Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress Campaign – European Week for Safety and Health at Work 2014

The European Week for Safety and Health at Work takes place next week, running from 20th October to 24th October 2014.

The theme of this year’s event which runs annually in the month October, focuses on stress in the workplace with the campaign “Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress”. This year’s campaign aims to get people talking about the issue.

There are a variety of different events taking place across the continent for the week (and even across the globe) including press conferences, seminars, quizzes, awards, training sessions, film screenings, competitions and exhibitions.

Spain is really taking the opportunity to focus the country’s attention on building healthy workplaces with over 50 events taking place across the country.

Find an event near you

If you want to discover what is happening near you, you can use the national focal point courtesy of the Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress web site.

Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress

This years campaign is all about raising awareness of the stress and psychosocial risks in the workplace and encouraging business to manage those psychosocial risks.

A whole web site has been developed by The European Agency for Safety and Health (EU-OSHA) dedicated to managing work related stress. The web site includes FAQs, guides, reports, tools and resources.

EU-OSHA have released an introductory video on YouTube with an overview of managing stress and psychosocial risks at work. Please find below the video and a transcript.

Transcript

Work related stress occurs when demands of the job exceed a workers ability to cope with them.

There are many causes, experts call them psychosocial risks.

Prolonged stress at work can lead to serious mental and physical health problems.

Work related stress is an organisational issue that impacts the health of workers and has to be addressed at a managerial level.

Stress cannot be ignored.

Over half of European workers report that stress is common in their workplace.

Stress is thought to contribute to about half of all lost working days.

The human suffering is unmeasurable, the economic impact on business and international economies is enormous.

The good news is that effective, practical tools for preventing and reducing stress do already exist and can be easily used with the risk assessment model.

Psychosocial risks can be managed like all other risks.

If you are an employer remember that addressing psychosocial risks is your legal and moral obligation and it makes great business sense.

Preventing and reducing work related stress means protecting worker’s health, improving business performance and long term sustainability.

Healthy workplaces manage stress.

Make it happen in your workplace and join the campaign.

Health and safety at work is everyone’s concern, it’s good for you, it’s good for business.