Understand to act
Preventing psychosocial risks: examine work and act together.
Psychosocial risks concern workplace situations involving stress, internal violence or external violence. Prevention examines factors related to work, its organisation and professional relationships, then puts collective actions in place with ongoing follow-up.
Updated
Which risks are involved?
INRS distinguishes stress, violence within an organisation and violence from outside it. These risks can combine. Understanding them is not about labelling people as fragile: it requires examining situations and the conditions in which work takes place.
Workload and pace, emotional demands, autonomy, social relationships, conflicts of values and insecurity at work are groups of factors to examine. No isolated sign is enough to establish a diagnosis.
Where can an organisation start?
A useful approach starts from concrete situations and involves employees, their representatives and prevention professionals. It provides ways to act and follow up, rather than merely collecting accounts of difficulties.
Define the scope and the people involved.
Collectively examine workplace situations and available resources.
Choose actions on the factors identified: priorities, workload, cooperation or autonomy, depending on the context.
Follow implementation and assess the effects on work.
What can managers and HR teams do?
A manager can help clarify priorities, identify conflicting demands and escalate difficulties beyond their remit. HR teams can help organise the approach and its follow-up with other relevant people.
Discussion should focus on actual work and opportunities for improvement. It should not ask teams to disclose health information or publicly identify an individual as the cause of a problem.
Where does conversational learning fit?
An awareness resource can provide vocabulary for describing a situation and preparing dialogue. This is the intention behind Care & Fly’s Bernadette project. Training alone cannot replace risk assessment, collective prevention or necessary organisational change.
The cited resources describe general knowledge and recommendations. They do not demonstrate the effectiveness of a Care & Fly product or provide individual care.
Your questions
Frequently asked questions
Are psychosocial risks only about stress?
No. INRS also includes internal and external violence. Prevention must consider work-related factors that may contribute to or combine these risks.
Is training enough to prevent psychosocial risks?
No. It can support understanding, but must sit within an approach that examines workplace situations, decides collective actions and follows their effects.
Must we wait for a serious difficulty before acting?
Prevention can start with ordinary working conditions. Its scope and priorities are defined with the relevant people in the organisation.