How to assess work characteristics that may harm your mental health
What is it about?
The paper presents an evaluation study of the European-wide digital training tool PsyHealth worXs!: Psychosocial Health prevention and work standards. The training is an evidence-based, user-friendly, and easily accessible step-by-step guide for managers and occupational safety and health stakeholder on how to conduct a psychosocial risk assessment (PRA) in their own organisations. PsyHealth worXs! is successful in tackling obstacles that hinder the implementation of PRA strategies by increasing knowledge, raising awareness and enhancing competences and skills in practitioners.
Why is it important?
Work characteristics do affect employees and can become risks to their health. Assessing those work characteristics and evaluating their potential for posing a risk, contributes to create and promote healthy work places. Less than 30% of European have implemented procedures in how to tackle psychosocial risks, even though it is legally required by EU law. This is due to their lack of knowledge, unclear responsibilities, the potential of causing conflicts and a lack of perceived impact on the management. The digital training enables all interdisciplinary stakeholder groups to gain the required knowledge and skills to professionally handle PRA in their own work environments and therefore sustain a healthy workforce.