Psychosocial Risk Management in Business and Global Development Goals: Reducing Inequalities

One of the great dilemmas of our time is that while there is general agreement that rising inequalities threaten social, economic and human development, there is little consensus on what actions should be taken to remedy this situation. Inequality is not an accident of history, but the product of a series of ideologically embedded, but ultimately political choices about the way our economies and societies create and allocate resources and opportunities.

Developing countries can have weak equality policies and practices that can be a major obstacle to their integration into regional and global markets, limiting the opportunities offered by trade and hampering their ability to improve public welfare in vital areas such as health, safety and environmental protection. 

Low wage standards and income inequalities as a result of socioeconomic factors are common problems faced by the workforce. However, even in high-wage firms, there can be significant inequalities, such as lower premiums for women or other disadvantaged groups, lower standards and benefits, and inadequate access to health and safety systems. These differences between firms also risk increasing polarization between those who implement policies that could prevent inequality and those who do not.

Access to Health and Safety Services

There is clear and consistent evidence on the links between employment, quality work and health. The regular income, social status and psychosocial well-being that employment brings can break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, improve health and reduce health inequalities. Youth unemployment in Europe has been increasing in recent years. A key challenge for policy makers is that they need to work to support this group and prevent what can have detrimental effects on young people's health and ensure equal access to health and safety services for all.

However, for the current workforce, the ILO recommends treating workplace stress as an occupational risk and reducing it through risk assessment and implementation of management measures, adoption of collective and individual preventive and control measures, increasing workers' coping skills, improving organizational communication, and increasing worker participation in decision-making processes. These standard processes to be implemented by organizations for psychological health and safety have begun to be included both in policies to reduce inequalities and in the values and ethics of organizations. When small and large businesses set health and safety goals and establish targets that include psychological health, they play a role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by improving the well-being of working populations in nations. It is important for developing countries' national standards to elaborate vital policies such as health and safety to cover all communities and health areas, and to standardize access to health systems in the workplace so that workers have equal access to health care.

When psychosocial risk management is addressed in organizational systems as an important element of health and safety and detailed OSH definitions are included in policies, inclusive steps are taken to reduce inequalities in access to health and safety services. Some countries such as the UK, Australia and Canada have been successful in developing these policies and have developed national Psychological Health and Safety standards.

References

Reduced inequalities. ISO. (2022, July 4). Retrieved July 4, 2022, from https://www.iso.org/sdg/SDG10.html

Health Evidence Network Synthesis Report 52 - news. (n.d.). Retrieved July 4, 2022, from https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/345798/HEN52.pdf

A blueprint for equality. etui. (n.d.). Retrieved July 4, 2022, fromhttps://www.etui.org/events/blueprint-equality