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Featuring both achievements and challenges, 2015 was another eventful year for the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). The Annual report 2015 outlines the highlights of the year, which were characterised by anticipating and adapting to change in the world of work, and tackling the risks and challenges emerging from these changes. The year also saw the close of EU-OSHA’s Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress campaign.

Director of EU-OSHA, Christa Sedlatschek, highlighted how change was an underlying theme of 2015: ‘More and more, work is being relocated outside traditional workplaces, workplaces are becoming increasingly competitive, and technologies are developing rapidly. And demographic change is seeing Europe’s workforce ageing. It is therefore important that we are adaptable to these changes and work together to achieve the best outcomes possible. In this vein, in 2015, EU-OSHA published expert review articles on three new and emerging risks and their impact on occupational safety and health (OSH): crowdsourcing,performance-enhancing drugs and robotics.’

The year was an important time for one of EU-OSHA’s flagship projects, the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER). Theresults of ESENER-2 show that the most widespread risks in European workplaces are psychosocial risks (e.g. 58 % of workplaces in the EU report that difficult customers are a risk factor) and those related to musculoskeletal disorders (e.g. 56 % report tiring or painful working positions). ESENER-2 also highlights the importance of risk assessment in tackling risks. These results can now easily be explored using EU-OSHA’s new interactive online survey dashboard.

In September, the main findings of EU-OSHA’s important pilot project on older workers, ‘Safer and healthier work at any age’, were presented to policy-makers, OSH professionals and social partner representatives in Brussels. During this conference, discussion sessions focused on ageing, OSH and gender, and rehabilitation and return-to-work systems.

The results of the evaluation of EU-OSHA’s Online interactive Risk Assessment (OiRA) project  showed that stakeholders are very satisfied with how the project is developing. By the end of 2015, the total number of OiRA tools was 86, with another 30 under development. And a new user interface, OiRA 2.0, aiming to improve user experience, was also launched. Ending the year on a high, the OiRA project was awarded a Best Practice Certificate by the European Public Sector Award scheme in November.

The Healthy Workplaces Summit, marking the end of the Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress  campaign, was held in Bilbao in November, dedicated to the memory of Dr Eusebio Rial González (1966-2014). Over 300 OSH professionals, policy-advisers and decision-makers, among others, attended.

EU-OSHA’s Key Performance Indicators give an overview of the organisation’s performance in 2015 in relation to its targets. The indicators reveal that 92 % of stakeholders claim to have used information produced by EU-OSHA, with 48 % using it for information exchange, 39 % for policy-making or implementing measures at the enterprise level, 38 % for further dissemination and 37 % for further research. The results of the evaluation of the 2012-13 Healthy Workplaces Campaign ‘Working together for risk prevention’ and the OiRA survey analysis also acknowledge the Agency's good performance.

Finally, 2015 also saw the launch of EU-OSHA’s new corporate and revampedNapo  websites. With a fresh look and feel, both sites are more easily navigable and can be used on mobile devices.

Links:

Read the Annual report 2015 to find out more about EU-OSHA’s main activities of 2015 (only English)

See the Annual report summary 2015 for a synopsis of the year (all languages)

Explore the ESENER-2 findings using the interactive survey dashboard

Take a look at EU-OSHA’s Key Performance Indicators 2015

Notes to editor: 

1. The European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER) reports on employers’ needs for support and expertise, and identifies the factors that can encourage or hinder risk prevention. The survey collected responses from almost 50,000 enterprises and covered both public and private sector enterprises in more than 30 countries.
2. The Online interactive Risk Assessment (OiRA) tool provides micro and small enterprises with information and resources to allow them to assess their risks themselves. It is available free online and is easy to use, offering a step-by-step approach to the risk assessment process. The OiRA platform is used by sectoral social partners (employers’ and employees’ organisations) and national authorities (Ministries, Labour Inspectorates, OSH institutes, etc.) to produce sector-specific risk assessment tools targeting small businesses.
3. The 2-year Healthy Workplaces Campaigns are carried out in over 30 European countries and are recognised as the largest occupational safety and health campaigns of their kind in the world. Their core message is that successful management of workplace safety and health is good for workers, business and society as a whole.
4. 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 1994 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.
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