Handlungsstrategien von Unternehmen und Beschäftigten in Zeiten von Corona: Das Arbeitsschutzsystem unter Druck?

The heterogeneous changes in working conditions induced by the pandemic situation not only require employees to develop new skills for self-organization of their health protection and a new willingness to participate in the creation of healthy and safe working conditions, but also pose new challenges for occupational safety and health stakeholders. These challenges come up against existing problems in the occupational health and safety system, especially in dealing with work outside the workplace and with psychological stress, which have both become more important in the course of the pandemic. At the same time, the risk of Covid-19 infection in the pandemic presented urgent problems that required new strategies and solutions tobe dealt with quickly. Experts assume that the current situation has triggered long-term changes in the world of work and that there will be no simple return to the situation before the pandemic. Against this background, the article pursues the question how healthy and safe working conditions can be created and maintained in the intertwined context of occupational health and safety, company (compliance) and employees (acceptance). A methodological triangulation, combining the results of an explorative survey (n = 40) with different occupational health and safety stakeholders and an online survey with works councils (n = 1600), is used in order to gain new insights for the design of post-pandemic occupational health and safety.