Why is Psycosocial Stress?
Psychosocial stress results from a variety of life demands and social factors, and it has a significant impact on overall mental health and even physical well-being. Psychosocial stressors materialize constantly in both our personal and work lives. Aspects of the work environment that may increase the risk of impacting workers' psychological response to their work and workplace conditions include working relationships with supervisors and co-workers, deadlines, workload, and more. Psychosocial risks can be created by a variety of factors, including work design and organization, social factors, or the work environment and work tasks themselves.
Some or all of the risks can be present, and a combination of one or more of these areas of potential hazards could compound the levels of psychosocial stress and risk.
Examples of psychosocial stressors Include (but are not limited to):
- Unclear job expectations.
- Overly aggressive or unrealistic deadlines.
- Lack of perceived value by the organization or management.
- Increased workloads.
- Being disconnected from colleagues (such as working remotely or having different work schedules and different time zones).
- Challenges with hoteling and hot desking where there are no assigned workspaces, which can cause anxiety amongst some individuals not knowing where they will be working on any given day.
- Dealing with difficult and/or hostile customers or colleagues.
- Poor relationship with a manager.
- Stress at home with families or in personal life.
Why Does Psychosocial Stress Matter?
The organization may experience increased costs due to high and/or unmanaged psychosocial stress, such as:
- Higher absenteeism - more workers calling out sick and/or not showing up to work.
- Worker turnover - leading to increased recruiting, onboarding, and training costs.
- Reduction in quality of work being performed or goods being produced - this may be measured in increased frequency or incidents of errors.
- Reputation damage and subsequent efforts to improve company image.
- Costly litigation due to workers' claims (in some cases).
Workers may experience negative effects due to high and/or unmanaged psychosocial stress, including:
- Negative changes in work behavior - including a lack of engagement at work, avoiding working with others, and/or frequent conflicts with others.
- Poor overall health (anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and stress-related cardiovascular problems that lead to:
- Absenteeism - calling out sick and/or not showing up to work.
- Unhealthy behaviors (substance abuse, eating disorders).
- Social isolation (including neglecting personal well-being).
What Can an Organization do to Prevent Potential Psychosocial Risks or Mitigate Existing Risks?
1. Establish an open communication process and engage with workers to:
- Genuinely listen to their concerns.
- Assure workers that their perspectives are welcome and will be considered without retaliation.
- Care must be taken during this process to avoid pushback, considering the sensitive nature and potential impact of psychosocial issues.
- Using the worker feedback, begin to identify and understand the psychosocial issues and hazards present in your workplace.
- Workplace culture surveys are one tool that can be used to better understand employee's / worker's experiences with psychosocial risks and perceptions of company resources and culture. Click here to learn more about workplace culture surveys.
- The idea of engaging the worker is a key principle of human and organization performance (known as HOP).
- Psychosocial safety improves when the stigma of errors is reduced
- Learning teams are an example of gathering information from a group
- Reducing injuries supports both employee mental and physical health
- Mental health improves when people feel that their ideas matter.
2. Once psychosocial risks are identified at your workplace, they should be addressed via a risk assessment process.
- Click here to read about the importance of risk assessments and download a free risk assessment template.
- Click here to learn more about ISO 45001 and risk assessments.
3. Once the hazards and potential negative outcomes have been documented in the risk assessment, the planning process should establish objectives that consider the needs and expectations of the workers.
- This may require dedicating resources to work towards the objectives, addressing the hazards, and mitigating the potential risks.
4. Managing psychosocial risk is not a one-and-done activity. It requires consistent engagement with workers, evaluating risk, and measuring/checking outcomes.
Managing psychosocial risk should be part of any EHS program during the planning, implementing, reviewing, evaluating, and improving the process. Fostering a culture of open communication between workers and supervisors is essential to business success, and ISO 45003 can provide the foundation. Allowing open dialogue about effectively managing work-related stress will reduce strain on workers and improve business outcomes by reducing operational and safety risks across the organization. Furthermore, there are a growing number of countries with legislation around the world necessitating the development of psychosocial risk programs or assessments. It is important to understand your existing legal obligations around psychosocial stress and you integrate its management into your companies health, safety, and wellness framework.
