How To Tackle Psychosocial Issues And Reduce Work Related Stress

Work-related stress is the second most common occupational health problem after back pain, affecting 28 per cent of workers in the EU. Given that this is often indicative of problems with the psychosocial work environment, the promotion of a preventive culture against psychosocial hazards needs to be given a high priority. This report presents 15 case studies of programmes, practices and experiences on tackling work-related stress, produced by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work in order to raise awareness of these topics in EU member states.

Today's evolving world of work makes it imperative for employers to manage psychosocial hazards (PSH) and risks leading to work-related stress. This book contains essential, general, and country-specific information and templates for the successful management of hazards to prevent psychological harm in the workplace. Acknowledged as global issues affecting all workers and industries, PSH are work factors that have the potential to lead to physical or psychological injury and stress, relating to how work is designed, organized, and managed, and to work relationships and interactions. This book advances the idea that management of PSH, and psychological health and safety, is part of the duty of care of today's responsible and ethical employers to employees, and that U.S. employers should recognize this responsibility. Clear and easy to follow, this guide presents comprehensive information on addressing PSH, discussing measures taken internationally (laws, guidance, and resources from Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Japan), and a new global standard on psychological health and safety at work. (Note: At times within this book, and Part II in particular, punctuation may be added to quoted provisions for ease of reading and for consistency.) Practitioners and students in the fields of management, occupational health and safety, human resource management, ethics and compliance, occupational health psychology, and organizational psychology will come away with a deeper understanding of the importance of PSH and their management.

Stress at work is a priority issue of the European Agency of Safety and Health at Work. The report addresses the following issues and questions: the nature of stress at work; stress management strategies; does work stress affect health and well-being and, if so, how?; the implications of existing research for the management of work-related stress. This report examines the difficulties involved in placing work stress in the context of other life stress factors. It is stated that work stress is a current and future health and safety issue, and, as such, should be dealt with in the same logical and systematic way as other health and safety issues.

This book presents research and best practice examples from the Asia Pacific region to address the gap in global expertise on psychosocial factors at work. It explores practices in the region that promote healthy workplaces and workers by presenting research from around the globe on issues such as telework, small and medium-sized enterprises, disaster-struck areas, suicide prevention, and workplace client violence. It discusses practical, multidisciplinary efforts to address worker occupational health. Further, it explores psychosocial risk and prevention, as well as the significant role of cultural variations and practices in the diverse range of countries covered.

This book studies a range of legal systems and compares them on their ability to deal with psychosocial risks at work. The book looks at prevention of psychosocial risks from a labor law perspective and at compensation and reparation from a social security law perspective. It pays special attention to the topic of bullying in the work place, which is currently the subject of most legal summons. This book presents the views on the subject from leading national and international experts and provides an in-depth coverage of legal systems used in Southern and Northern European countries, as well as Canada and Japan to deal with this topic. The topic of psychosocial risks at work has received much attention recently, both from the general public, the press, and those working in the legal arena. It is difficult for lawyers to deal with the issue of psychosocial risks at work due to the multifactorial and subjective features involved.

This book is a valuable, comprehensive and unique reference text on Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC), a new work stress theory. It proposes a new PSC theory concerning the corporate climate for workers’ psychological health, its origins and implications for work stress, and provides a critique of current research and theories. It provides a comprehensive review of all PSC studies to date. The chapters discuss state-of-the-art empirical evidence testing PSC theory in relation to management roles, organisational resilience, corruption, organisational status, cultural perspectives, illegitimate tasks, high PSC work groups, PSC variability in work groups, etc. They investigate outcomes such as psychological distress, emotional exhaustion, depression, worry, engagement, health, cognitive decline, personal initiative, boredom, cynicism, sickness absence, and productivity loss, in various workplace settings across many countries. This unique book allows practitioners to rapidly update practical measures, benchmarks and processes, and provides students and trainees with an introduction to PSC and important concepts and methods, quantitative and qualitative, in occupational health with leads to further sources. Students as well as experts on occupational health and safety, human resource management, occupational health psychology, organisational psychology and practitioners, unions and policy makers will find this book highly informative. It covers relevant materials for undergraduate and postgraduate education, drawing upon the concepts, topics and methods (diary, multilevel, longitudinal, qualitative, data linkage) within the multidisciplinary occupational health area.

Workers in the service industry face unique types and levels of stress, and this problem is worsening. Many workers and organizations are now recognizing work stress as a significant personal and organizational cost, and seeing the need to evaluate a range of organizational issues that present psychosocial hazards to the workers. Occupation