Strong leadership by management and full involvement of workers in the problem-solving process are key ingredients to successful stress management
(PRWEB UK) 5 March 2015
EU-OSHA honored its Official Campaign Partners with a special ceremony which was held as part of a two-day ‘Benchmarking event on Occupational Safety and Health’ on 5-6 March in Brussels. At this occasion, EU-OSHA announced that Siemens was the winner of an award in the area of managing work-related stress and psychosocial risks, part of the Healthy Workplaces Good Practice Awards competition and a new category created especially for Official Campaign Partners.
European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen, who presided over the ceremony, congratulated all the companies and organisations for taking workplace stress seriously by partnering up with EU-OSHA and said: “Previous campaigns by EU-OSHA have highlighted the importance of managers and workers tackling workplace health and safety issues together. Strong leadership by management and full involvement of workers in the problem-solving process are key ingredients to success. I am really impressed by your commitment to eradicating workplace stress. Today, we held a conference here in Brussels on revitalising the European Social Dialogue and strengthening the role of the Social Partners. The ceremony here this evening shows us in very practical terms what can be achieved in Europe’s workplaces and it is a timely reminder to us all of the progress that can be made in health and safety when we all pull together.”
Christa Sedlatschek, Director of EU-OSHA, was delighted to honour participants with their certificates of recognition: “This benchmarking event demonstrates the benefits of the exchange of good practice for European workplaces. It also shows just how important Official Campaign Partners are to the Healthy Workplaces Campaign and the objectives of EU-OSHA. We are pleased to be cooperating with an unprecedented number of over 100 official campaign partners, from multinational corporations such as Heineken, Toyota, and Lego, to European Social Partners such as BUSINESSEUROPE and ETUC and many others. Their commitment is crucial for helping to tackle psychosocial risks and stress in the workplace’.
Siemens won the award for its holistic psychosocial risk and resource management framework, ‘Life in Balance’ initiative. This company-wide programme focuses on five key areas: awareness, leadership involvement, communication, training and the Employee Assistance Program. Applying this initiative has led to a high level of improvements in service, lowered costs and better management reporting at Siemens. Furthermore, absenteeism has decreased by 26 % since the initiative began.
Acciona Energia and Airbus were also commended for their contribution to efficient management of work-related stress and psychosocial risks.
Europe-wide, it is estimated that psychosocial risks and workplace stress cost the European economy billions of euros a year and 50-60 % of all lost working days can be attributed to work-related stress.
Links:
More information on the event
Official Campaign Partners
Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress campaign
Notes to editors
1. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) contributes to making Europe a safer, healthier and more productive place to work. The Agency researches, develops, and distributes reliable, balanced, and impartial safety and health information and organises pan-European awareness raising campaigns. Set up by the European Union in 1996 and based in Bilbao, Spain, the Agency brings together representatives from the European Commission, Member State governments, employers’ and workers’ organisations, as well as leading experts in each of the EU-28 Member States and beyond.
2. EU-OSHA organises benchmarking and exchange of good practice in OSH events with its official campaign partners every second year within the context of the Healthy Workplaces Campaign. The benchmarking project is a key opportunity for EU-OSHA to demonstrate the added value of exchange of good practice and better OSH management for European workplaces. The aim of the event is to allow companies to get together and share their experiences of good OSH practice, particularly regarding lessons learnt from accidents and other incidents, effective training of workers on reporting hazards, the indicators of good OSH performance, leadership training and OSH regulations.
Official Campaign Partners are also organising benchmarking events at their own premises, to which they welcome the other partners for exchange of good practices, as can be seen from last year’s meetings at ETPIS Berlin, Heineken Amsterdam, LEGO Denmark and Toyota Sweden.
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2015 Key dates
- Healthy Workplaces Good Practice Awards Ceremony in Riga: 27 April
- European Week for Safety and Health at Work: 19-23 October
- Healthy Workplaces Summit in Bilbao: 3-4 November
Press enquiries
Birgit Müller – International press +34 944 358 359| news@osha.europa.eu
Marta Urrutia – Spanish press +34 944 358 357| noticias@osha.europa.eu
Brenda O’Brien – Brussels Liaison Office +32 2 401 68 59 | obrien@osha.europa.eu