how its implementation and result should be interpreted. Finally, the methodology is applied on a real case.

Zero-Risk Interpretation in the Level of Preventive Action Method Implementation for Health and Safety in Construction Sites

Risk assessment is a legal obligation for all companies in most countries worldwide. It aims to control the quality of working conditions and avoid externalizing the consequences of accidents and resulting costs to society. This work discusses the need for an adequate interpretation of the zero-risk concept from a technical-preventive perspective to assess occupational risks in construction sites. A critical analysis of several risk assessment methodologies was carried out, focusing on the evaluation criteria of little or no-risk situations. The verification of the results was made through a case study. The perception of health and safety risks by workers is very different from that of the evaluators. Often, when workers identify a situation as low-risk or even zero-risk, the evaluator assesses the same context as maximum risk. Given the workers' and the evaluators' responses, the Preventive Action Method establishes a new parameter, the Environment Congruence. This parameter is based on the perception of the preventive environment and gives more importance to the evaluators' decision. When preventive action is optimal, the risk is low in all preventive observation settings. In conclusion, this study justifies the non-nullity of the risk and the difficulty of assessing zero-risk in construction sites. Therefore, evaluations with qualitative and quantitative non-risk approaches should be discarded.

Benchmarks for Evidence-Based Risk Assessment with the Swedish Version of the 4-Item Psychosocial Safety Climate Scale

The purpose of the present study was to validate the short version of The Psychosocial Safety Climate questionnaire (PSC-4, Dollard, 2019) and to establish benchmarks indicating risk levels for use in Sweden. Cross-sectional data from (1) a random sample of employees in Sweden aged 25-65 years (n = 2847) and (2) a convenience sample of non-managerial employees from 94 workplaces (n = 3066) were analyzed. Benchmarks for three PSC risk levels were developed using organizational compliance with Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) regulations as criterion. The results support the validity and usefulness of the Swedish PSC-4 as an instrument to indicate good, fair, and poor OSH practices. The recommended benchmark for indicating good OSH practices is an average score of >12.0, while the proposed cutoff for poor OSH practices is a score of ≤8.0 on the PSC-4. Scores between these benchmarks indicate fair OSH practices. Furthermore, aggregated data on PSC-4 supported its reliability as a workplace level construct and its association with quantitative demands, quality of leadership, commitment to the workplace, work engagement, job satisfaction, as well as stress and burnout. Thus, the Swedish version of PSC-4 can be regarded as a valid and reliable measure for both research and practical use for risk assessment at workplaces.