The Swedish Work Environment Act clearly states that
employers are obliged to prevent psychological health problems just
like they are obliged to prevent accidents and physical illness. Yet
while the Swedish Work Environment Authority provides plenty of
detailed rules for how to prevent physical injuries, there has so far
not been any similar binding rules covering risks to psychological
health. For years, attempts to adopt such rules have failed in the face
of opposition from employers’ organisations — until now.
In October the Swedish Work Environment Authority
finally presented regulations for the organisational and social work
environment. There is no doubt these are needed. In Sweden different
psychological diagnoses make up the second most common cause of long
term sick leave, after musculoskeletal disorders. The lack of proper
regulations has also made it difficult to use the sanctions which are
provided in the Work Environment Act to compel employers to take
responsibility for their employees’ psychological wellbeing.
Managers found guilty of causing suicide
Last year Sweden was rocked by the judgement in the
so-called Krokom case, where two senior managers were found guilty by
the District Court for having caused a social worker’s depression and
resulting suicide. Despite the fact that they knew his mental health
was deteriorating because he felt bullied by a manager, they took no
active measures within the actual workplace. Instead they initiated
dismissal proceedings, which pushed him over the edge.
However, the Court of Appeal found the senior
managers not guilty . Yet even that court said they had been negligent
and had failed to do what they ought to have done according to the Work
Environment Act. The court specifically highlighted just how badly they
had carried out the investigation into whether the social worker had
indeed been bullied by his manager. Yet they had not been sufficiently
negligent to be convicted, the Court of Appeal ruled. One reason was
exactly the lack of clear regulations for how an investigation into
alleged bullying should be carried out. As a result it was necessary to
tolerate a greater degree of misjudgements and
mistakes.
Substandard investigation harmful
As a response to the appeal court’s ruling, the
Swedish Work Environment Authority’s new regulations say a substandard
investigation of psychological harassment, i.e. bullying, can be
damaging both from a work environment and a health point of view.
Therefore anyone carrying out such an investigation must have the
necessary skills, be impartial and have the trust of the parties
concerned.
The regulations also address workload issues and the
organisation of working time. Employers should adapt resources in
relation to how much employees have to work and how difficult their
tasks are. To avoid unhealthy workloads the employer could for instance
reduce the amount of work, alter the priority of different tasks, offer
opportunities for recovery, make use of alternative work methods or
increase staffing. Allowing a government agency to interfere in
staffing and workload like this is one of the things employers’
organisations have found hard to swallow.
The same goes for rules on the organisation of
working time. The Working Hours Act does indeed limit the number of
hours people are allowed to work, and sets out how much and how often
an employee must be allowed to rest, but it does not say anything about
how working time should be organised within that framework. Thus,
employers have traditionally had great authority in this
matter.
Unhealthy working hours
The new regulations clarify the employers’
obligations to do what is necessary to prevent employees from becoming
ill as a result of how working time is organised. The regulations list
shift work, night work, split working periods, a lot of overtime and
long work shifts as examples of possibly unhealthy working time
patterns, but also far-reaching possibilities to work when and
where you want, combined with expectations of being constantly
contactable.
Compared to regulations covering physical health
risks, the regulations covering the organisational and social work
environment are still fairly general in the way they are formulated.
But they will provide support for the Swedish Work Environment
Authority’s inspectors, and they could also increase employers’
awareness of the fact that they must carry out systematic work
environment assessments also when it comes to psychosocial health
risks.
