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Due to the “European Union Framework Directive on Safety and Health at work” (Directive 89/391/EEC, 1989), every employer is obliged to avoid psychosocial hazards when designing work. Little is known empirically about the barriers that workplace actors experience while developing and implementing OSH measures that prevent psychosocial hazards. The purpose of this paper is to explore barriers, causes and attempts to overcome them and discusses them with reference to relevant theoretical concepts and models that help to explain how these barriers hinder the development and implementation of OSH measures.

Semi-structured interviews with workplace actors in charge of psychosocial risk assessment (PRA) were conducted in 41 business cases, and transcripts were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Barriers, causes and attempts to overcome them were extracted inductively and discussed with reference to relevant theories and explanatory models.

The complex nature of psychosocial risks, hindering general beliefs, lack of a perceived scope for risk avoidance, lack of assumptions of responsibility among players on all hierarchical levels, discrepancies between formal responsibility and decision authority, and low reflexivity on processes of development and implementation of interventions were described as barriers. Causes and attempts to overcome these barriers were reflected upon by workplace actors.

Recommendations on the organisation of PRA will be given with respect to the reported results and relevant research in this field.

This qualitative study explores the barriers to developing and implementing OSH measures to eliminate psychosocial hazards, from the perspective of actors in charge of PRA, and why they might fail.

Although efforts have been made to specify the concept and the process of psychosocial risk management (PSRM), there is still a lack of knowledge on overcoming initiation and implementation barriers. The purpose of this paper is to explore how PSRM was implemented in different work contexts (under difficult and favourable conditions concerning the extent of management’s commitment and participative practices). Success factors are derived from the different work contexts.

This study compares PSRM approaches across organizations in four European countries. A total of 41 interviews with 60 organizational stakeholders were carried out and supplemented with a corporate documents analysis. Commonalities and differences within and between ten organizational case studies were analysed from which good practice and lessons learnt could be extracted.

The authors found different approaches based on the extent to which organizational capacity (management commitment and participative practices to prevent psychosocial risks) was taken into account. Where capacity was restricted, external support was necessary to initiate and to implement the process. Where capacity was high, integration of PSRM into routine processes and connection with already existing processes was a dominating topic.

Currently, enabling and hindering factors are not systematically prioritized according to the specific context in which PSRM takes place and often they are not differentiated according to the level (e.g. personal, processual, structural and cultural) where they are situated. This study identifies PSRM versions at those different levels which can help in tailoring specific measures to the workplace conditions.

The purpose of this study is to identify new psychosocial risk factors in the assessment of job demands and job resources in hospitality employment and to initiate the development of a psychosocial hospitality risk indicator (PHRI). The argument is underpinned by the findings from an exploratory study of health and safety representatives (HSE) in the hospitality sector.

Using focus-group interviews with 15 HSE representatives from 13 hospitality companies in lodging, housekeeping, and food and beverage segments, this research explored perceived psychosocial risks in different hospitality jobs through the lens of the JD-R (job demands-job resources) model.

This study suggests that factors such as conditioned flexibility, technological requirements, multicultural workforce interactions, lack of support from customers and lack of emotion ventilation represent new risk factors in the psychosocial work environment if not properly managed. A list of items to assess these new psychosocial risks is provided, and a model of different knowledge sources for the further development of the PHRI is suggested.

This is the first paper to identify new psychosocial risks in hospitality employment through the lens of a health and safety work perspective. A key theoretical contribution of this research is the extension of the JD-R model with new variables representing service-specific job demands and resources and the development of items for future risk assessment in hospitality jobs.

The study objectives were to (1) identify if providing solution-focused interaction training enables managers and employees to develop and implement actions to improve their psychosocial work environment and (2) test a recontextualization of the psychosocial work environment as social structures affecting members of the workplace and verify if social interactions effectively change the local psychosocial work environment.

The intervention involved training managers, supervisors and employees in solution-focused interaction. This study used a controlled interrupted time-series design, with an intervention and control group (CG) and pre- and post-measurements.

