1772 Promoting a positive psychosocial work environment: individual, organisational and societal benefits

Abstract

The psychosocial work environment underpins every organization9s operations and concerns psychological and social dimensions of the work environment relevant to aspects of work organization, design and management, and interpersonal relationships. Despite often viewing the psychosocial work environment as something new, the way we organise our work and how we work with others are issues that are as old as work itself. What has brought about an increased focus on the psychosocial work environment is the accumulating evidence on the negative outcomes of poor management in terms of potential harm to employee health, safety and well-being, poor organizational performance with associated negative societal impacts. Efforts have been made over the past decades to promote a positive psychosocial work environment and mental health and well-being in the workplace. These include interventions both at the policy and at the organizational level. This presentation will consider the action framework so far implemented to address the psychosocial work environment across the world. It will discuss differences across countries and highlight priorities to be addressed. It will showcase successes and good practice examples. Taking the overall state of the art in this area into consideration it will identify necessary actions both in relation to policy and practice for necessary progress to be achieved. These will specifically consider evolution in knowledge, technology, and society that has brought about inevitable changes in our working practices and experiences. It is important to develop systems that allow us to forecast and document these changes and enable us to implement appropriate actions to respond and adapt appropriately to these changes, learning from past experiences. It will also be highlighted that it is important to promote comprehensive approaches that address not only potential negative impacts but also positive outcomes and synergistic effects across several policy and organizational interventions.