Workplaces with a Psychological Health and Safety Culture:
What is Psychosocial Risk Management System?
Working life contains many organizational, social and environmental challenges. To solve these challenges, it is necessary to implement psychosocial risk management systems. Psychosocial risk management systems guide organizations to promote psychological health, safety and well-being in the workplace.
Psychosocial Risk Management is the systematic advancement of planning, activities, controls and measures to ensure psychological health and safety in workplaces.
Holistic Approach
Holistic Perspective is the coexistence of different fields of science and practice. In a psychosocial risk management system, all relevant experts in the organization have active support to the process.
The psychosocial risk management system can achieve ideal goals by supporting the participation of all managers, experts and employees. In addition, Human Resources, Occupational Health and Safety Professionals, Specialist Psychologists in the field of Work and Organization and corporate managers have important roles and responsibilities during the integration of the system into the institution. Psychosocial risk management systems are customized for each institution based on the support and comments of these experts and managers, and targets suitable for the institution are determined.
Let's Get to Know the IYRS© Model
In a psychosocial risk management system, it is important to include risk assessment, planning for risk management, and implementation recommendations to be included in the planning. The application proposals to be created include trainings, consultancy services, and supervision processes. In addition, quantitative and qualitative measurement tools are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the practices and to be need-oriented during planning.
The plans created and the operations carried out after the measurement and evaluation are shaped to increase employee and corporate awareness, and at the end of each stage, the progress towards reaching the targets is reviewed. If necessary, different improvement and support activities are included in the system and action plans.
The Innovative Support Model for Mental Health in Work Life basically consists of five main titles:
- Risk assessment
- Risk Management Planning
- Activities to Support the Employee's Power of Doing Business
- Practices To Create Awareness Culture
- Improvement, Control and Other Support Activities
1. Risk Assessment
Psychosocial risk management systems require considering an organization both in its own context and in the external contexts in which the organization is involved. These two contexts are called internal and external factors of the institution.
The external factors of the institution are interpreted by considering the relations of the organization with other institutions, suppliers, partners and customers.
The internal factors of the organization are understood when the statistics about the organization's own work structure, culture and employee health are evaluated.
Quantitative Evaluation
Two main assessments and evaluations are applied to evaluate both internal and external factors of an organization. Institutional pre-assessment forms and employee psychosocial risk assessment scales are applied to reach quantitative data in assessment and evaluation activities.
Qualitative Evaluation
In addition to quantitative assessments, qualitative assessment interviews are conducted with focus groups or some employees within the organization, and both general and individual factors are examined in the organization's risk assessment. All collected assessment data are analyzed and reported, and information is gained on the topics that risk management planning will focus on.
2. Risk Management Planning
Evaluation of psychoso-social risks within an organization provides a transition to a new step in deciding in which direction the preventive and supportive activities to be carried out should proceed.
Risk Management planning continues when all responsible areas (Human Resources, OHS professionals, senior management and psychologists who are experts in the field of work and organization) come together and determine the resources and needs in the factors that have the potential to threaten the psychological health and safety determined within the organization.
Practices, support and consultancy services, preventive studies and technical training on relevant psychosocial risk factors are included in the planning.
Action plan
The purpose of risk management planning; The other steps in the IYRS model will focus on the strategies that will enable the achievement of the system targets set in order to support the ability of the employee to do work, to raise awareness to the organization and the employee, to carry out improvement, support and control activities.
When the Risk Management phase is concluded, comprehensive action plans emerge that are agreed upon by managers and relevant professionals in the organization. It is critical for the action plans to include time-oriented, realistic activities with measurable results within the determined targets, for the implementation and successful conclusion of the planned actions.
3. Supporting Doing Business
Some psychosocial risks are more likely to be avoided if employees and managers receive group or individual support services.
Worker
Examples of these psychosocial risks are difficulties in interpersonal relationships, conflicts, and difficulties created by social factors at work specific to employees or a particular group of employees. Risk assessments mirror which of the social factors at work pose a risk to employees in the organization.
Employee support programs include consultations developed for the benefit of all employees or designated employee groups in the organization.
Executive
These programs also include support activities for managers. Because the psychosocial risks that can be seen in the main responsibles and managers of the psychosocial risk management system may cause the entire organization to be exposed to these risks.
Support programs for employees and managers are customized according to identified risk areas and included in joint action plans. These programs are implemented at the times included in the planning and their results are reported to be checked and necessary improvements are made.
4. Raising Awareness Culture
If an institution's awareness of psychological health and safety is embedded in the organizational culture, the functioning of the psychosocial risk management system will proceed much more fluently and functionally.
Awareness Culture
For this reason, the Psychosocial Risk Management System aims to ensure that the experts, managers and employees in the organization have knowledge and awareness about psychological health, psychological safety, psychosocial risk factors and well-being at every stage.
Employee support programs include consultations developed for the benefit of all employees or designated employee groups in the organization.
Incentive Activities
Each stage of the system brings with it an opportunity to gain a culture of awareness. In addition, the awareness raising process spreads more rapidly throughout the organization when brochures to be distributed to employees, posters to be hung, and incentive activities to support employee participation in the system are also included and implemented in action plans.
5. Improvement and Support
The psychosocial risk management system includes group-oriented technical training and capacity building activities so that the organization can progress continuously within itself. These trainings are necessary for both relevant experts and employees to operate and improve the system more autonomously.
Workshops, Seminars and Trainings
The general structure of psychosocial risks, the elements that should be included in the organizational culture, basic orientations for the functioning of the system, stress management, psychological first aid and workshops, seminars and trainings on psychosocial risk areas that are common in the organization can be included in the joint action plans for the improvement and continuous support of the system.
Continuous improvement
The extent to which the determined common goals have been achieved is examined by the experts and managers in the organization, and it is decided which improvement and support activities will be carried out. These five stages, which form an interconnected structure, constitute the continuous structure of the psychosocial risk management system and it is not possible to distinguish them from each other precisely.