Psychische Belastung als Gegenstand des Arbeitsschutzes: Typische Herausforderungen in der betrieblichen Praxis

In Germany, as in many other European countries, employers are legally obliged to consider work-related psychosocial risks in company occupational health and safety (OSH) and, therefore, in workplace risk assessments. However, psychosocial risks are characterised by high complexity, dynamics and interdependencies. The aim of this study was to expand the still scarce empirical knowledge on challenges that occur from that for company OSH-practice. The study is based on qualitative interviews that have been made with persons from 32 enterprises which were responsible for the implementation of psychosocial risk assessment in their company. Referring to the experiences they reported within these interviews, four typical challenges can be distinguished: (1) the development of an appropriate procedure to conduct psychosocial risk assessments within the company, (2) the handling of the particular interests and perspectives of company stakeholders, (3) the effective involvement of the managers responsible for work design and work organisation, (4) the consideration of measures to prevent psychosocial risks which are realised in the company beyond the context of OSH. On the one hand, it was analysed which problems and requirements on psychosocial risk assessment are described by these challenges. Furthermore, it was analysed which solutions are developed to meet these challenges and which difficulties may be experienced. As the results show, the consideration of work-related psychosocial risks induces fundamental changes of the organisation and the rationality of company OSH.