2024-04-30 19:33:59
WILLIAM LLORENS* | The growth in the importance of psychosocial risks in recent years leads us to appreciate the need for a new paradigm for occupational healthwhere the true meaning is to work and care for people from all the areas that really affect us.
Have the well-being of the workers As a goal, it means taking care of physical health, but also emotional well-being and the working environment, essential for having conscious and healthy work organizations.
The quality of the jobs
Incorporating, both inside and outside the working day, good personal habits (such as adequate nutrition or proper planning of tasks) is the key to promoting people’s health at work. Therefore, in the sector of prevention of occupational hazards Acknowledgments and assessments of physical health are carried out through individualized support or adaptations to jobs where necessary.
The quality of the jobs has a direct impact on safety and employee comfort. By this we refer to the characteristics of the physical environment: air quality, technological development, characteristics of the equipment or tools used. This creates a two-way relationship, since by taking care of the environment we will take care of the health of the workers. Just like taking care of ourselves, we need to take care of our physical environment, as we are exposed daily.
The third part of a comprehensive vision of occupational health is going through collective health of the workforce, at all levels. This point includes, for example, assessment of the impact of working conditions on the state of health, analysis of relationships between people, handling of conflicts and possible harassment situations. As well as factors related to global emotional well-being or practices and stigmas that affect us.
Purple glasses for occupational health
In this comprehensive vision of health in the workplace, we must also take into account gender perspective. This is still a relatively new approach to health and safety in the workplace, which suggests taking into account gender differences in the workplace when assessing risk and carrying out preventive practices without gender bias, with regard to differences by sex and gender.
One of the aspects that has been recognized for years is that if women and men have different occupations and are subject to different working conditions, their exposure to occupational hazards and risks will also be different. However, some authors go further and suggest that women and men, even with the same occupation and exposure to hazards, continue to have accidents and get sick in different ways due to factors not only biological, but also of social origin.
This is why the application of the gender perspective and an awareness of equality in preventive practice is a key exercise in addressing the occupational risk of inequality from the root.
Towards a culture of prevention
In the background of these problems, it is very important to think about the preventive culture at the heart of the units and achieve healthier environments that also contribute sustainability and value to the projects.
From Social and solidarity economy (ESS) We have the ingredients to achieve this goal collectively: experience, knowledge and units that are used to working together. Actually, considering Mental health and emotional well-being as axes for occupational health It is a response that we can understand as organic within the companies and organizations of SSE.
For some years now, these companies have taken into account, both within the working day and also in the private environment of all employees, and tried to prioritize in this way settlement.
Next May 6 and 7 we will be in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and debate about it Ideasbiennial meeting of ESS, which this year has as leitmotif decent work, one of the values of Charter of principles for the solidarity economy.
We hope that these debates will further permeate the good practice of these organizations and thus help to expand this culture of prevention to put mental health and emotional well-being at the center of occupational health.
*Guillem Llorens is a founding partner and president of the SEPRA cooperative, SCC, where he is director of the image and communications department. He is also president in Catalonia of the Confederation of Cooperatives and Social Economy Association.
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