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The European steel industry’s workforce is highly heterogeneous and consists of various occupational groups, presumably facing different psychosocial stressors. The few existing studies on the subject mainly focused on physical constraints of blue-collar workers, whereas the supposable psychosocial workload received only little research attention. This is remarkable considering the challenges associated with statutory required risk assessment of psychosocial hazards. Valid measures of hazard analysis must account for various stressors and reliably identify them, also between occupational groups. The present study, based on a sample of blue- and white-collar workers (N = 124) from the European steel industry, aims to provide a first insight into psychosocial stressors and strain at work in this rarely researched industrial sector. Furthermore, two well-known theoretical roadmaps in job analysis are examined regarding their utility for risk assessment in heterogeneous workforces: the German standard version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) and the short version of the effort–reward imbalance questionnaire. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that the COPSOQ was better suited to predict various strain indices in the present sample. Especially stressors relating to socioemotional aspects, such as work-privacy conflict, revealed a reasonable impact, indicating the need for comprehensive solutions at the organizational level instead of solutions focusing on single workplaces. To conclude, a broadly diversified and validated approach in psychosocial risk assessment is needed to adequately assess the variety of psychosocial factors at work and in different occupational groups.

Although wide-ranging amendments in health and safety regulations at the European and national level oblige employers to conduct psychosocial risk assessment, it is still under debate how psychosocial hazards can be properly evaluated. For psychosocial hazards, an epidemiological, risk-oriented understanding similar to physical hazards is still missing, why most existing approaches for hazard evaluation insufficiently conceive psychosocial risk as a combination of the probability of a hazard and the severity of its consequences (harm), as found in traditional risk matrix approaches (RMA). We aim to contribute to a methodological advancement in psychosocial risk assessment by adapting the RMA from physical onto psychosocial hazards. First, we compare and rate already existing procedures of psychosocial risk evaluation regarding their ability to reliably assess and prioritize risk. Second, we construct a theoretical framework that allows the risk matrix for assessing psychosocial risk. This is done by developing different categories of harm based on psychological theories of healthy work design and classifying hazards through statistical procedures. Taking methodological and theoretical considerations into account, we propose a 3 × 3 risk matrix that scales probability and severity for psychosocial risk assessment. Odds ratios between hazards and harm can be used to statistically assess psychosocial risks. This allows for both risk evaluation and prioritizing to further conduct risk-mitigation. Our contribution advances the RMA as a framework that allows for assessing the relation between psychosocial hazards and harm disregarding which theory of work stress is applied or which tool is used for hazard identification. By this, we also contribute to further possible developments in empirical research regarding how to assess the risk of workplace stress. The risk matrix can help to understand how psychosocial hazards can be evaluated and organizations can use the approach as a guidance to establish a suitable method for psychosocial risk evaluation.