Workplace Stress: a collective challenge

HARARE (ILO News): Psychosocial risks such as increased competition, higher expectations on performance and longer working hours are contributing to the workplace becoming an ever more stressful environment. With the pace of work dictated by instant communications and high levels of global competition, the lines separating work from life are becoming more and more difficult to identify. In addition, due to high levels of uncertainty in the labour market and the current economic challenges, workers have to contend with increasingly precarious work, the fear of retrenchments, unemployment and decreased financial stability. This often has serious consequences to workers mental health and well-being.

A 2016, ILO publication titled, “Workplace Stress: a collective challenge” notes that work-related stress occurs when the demands of the job do not match or exceed the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker, or when the knowledge or abilities of an individual worker or group to cope are not matched with the expectations of the culture of an enterprise. Stress can manifest itself in numerous ways - from feeling ill in the morning to much more serious health-related impairments, such as cardiovascular disease, burnout, depression and anxiety and suicide. Workers can also adopt unhealthy coping behaviours such as alcohol and drug abuse, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and sleeping disorders.

Economic growth in Zimbabwe has slowed down sharply since 2012, as the economy’s vulnerability to climate change and terms of trade shocks resurfaced. A drop in the manufacturing sector has resulted in a drop in activity and at least 4 610 companies closed down, resulting in a loss of 55 443 jobs (2015 Budget Statement). On top of this, 94 per cent of workers are employed in the informal sector. This has had an impact on the Occupational Safety and Health performance. According to NSSA statistics, in 2015, 54 workers lost their lives at the work place and 5380 workers were injured. The incidences of occupational injuries and fatalities have remained high, even in the face of lower capacity utilization and rising levels of informality (the statistics largely represent incidences in the formal sector). Our knowledge of work place stress in Zimbabwe remains very limited.

Looking ahead the ILO recommends:

Policy framework: Government, Employers and Workers organizations continue with their efforts to strengthen provisions on OSH, in line with International Labour Standards (ILS). This would include the promotion for ratification of Convention 187 Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention and Convention 184 Convention concerning Safety and Health in Agriculture. In addition, this is key to strengthening the collection and analysis of OSH data and information.

Labour Inspection: Despite the gains recorded in recent times, coverage of labour administration services remains inadequate, with limited training and capacity and lack of resources. A pressing challenge is how to extend labour inspections to the informal economy, where 9 out of 10 of Zimbabwean workers can be found, this calls for innovative and low cost strategies for extending coverage.

A national occupational safety and health culture is one in which the right to a safe and healthy working environment is respected at all levels, with governments, employers and workers actively participating in securing this environment. This can be through a system of well-defined rights, responsibilities and duties, and where the highest priority is accorded to the principle of prevention.

Preventing and controlling the causes of work-related stress: it could be beneficial to implement collective risk assessments and management measures for psychosocial risks to inform collective and individual preventive and control measures. This could be complemented by improving the coping ability of workers by increasing their control over their tasks, building up social support systems for workers and taking into account, the interrelation between working and living conditions.