The psychosocial work environment improved, indicating that the training led to better social interactions, contributing to changes in the social structures within the intervention group (IG). Collective reflection between participants in the take action phase was the key to success. The recontextualization uncovered these mechanisms.

The present study supports a recontextualization of the psychosocial work environment as primarily decided by social structures that emerge in recurrent interactions within work teams. The same social structures also seem to be important for other features of the production system, like job performance.

Training designed to enable high-quality social interactions, like dialogue and collective reflection, has proven to be effective in changing social structures. Moreover, managers may need training in facilitating the collective reflection between participants. Increased focus on social interactions within work teams is suggested for future study of organizational change processes, psychosocial work environment and practical psychosocial work environment management.

The intervention was delivered in the preparation phase to enable an effective take action phase. Both phases are less studied in psychosocial risk assessments research. The recontextualization has never been fully used in psychosocial research.

The current pandemic and ongoing climate risks highlight the limited capacity of various systems, including health and social ones, to respond to population-scale and long-term threats. Practices to reduce the impacts on the health and well-being of populations must evolve from a reactive mode to preventive, proactive and concerted actions beginning at individual and community levels. Experiences and lessons learned from the pandemic will help to better prevent and reduce the psychosocial impacts of floods, or other hydroclimatic risks, in a climate change context.

The present paper first describes the complexity and the challenges associated with climate change and systemic risks. It also presents some systemic frameworks of mental health determinants, and provides an overview of the different types of psychosocial impacts of disasters. Through various Quebec case studies and using lessons learned from past and recent flood-related events, recommendations are made on how to better integrate individual and community factors in disaster response.

Results highlight the fact that people who have been affected by the events are significantly more likely to have mental health problems than those not exposed to flooding. They further demonstrate the adverse and long-term effects of floods on psychological health, notably stemming from indirect stressors at the community and institutional levels. Different strategies are proposed from individual-centered to systemic approaches, in putting forward the advantages from intersectoral and multirisk researches and interventions.

The establishment of an intersectoral flood network, namely the InterSectoral Flood Network of Québec (RIISQ), is presented as an interesting avenue to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and a systemic view of flood risks. Intersectoral work is proving to be a major issue in the management of systemic risks, and should concern communities, health and mental health professionals, and the various levels of governance. As climate change is called upon to lead to more and more systemic risks, close collaboration between all the areas concerned with the management of the factors of vulnerability and exposure of populations will be necessary to respond effectively to damages and impacts (direct and indirect) linked to new meteorological and compound hazards. This means as well to better integrate the communication managers into the risk management team.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the relation of psychosocial risks to information security (IS). Although psychosocial risks at the workplace have been extensively researched from a managerial point of view, their effect on IS has not been formally studied to the extent required by the gravity of the topic.

Based on existing research on psychosocial risks, their potential effects on IS are examined.

It is shown that as psychosocial risks affect people at the workplace, they diminish their ability to defend IS.

Psychosocial risks are identified as a factor in IS breakdown. Future research should be directed towards assessing the significance of the effects of various psychosocial risks on IS, creating an assessment methodology for the resulting IS posture of the organisation and devising mitigation methodologies.

The proposed approach will provide a significant part of the answer to the question of why IS fails when all prescribed measures and controls are in place and active. More effective controls for psychosocial risks at the workplace can be created as the incentive of upholding IS will be added to the equation of their mitigation.

The organisational environment in which human beings are called upon to function in a secure manner will be redefined, along with what constitutes a “reasonable request” from human operators in the context of IS.

Bringing together psychosocial risks and IS in research will provide a better understanding of the shortcomings of human nature with respect to IS. Organisations and employees will benefit from the resulting psychosocial risk mitigation.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) on job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion among employees and to examine the mediating role of effort–reward imbalance (ERI) in this relationship.

This study investigated a mediation model with ERI explaining the relationship between PSC and the outcome variables using a sample of 441 employees of information technology (IT) organizations in India. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques with LISREL (linear structural relations) 8.72 software.

The results suggest that PSC significantly influences the employees' experiences of job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Also, ERI was demonstrated as a significant intervening construct with full mediation of the PSC–emotional exhaustion relationship and partial mediation of the PSC–job satisfaction relationship.

