Work together to tackle stress

EU-OSHA believes the prevalence of work-related stress in Europe is startling. Its latest pan-European opinion poll revealed that 51 % of workers find stress to be common in their workplace and 4 in 10 think that it is not handled well in their organisation. However, the Agency believes that, together, employers and workers can successfully manage and prevent work-related stress and psychosocial risks; the latest Healthy Workplaces Campaign – Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress – aims to help companies do just that. 

The campaign launch brought together EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, László Andor; Greek Deputy Minister for Labour, Social Security and Welfare, Vasilis Kegkeroglou, representing the Greek EU Council Presidency, and Director of EU-OSHA, Dr Christa Sedlatschek. They called on Europe’s enterprises (both private and public) to recognise the need to tackle work-related stress. By doing so, they will be protecting their workers’ health and their organisations’ productivity.

Commissioner Andor said: "Managing work-related stress is one of the cornerstones in ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of European workers. Workplaces cannot afford to ignore work-related stress, which increases absenteeism and lowers productivity. The forthcoming EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at work 2014-20 will underline that better protection of workers' mental health is a key factor to prevent work-related diseases.

"The Framework will propose a range of actions, such as sharing good practices, for promoting mental health at work. A positive working environment is not only important for enabling employees to work longer, it is also important to ensure that when workers do retire, they are still in good health. I am convinced that the new EU-OSHA campaign on stress and psychosocial risks at work will greatly contribute to this objective".

Vasilis Kegkeroglou commented: "The Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress Campaign 2014–15 is an excellent opportunity to promote the need for European workplaces to effectively tackle psychosocial risks and work-related stress. The campaign provides the required support and guidance to employers, managers, workers and their representatives."

Dr Sedlatschek spoke about the aims of the campaign: "Despite the increasing presence and costs of workplace stress, there is still significant misunderstanding and sensitivity around it – EU-OSHA’s ESENER survey found that more than 40 % of employers consider psychosocial risks more difficult to manage than ‘traditional’ occupational safety and health risks. With this campaign, we want to raise awareness of the problem and provide support to manage psychosocial risks. Work-related stress is an organisational issue and should be tackled as such by employers and workers working together."

The Healthy Workplaces Campaign seeks to show how psychosocial risks can be handled in the same systematic way as any other occupational safety and health risk. It aims to promote the use of simple tools which can help organisations to effectively manage these risks and highlight the positive effects of doing so. 

The campaign invites all organisations and individuals at local, national and European levels to take part. It will be coordinated at national level by EU-OSHA’s national focal points in more than 30 European countries, and supported by official campaign partners – pan-European and multinational organisations and the campaign media partners. The Healthy Workplaces Campaign is also backed by the EU Council Presidencies, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European social partners.

‘Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress’ will run for two years and will involve hundreds of organisations from across Europe, involving a range of activities  such as training sessions, conferences and workshops, poster, film and photo competitions, quizzes, suggestion schemes, advertising campaigns and press conferences. A key activity in the campaign calendar is the European Good Practice Awards launched in April. Applications are encouraged from all European organisations who are successfully implementing measures to reduce and eliminate stress.

Readers can find out more from the Campaign Guide and by visiting the Healthy Workplaces Campaign website. Campaign material in 25 languages will be available to download, and visitors to the website will be able to find out about campaign events happening across Europe.