For many years the National Labor Inspectorate has endeavoured to reduce exposure to psychosocial factors in the work environment. Among the activities in this field is the labor inspection's preventive program, aimed at employers and employees, to counteract the negative effects of stress in the workplace.
The “Counteracting the negative effects of stress in the workplace” preventive program is a comprehensive activity, consisting of several paths (educational, analytical, occupational risk assessment and hazard elimination), one of which is training for employees and employers on such topics as: stress, discrimination, occupational burnout, prevention of mobbing. In addition to educational tasks, at the request of program participants, a situation analysis can also be carried out at the company on the stressfulness of work characteristics. The conclusions of the study are then used to work on reducing or completely eliminating the stressors present at that workplace. The ultimate goals of the program are: to seek and create safe and friendly working conditions for the proper functioning of employees and their well-being, to promote standardized measures to encourage employers and employees to take care of occupational health, to identify opportunities for active measures to combat and prevent the negative effects of occupational psychosocial factors.
Aims of the program:
- promoting knowledge of stress, its sources, its course, the havoc it wreaks on the human body, and ways to reduce it,
- promoting knowledge of the sources of other psychosocial risks such as bullying, discrimination, unequal treatment, harassment, sexual harassment, aggression and violence in the workplace,
- disseminating methods of dealing with psychosocial risks in the workplace,
- improving interpersonal relations at workplaces, thereby creating a good climate for teamwork and improving comfort at work.
How does the program work?
All interested employers are invited to join the prevention program. Participation is completely free of charge.
An employer joining the prevention program can choose one of three paths for implementing the program at their workplace:
Path 1
The only training implemented at the workplace is on counteracting stress and/or other psychosocial risks.
Path 2
Only an analysis of the situation in the context of the stressfulness of the company's work characteristics is carried out in the workplace through:
- conducting a study of the stressfulness of work characteristics using the Psychosocial Risks Scale (a tool prepared by the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine in Łódź),
- preparing a report containing an assessment of the risks present in the enterprise,
- providing the employer with the report, identifying good practices to improve psychosocial working conditions.
Path 3
Training on how to counteract stress and/or other psychosocial risks in the workplace and a survey of the stressfulness of work characteristics using the Psychosocial Risks Scale are being implemented at the workplace.
In addition, the employer may also wish to conduct a reexamination of work characteristics stressfulness, after which a report will be prepared consisting of two parts:
- assessment of the situation in the company,
- comparative analysis of the situation resulting from survey 1 and survey 2.