To ensure occupational health and safety, all companies are subject to the same requirements, regardless of the number of employees or the level of risk. This means that both organizations where employees work from home on computers and those engaged in heavy physical labor must complete the same type of risk analysis.

"It's unrealistic to expect that by producing millions of documents, we can prevent situations where someone in an office pokes their eye with a sheet of paper, injures themselves with office scissors or accidentally traps their finger in a drawer because they closed it a bit too quickly – unfortunately, that's not how it works," said Ille Nakurt-Murumaa, president of the Estonian Small Business Association (EVEA) and head of Tondihobu OÜ.

Nakurt-Murumaa, who also works as a lawyer and occupational environment consultant, added that uniform regulations only produce bureaucracy. Many other business leaders, who declined to speak on camera, share this view. However, Kaire Saarep, director general of the Labor Inspectorate, disagrees.

"When we look at office environments, yes, there are physically fewer risks, but nonetheless, according to Health Insurance Fund data, burnout has increased fivefold over the past five years. This is money that the state and the employer themselves have to pay," Saarep said.

Every organization with at least one employee on a work contract must conduct a workplace risk assessment. Nakurt-Murumaa is the only employee in her company, but this does not exempt her from the mandatory stickers indicating who is responsible for workplace safety and who provides first aid.

"In other words, I should put a sticker on the wall with my name and phone number so that if I need help, I know to call myself," she remarked.

In contrast, large organizations, including the industrial company ABB, have a very different experience.

"We have more than a hundred risk assessments in our company, and each one takes a lot of time. It also depends on our safety culture, as we need to understand what work is actually being done and how it's being done. This leads to better risk assessments. We spend a lot of time on this, but I would also say that the results are much better," said Kaspar Kreek, ABB's head of occupational safety.

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