ILO action in the field of workplace stress |
| [ Stress at workplace ] |
The ILO has also commissioned a series of manuals on the prevention of work-related stress in various sectors and occupations:
It has also prepared an Introduction to the preparation of manuals on occupational stress.
The publication of the Digest on work-related stress in 1992, with its emphasis on the prevention of stress, established the ILO as an important authority in the field of stress prevention and management. SafeWork’s leading expert on stress and violence at work at the time, Vittorio Di Martino, has since been in demand in an advisory capacity at the national level and with the European Union, as well as to speak at conferences and meetings. [Currently David Gold, Senior Adviser, Psychsocial Factors covers the subject at SafeWork.]
The latest initiative, within the context of the SafeWork Programme, is the development of a SafeWork Training Package on health and safety in small enterprises, initially targeted at drugs, alcohol, violence, stress, smoking and HIV/AIDS, which are among the major threats to modern societies and are a great cause of concern to the ILO’s tripartite constituents. The package, which is under development, proposes a high road approach whereby investments in workers’ health, safety and well-being are not seen as just costs, but become an integral part of the economic sustainability and organizational development of enterprises, with particular reference to small- and medium-sized enterprises, where health promotion measures and programmes are much less common than in larger companies.
The package will be based on the expertise acquired by the ILO in each of the above areas, as well as its experience in developing participative prevention programmes in such fields as the prevention of drug and alcohol abuse. It is proposed that it will consist of an action manual with a module for each risk area, supported by a trainers’ manual. The package is being developed in close cooperation with the ILO’s International Training Centre in Turin. It will the be submitted to donors with a view to its becoming a permanent programme at the Turin Centre and its implementation through field projects.
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