Initial findings about new risks in the workplace.

At the beginning of February, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) published the initial results from the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER 2024). Over 41,000 companies in 30 European countries – which included EU member states, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland – were involved and they shared information about how health and safety risks are managed in the workplace.

Key topics included general health and safety risks in the workplace, psychosocial risks, drivers and barriers that arise when managing occupational health and safety as well as employee participation in implementing health and safety measures.

ESENER has been conducted every five years since 2009. The detailed results from ESENER 2024 will be published gradually until 2026.

Risk factors show little change

The ranking of the considered risk factors was led by prolonged sitting (64 per cent, as compared to 61 per cent in 2019) and repetitive arm and hand movements (63 per cent, as compared to 65 per cent in 2019), which are considered to be triggers for musculoskeletal disorders. They were closely followed by psychosocial risks (52 per cent, as compared to 58 per cent in 2019). Employees, especially those in the service sector, are having to deal with difficult customers, patients or pupils and are under greater mental stress.

Only minimal changes were seen when the three leading risk factors from ESENER 2024 were compared against those from the 2014 survey. Whereas prolonged sitting was only included as a risk factor in 2019 due to the digitisation of the working world, ESENER had already collected data about tiring and painful positions, including sitting for long periods (56 per cent), but this data is only comparable to a limited extent. Conversely, psychosocial risks (56 per cent) topped the list of risk factors in 2014.

Digitisation remains an issue

Data has also been collected regarding the impact of digitisation on the health and safety of employees since the ESENER survey in 2019. As was the case five years ago, many companies stated in the current survey that they use a variety of digital technologies in the workplace. Whilst various mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets have already become the norm in companies, only around seven per cent of the companies surveyed work with computers, machines or systems that use artificial intelligence.

Given the widespread use of digital technologies, the dialogue between employers and employees about the possible effects of their use has developed positively. In 2019, only 24 per cent of companies stated that they consulted their employees about the health and safety implications involved when using digital technologies; yet by 2024, this figure had risen to 35 per cent of the companies surveyed.

Slight decline in the involvement in prevention

A different picture emerges when it comes to involving employees in preventing psychosocial risks. In companies that had set priorities for preventing psychosocial risks at least three years before the ESENER 2024 survey, more than half of the companies (55 per cent) stated that their employees were involved in organising these measures. This proportion continued to fall slightly when compared to the 2019 (61 per cent) and 2014 (63 per cent) surveys.