Strategies for psychosocial risk management in manufacturing☆

a r t i c l e i n f o Psychosocial risk is a concern for employers across Europe. Psychosocial risk management, however, is younger than other risk management fields such as safety, hygiene, and ergonomics. Psychosocial risk control prevents accidents and absenteeism. This study examines strategies for psychosocial risk management in manufacturing organizations. The study employs structural equation modeling to analyze results of the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER), a survey that fills an information gap concerning health and safety at work. The analysis yields three latent variables: psychosocial safety management, health and safety activities, and psychosocial performance. The study shows the benefits of adopting psychosocial safety management systems to improve psychosocial risk performance. Psychosocial preventive activities mediate the relationship between psychosocial safety management and psychosocial performance. Effective psychosocial risk management's benefits are so great that policymakers should specifically promote psychosocial risk management. Promoting psychosocial management systems and psychosocial preventive activities is likely to effectively improve overall psychosocial performance in European countries. Psychosocial risk is a concern for employers across Europe. The European Risk Observatory (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2007) cites psychosocial risk as an emerging risk form. According to the European Risk Observatory's forecasts, five factors cause psycho-social risk: (i) employment contract forms and job insecurity, (ii) the aging workforce, (iii) work intensification, (iv) high emotional demands at work, and (v) poor work–life balance. The decision to dedicate the 2014 and 2015 Healthy Work Campaign to managing stress illustrates this issue's importance in Europe. Stress is the second most reported work-related health problem in Europe, and causes more than half of all lost working days in Europe. A campaign leaflet indicates that " managing stress and psychosocial risks can contribute to the delivery and improvement of key business performance indicators, such as meeting quality and delivery goals, becoming a more reliable supplier, lowering operating costs and reducing staff turnover " (Eurofound and EU-OSHA, 2014). As campaign supporting literature asserts, " Psychosocial factors are linked not only to health outcomes but also to performance-related outcomes such as absenteeism , work ability and especially job satisfaction " (Publications Office of the European Union, 2014). As part of human resource management, an innovative strategy in psychosocial risk management may increase organizational social capital by encouraging relationships among employees. Social capital denotes aggregate resources embedded in, available through, and obtained from an …