Interventions and Best Practice Workshop - Helsinki, Finland, 20-21, May 2008

Aim of the Workshop

As part of the project activities, an Interventions and Best Practice Workshop was organised in Helsinki on 20-21, January 2008 by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH). The central goal of the ‘Interventions and Best Practice Workshop’ was to explore the opinions and perspectives of experts in relation to current questions and challenges of best practice interventions in relation to the management of work-related stress, violence and bullying. The workshop was organised to discuss the different levels approaches used to manage and deal with psychosocial issues such as stress, violence and bullying at the workplace. The workshop included presentations on the results of the PRIMA-EF project: Best practice interventions for managing stress, bullying and violence at work, invited presentations by FIOH, ILO and the Manchester Business School, which were followed by focus groups discussions.

Proceedings

Harri Vainio, Director of FIOH, opened the workshop with a brief welcome address and presentation on FIOH.  He highlighted the importance of psychosocial risks. He showed how psychosocial risks are on the increase in Finland and stressed the need for strong actions and solutions. The FIOH strategy ‘At Work – healthy, safe, meaningful work as part of good living’ was also showcased.

Stavroula Leka, PRIME-EF project manager, welcomed and thanked all participants for their attendance and participation. She gave a short summary of the project, and its key objectives, outlined its added value at the EU-level, and how it can be used for the promotion of effective psychosocial risk management.

Over the two days presentations were made by key experts, these set the theme for the focus group discussions:

Findings of PRIMA-EF – Best practice interventions for managing stress, bullying and violence at work were presented by I-WHO and FIOH.

Anna Liisa Elo from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health did a presentation titled: ‘Impact of Psychosocial Interventions: From research to best practice’ highlighting the need to investigate the impact of psychosocial interventions at work.

Helge Hoel from the Manchester Business School did a presentation on key lessons learned from implementing organisational interventions for bullying and customer violence. He outlined the main obstacles for successful interventions for bullying and customer violence and emphasised the need to explore the use of other methods for evaluating interventions.

David Gold from the ILO presented the SOLVE programme of the ILO which aims at the integration of psychosocial issues into a comprehensive organizational policy and development of action based on the policy. He highlighted the key lessons learned from the implementation of the SOLVE Programme and suggested pointers for best practice.

Six focus groups discussions were held over the two days – Four with experts on stress interventions and two with experts on violence and bullying experts. Four themes were explored.

1. How can psychosocial risk management interventions best be tailored to meet the needs of organizations?
- to address the SME context
- to address the gender or other diversity issues

2. How to facilitate participation and social dialogue in risk management interventions and to enhance sustainability?

3. What is the way forward and which are the key priorities for psychosocial risk management interventions in relation to
a. work-related stress and b. workplace violence and bullying?

4. How can the business case for psychosocial risk management best be made (to engage enterprises)?