Tessa S. Bailey

National surveillance of psychosocial risk factors in the workplace: An international overview

Abstract National surveillance of psychosocial risk factors in the workplace is important to record the changing work environment and for the development (and monitoring) of policies and programs to prevent stress and promote mental and physical health and well-being at work. This paper overviews national surveillance systems for psychosocial risks and outcomes (35 national systems across 20 different countries, and an additional four multi-country systems), and then looks for convergence between the system, and the current research literature. This paper is the first to provide a compendium of current national surveillance systems on psychosocial risk. It describes the content of each system and gives an overview of sampling methodology, providing an evaluation of comprehensiveness rather than of quality of tools and methods. Recommendations include: (1) surveillance should be the priority for any national research agenda for psychosocial risk management; (2) stakeholders should cooperate with international systems operators to work towards the development of “state of the art” systems; (3) issues for priority inclusion in surveillance systems are emotional demands/emotional labour, workplace bullying, harassment, and violence, exposure to acute stressors, organizational justice, the occurrence and impact of global organizational change, and positive psychological states; (4) systems should be flexible to identify and assess emerging risk factors/groups; and (5) an international surveillance system should be implemented.

A national standard for psychosocial safety climate (PSC): PSC 41 as the benchmark for low risk of job strain and depressive symptoms.

Despite decades of research from around the world now permeating occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation and guidelines, there remains a lack of tools to guide practice. Our main goal was to establish benchmark levels of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) that would signify risk of job strain (jobs with high demands and low control) and depression in organizations. First, to justify our focus on PSC, using interview data from Australian employees matched at 2 time points 12 months apart (n = 1081), we verified PSC as a significant leading predictor of job strain and in turn depression. Next, using 2 additional data sets (n = 2097 and n = 1043) we determined benchmarks of organizational PSC (range 12-60) for low-risk (PSC at 41 or above) and high-risk (PSC at 37 or below) of employee job strain and depressive symptoms. Finally, using the newly created benchmarks we estimated the population attributable risk (PAR) and found that improving PSC in organizations to above 37 could reduce 14% of job strain and 16% of depressive symptoms in the working population. The results provide national standards that organizations and regulatory agencies can utilize to promote safer working environments and lower the risk of harm to employee mental health.

Psychosocial Safety Climate as a Multilevel Extension of ERI Theory: Evidence from Australia

Several models and theories have been proposed to understand the development of work-related stress and consequent psychological injuries. For example, in terms of cause, the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) model explores the imbalance between workers’ efforts and rewards, and Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) theory explores the priority senior management gives to workers’ psychological health and safety vs. productivity imperatives. To understand the threat to Australian workers’ psychological health and productivity, we extend the Effort-Reward Imbalance model (ERI) in a multilevel way to incorporate PSC theory. Using the Australian Workplace Barometer (AWB) surveillance tool we sampled 850 employees within 119 organisations. As expected, we found that both high organisational PSC and individual perceptions of PSC, reduced workers’ ERI. At the individual level PSC triggered the ERI process by indirectly affecting workers’ physical and psychological health, as well as motivational outcomes, via workers’ perceptions of ERI. Our research also included a multi-level approach to the newly extended ERI model incorporating PSC. At the organisational level, we found that PSC had a positive indirect impact upon workers’ job satisfaction, via organisational rewards and organisational ERI, and negative indirect impact upon workers’ physical and psychological health, via organisational demands. Our research demonstrates that the PSC extended ERI model can be applied within the Australian population to understand health and organisational outcomes, and that multi-level approach is required to understand the complex issue of work-related stress.

National Benchmarking and Standards for Psychosocial Factors

Work-related psychosocial risks and hazards occur as a result of the interaction between individuals, management, and the environment and can cause harm to worker health and wellbeing. These factors include job demands, job control, resources, support, rewards, work-life balance, bullying, harassment, leadership style, and organisational climate. Macro-level initiatives to address these issues can include policy, regulations, and standards at the national, industry or regional level. Many countries, in particular across Europe, North America, and the United Kingdom, have implemented national surveillance systems that measure prevalence of these risk factors. There is evidence of growing awareness about workplace psychosocial risk prevention and intervention in the Asia Pacific, however there continues to be a lack of practical application (Kortum et al. 2011). Examples within the literature tend to focus on a specific group, industry, or organisation. Systematic methods for setting best practice standards and national benchmarking do not exist across most of this region.

Macro-Level Policy and Practice Relating to Psychosocial Factors at Work in the Asia Pacific

The Asia-Pacific region contains more than a third of the world’s total labour force (CIA, 2014), and yet there are limited collaborative approaches towards managing psychosocial factors at work. While countries such as Japan, Korea and Australia have laws and regulations specific in addressing work-related psychosocial risk aspects many other countries do not (Kawakamiet al. 2014). This chapter examines answers from a focus group of industry experts representing Australia, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand regarding industry, state and national policy and initiatives relating to management of work-related psychosocial risk factors. While specific laws relating to worker wellbeing, including compensation systems attributable to psychosocial risk factors such as workload and stressful work conditions, have been established in Australia and Taiwan, other countries are yet to develop clear legal processes. In Malaysia there is a general requirement for employers to provide a safe working environment; however, this is usually interpreted only in relation to physical health. For Thailand laws protecting worker wellbeing are limited to very specific issues such as chemical exposure and muscular–skeletal disorders (MSDs) but no clear expectations exist regarding psychosocial aspects. Socialised expectation to obey authority is identified as a barrier to better psychosocial risk management at work for both Malaysia and Thailand. Awareness of psychosocial factors and their impact on worker health appears to be growing in the region. For example a recently introduced model Workforce Health and Safety Act in Australia specifically refers to psychological health and in Taiwan since 2008 mental disorders have been classified as compensable, if due to stressful work conditions. However even in countries with formal legal and compensation systems in place, barriers such as limited enforcement and lack of focus on prevention of psychosocial risk factors continue to suppress the protection of worker health and wellbeing.