Improving the Process of Managing Psychosocial Risks in Organizations

Abstract

Introduction Psychosocial risks (PSRs) are identified as one of the main modern occupational safety issues, primarily related to occupational stress, and need to be reduced to safe levels in accordance with international requirements. The research purpose is to improve the process of managing the PSRs in the occupational safety and health management systems of employees, taking into account the impact of psychosocial dangers in accordance with the requirements of ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 45003:2021 standards. Methods To develop the process of managing the PSRs, a system analysis method is applied, which allows determining the structural relationships between the variable elements of dangerous psychosocial factors described in the ISO 45003:2021 standard. Results The bow-tie model has been improved to determine the relationship between psychosocial dangers and the dangerous event occurrence – experiencing stress by an employee, taking into account the influence of various dangerous psychosocial factors, which provides for an additional risk level assessment for restoring the health of an employee who has experienced stress. The process of psychosocial risk management consisting of ten steps is proposed, which involves identifying the relationship between psychosocial dangers and consequences for human health, taking into account the impact of various dangerous psychosocial factors based on questionnaires, followed by analysis and processing of the duration and intensity of experiencing stress. To reduce the impact of subjective assessments of the duration and intensity of experiencing stress on the psychosocial risk level, it is proposed to take into account the value of individual perception of experiencing stress (stress resistance) and the employees’ health condition. Discussion The scientific novelty is to determine the psychosocial risk level as the sum of the risk values from the impact of each dangerous psychosocial factor, which are characteristic of aspects of work organization, social conditions at work, working environment, equipment, dangerous tasks and the level of employee health. The practical value is the development of scales for assessing the impact of dangerous psychosocial factors and a form for documenting the process of managing psychosocial risks with the indication of precautionary measures to control them.