Stress, anxiety and depression make up the second most common work-related health problem affecting European workers, but raising mental health aspects and mentioning challenges in the workplace, including bullying and harassment, is still attached to the fear of stigma.

According to the latest European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER), only 13.5 percent of organizations in Estonia had an action plan to prevent work-related stress. So both the private and public sectors in Estonia show significant deficiencies in addressing such hazards. 

Compared to other European countries, Estonia's figure is among the worst.

By comparison, the numbers were 71.3 percent in Finland and 56.6 percent in Sweden.

Additionally, more than half of the managers in Estonian organizations admitted that they do not have sufficient knowledge on how to assess psychosocial risks in their workplace.

What are psychosocial risks in the workplace?

Some examples of working conditions leading to psychosocial risks are:

• Excessive demands (excessive demands or conflicts in the working environment)
• Lack of personal control (having inadequate say over how work is done)
• Inadequate support (having inadequate support from managers or co-workers)
• Poor relationships (being subjected to unacceptable behaviors, including harassment or violence)
• Role conflict or lack of clarity (not understanding roles and responsibilities)
• Poor management of change (not being involved in and informed about organizational changes)

The general rules for designing a good working environment are employee involvement in decisions concerning them, open communication, optimal workload, and zero tolerance for workplace violence (including signs of bullying and harassment).

Moreover, organizations could screen out management staff based on negative characteristics – such as arrogance in leadership – and focus on the ability to support others, not the ability to talk oneself up. For example, asking candidates to describe their experiences of enabling others to succeed reveals degrees of humility and orientation toward others.

Kristel Maran's, human resources manager at ERR, advice for a good leader is: "Enable or create conditions, inspire or lead, recognize and value people. Often it doesn't take much – if the work is meaningful and the goals are clear, employees will be grateful just to have a boss who shows support and is a normal person."

New challenges

It is clear that crises, especially the COVID pandemic, have had a strong impact on our psychosocial work environment. On one hand, more flexibility has been added to work, but on the other hand, there are significant problems with the balance between employees' work and personal life.

According to the European Working Conditions Survey, 41 percent of employees in Estonia have very intense work, and 40 percent have to work in their free time weekly to complete necessary tasks. It is also concerning that more than half of the Estonian workers reported that their job affects the decision on how much time they can spend with their family.

The study also highlights a trend where workers are increasingly exhausted from work to the extent that they cannot manage household duties or hobbies.

TalTech leads the EU research on studying the risk factors

Research into similar and other psychosocial risk-related issues began last fall under the leadership of Professor Karin Reinhold and Assistant Professor Marina Järvis from the department of business administration at the Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), through the project PSYR-IR.

The PSYR-IR project is conducted in collaboration with researchers from Belgium, Austria and Italy. The project will last for two years, and a report on the results will be available in October 2025.

The aim of this project is to understand the challenges and problems associated with psychosocial risks in the workplace and define which policies, actions, and tools could help mitigate such risk.

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