ESENER: a snapshot of OSH management in Europe

EU-OSHA’s European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER) is an extensive survey looking at how safety and health risks are managed in European workplaces. The interactive survey dashboard allows you to visualise and share ESENER data and helps you to explore the responses to a selection of questions of ESENER in detail, by country, sector type and establishment size.

EU-OSHA’s ESENER survey helps us to understand how European workplaces deal with health and safety, and what they do to promote the well-being of their employees. The results have become a hugely valuable resource for policy-makers at national and European levels.

This survey shows, among others, data on the risk factors present in the company, such as the positions that can cause pain, including sitting for a long time, which receives the highest score, where Spain is in the lead with 79%, compared to 56% of the European Union. The next factor with the highest score is the one referred to repetitive hand or arm movements, with 52%  in the European Union (EU) and Finland leading the way with 68%.

Regarding the psychosocial risk factors present in the company, the time pressure stands out, where Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland increase the score up to 74%, compared with 43% of European media; This factor is followed by long working hours or an irregular schedule, where the European average is positioned at 23%, with Denmark, Iceland and Norway leading with 40 and 39%.

Another figure we can find is the use of psychologists as a means of occupational risk prevention, where Finland and Sweden increase up to 62 and 60% respectively, compared to 4% in Cyprus, Estonia and Hungary, with an average of 17% in the EU. However, this EU average increases by 68% in terms of the use of medical specialists in occupational medicine.

Another aspect is the frequency with which specific health and safety controversies are raised, where the aaverage times, this topic is raised “frequently” in the EU is 4% , 26% “sometimes”, and the remaining 70% confirm that it is raised “almost never”; it is in the Netherlands, where the figure stands out with 10% “frequently”, and Albania with 52% “sometimes.”

Finally, the main reason to address health and safety in the company is to comply with legal requirements, with 86% of means in the EU. On the contrary, the main difficulty in addressing health and safety is the complexity of legal requirements, with 40% of means in the EU.

Thesefigures and many more are collected in the ESENER survey, with different drop-down graphs to facilitate  their reading.

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