The study provides substantial results and arguments to encourage organizational-level commitment for psychosocial risk management through distributive fairness and reciprocity in the form of ERI to foster positive attitudes and prevent negative health and psychological outcomes. The cross-sectional nature of the study limits generalizability but contributes to the literature on work stress in a developing country's context.

The study demonstrates how employee outcomes like job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion often result from their perceptions of inequity and imbalance at the workplace. Further, the study builds a strong case for helping organizations contribute to the United Nations (UN) 2030 sustainability goals by empirically establishing the crucial role of top management's commitment and prioritization of employee psychosocial health and safety for designing primary stress-management initiatives for sustainable psychosocial risk prevention and management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether occupational health and safety (OHS) management used to manage musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the aged care sector reflects contemporary research evidence of best practice to reduce the incidence of these disorders.

In total, 58 interviews were conducted with managers and supervisors in the aged care sector across four organisations in Australia. Policies and procedures relating to MSDs were reviewed for each organisation.

Policies and procedures for managing MSDs do not reflect contemporary evidence, which supports a complex aetiology, related to a range of physical and psychosocial workplace factors. Despite strong evidence that psychosocial factors contribute to MSD development, these were not included in the policies and procedures reviewed. Findings from the interviews management practices including leadership and various components of HRM were functioning well but fragmentation was evident due to the challenging nature of the aged care sector.

To address the significant burden of MSDs in the aged care sector, policies and procedures need to include coverage of psychosocial and physical workplace factors. The development of systematic and integrated OHS management at the workplace level may play an important role in the effective management of MSDs.

This study offers insights into the previously unexplored area of MSD risk management and the role of management practices such as HRM in the aged care sector.

There is a paucity of contemporary evidence on the organisational (as opposed to operational) psychosocial hazard (OPH) exposures of UK police officers. The purpose of this study is to report on OPH exposures measured via an instrument developed by the UK government – the management standards indicator tool – among police officers sampled from an entire UK force. The study seeks to provide reference values for UK police officers' OPH exposures, to consider these in relation to government exposure targets, and to examine the association between officers' OPH exposures and perceived work‐related stress.

Police officers (n=1,729) completed the management standards indicator tool which measures perceived exposure to seven psychosocial work environment dimensions: demands, control, managerial support, peer support, relationships, role, and change. In addition, a single‐item measure of perceived work‐related stress was applied.

Sector‐specific reference values were generated by job role and rank on each of the seven dimensions assessed by the indicator tool. Scores on all seven dimensions were below government target levels (indicating that scores fell below the 80th percentile in relation to benchmark data). In total, 46 per cent of police officers reported their work to be very or extremely stressful. A significant positive correlation (p <0.01) was found between scores on each of the seven psychosocial work characteristics and perceived work‐related stress.

This study is the first to report on the assessment of UK police officers' OPH exposure using the management standards indicator tool. It provides reference values that UK forces will find useful for benchmarking and intervention‐targeting purposes, and against which progress in reducing OPH exposures can be assessed.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive review on the implementation and the effect of Japan's Stress Check Program, a national program to monitor and control workplace psychosocial factors that was initiated in December 2015.

We comprehensively reviewed articles published in Japanese and English, assessed the performance of the Stress Check Program and summarized future challenges. We also discussed the implications for practice.

The available literature presented a scientific basis for the efficiency and validity of predictions using the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire, which is the instrument recommended to screen workers with high stress in the program. No study has verified the effect of the program on workers' mental health by using group analysis of stress check results. There is room for improvement in tools that contribute to identifying workers with high stress and in measures for improving the work environment. The Stress Check Program contrasts with risk management of psychosocial factors at work, widely adopted in European countries as a strategy for improving workers' mental health by focussing on the psychosocial work environment.

Although the effectiveness of the Japanese program needs further evaluation, future developments of the program would provide insight for national policies on psychosocial risks/psychosocial stress at work.

This paper is the first systematic review on the implementation and effects of Japan's Stress Check Program.