FERMA believes that stress in the workplace is an enterprise risk management issue to be shared with HR and other departments because of its enormous potential consequences for employers, including:
- Reduced overall business performance;
- Higher workforce turnover;
- Increased absenteeism and presenteeism (at work but not working to capacity);
- Increased accident and injury rates;
- Liability claims, depending on the jurisdiction.
To help companies reduce the impact of stress on their workforce and also on their operations, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OHSA), adopted The Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress as its 2014-2015 campaign. FERMA is one of the 80 partners in the campaign. (#EUmanagestress for twitter users.)
“Psychosocial risks and work-related stress give rise to significant costs for organisations and national economies,” according to EU OHSA.
It says that more than half of the European workers questioned regard exposure to stress as the main workplace health and safety risk. Twenty-seven percent of workers said they suffered from stress, depression or anxiety caused by or worsened by work during the previous 12 months.
Campaign events
The most recent event in the campaign was a two-day partnership between EU-OSHA and Toyota on 26 and 27 November at Toyota’s head office and factory in Mjölby, Sweden.
On the first day, EU OSHA and the Swedish Work Environment Authority gave insights into the business case for managing stress and discussed the toolkits that Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress has made available for organisations.
Day two involved benchmarking sessions on indicators of occupational safety and health performance facilitated by experts from Toyota, Heineken, LEGO, INERIS, and EU OSHA. Heineken’s Global Safety Manager Reyes Gonzales, a DARIM member, was among one of them.
Roundtable discussions included a case study from Heineken; tools available to manage stress; stress in materials handling operations; differentiating psychosocial risks from a challenging but healthy work environment, and tips for creating momentum and a safety campaign with impact.
EU-OHSA says, “Psychosocial risks can be prevented and managed regardless of business size or type.”
Some photos here: www.healthy-workplaces.eu/en/media-centre/photo-gallery
For more information, visit the website https://osha.europa.eu/en/campaigns