Work-attributed stress

drs. Leo de Jong, work & organisation psychologist Expertise center of the Dutch labour inspectorate

ArbeidsinspectieMinisterie van Sociale zaken en Werkgelegenheid

Program

• Law and what is work-attributed stress• Operationalization of work-attributed stress• Interviewmethod (2001)• Questionaire (2006)• Inspection-project junior medical specialist• Future

• The employer must establish a policy to prevent and reduce stressors that causes stress.

• Stressors: aggression & violence, bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination and workload

• Workload: quantitative and qualitative aspects of the workplace (very broad definition)

• Stress: tension, depressed, mental fatigue and exhaustion

Dutch law

work-attributed

stresssymptoms of stress stressors

Work-attributed stress

Interviewmethod (Signaleringsmethode werkdruk)

•Instrument only to indentify if psychosocial risk is a major problem in the object of inspection (a group or a team)

•Inspection time 2 hours: 1,5 hour for 3 interviews and 0,5 hours for introduction and law enforcement

•Law enforcement, if there is a problem, company have to investigate wider and deeper the risk and make a plan

From 2001: ≈800 companies and involved 2400 employees

Instrument is reliable and valid, but only if the inspector is trained Inspectors follow a one day training to learn the interview-skills

Topic-chart for the interview

Work content ContactsMajor events

Quantityworktasks

Heaviness worktasks

Work pace

Irregularworking times

Breaksor leave

Overtime

Questionnaire (Vragenlijst werkdruk)

•Instrument for wider en deeper investigation of the risk on different organisational levels and also for sector level

•Total time for an inspection 2 hours (backoffice 1 h. and 1 h. inspection)

•Survey can be don with a webapplication (that is the best way)

•Very fast reporting, because report is automatically generated with the statistical analysis

•The method can also be used to measure the effectiveness of the intervention on workplace-level, simpel by a second measurement

From 2006: 200 teams (135 companies) were inspected and involved 2800 employees

Instrument is very reliable and valid

Symptoms of stress

Stressors

Example inspection-project ‘Junior medical specialist’

• Questionaire (Vragenlijst werkdruk)1. 24 stress-symptoms 2. 14 stressors

• Also 21 questions about health complaints

• And 2 questions about absence by illness days

• 30 hospitals and 1142 employees in the project

•Law enforcement, if the risk was too great and there was not an adequate policy, the hospital had to make a plan to reduce the exposure by tackling the detected stressors with specific measures

•And offcourse, we made agreements on sector level

Research and inspection model

Stress-symtoms and stressors

Frequency scorestress-symptoms

Effectsize stressorsR-square = 0,75

Health-complaints and stressors

Score health complaints Effectsize stressorR-square = 0,28

illness-day and stressors

Absence days by illness Logits stressorsR-square = 0,06 (normal

statistical model)

Future

1. Perfecting the model: not only job-demands but also measuring control of the employee on the working place.

2. More inspections, not only important to solve the risk, but it gives opportunities to investigate what measures are the best.

3. So, investigate the effects of the interventions. We can learn a lot!

4. With a webapplication we can partly inspect on distant shore, that gives new opportunities for the inspectorate and also for inspectors.

5. Management of change have to and can be further developed.

Thanks for your attention

Questions?