Psychosocial risks in companies: what they are and how to combat them

It is common to believe that psychological well-being is something that is addressed exclusively in contexts clinics, such as in health centers or in the psychologist's office, during training sessions psychotherapy.

However, although these areas of intervention are very important for psychologists, their work goes far beyond this kind of very specific situations.

One of the most relevant psychological counseling focuses is found, for example, in companies, the organizational world. And in this context there is no lack of work to be done, precisely: today it is estimated that Around 30% of sick leave is caused by psychosocial risks, such as stress, fear of communicating problems, fatigue, low mood, etc.

In these lines we will see how psychology works to curb psychosocial risks in companies.

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What are psychosocial risks?

In the organizational context, psychosocial risks are those patterns of interaction between the individual and their environment that increase the chances of a deterioration in psychological well-being

of people and in the quality and quantity of their work. Psychological health and performance go hand in hand, and for this reason companies that take measures to prevent psychosocial risks enjoy several advantages, as we will see.

Thus, the very term "psychosocial risks" indicates the nature of this concept: it deals with realities based in the interaction, and they are not found only in the work space or in each of the workers in a way individual.

In other words, psychosocial risks exist in movement and in the interaction between everything that constitutes it (including its workers), the dynamism with which companies fight to reach their goals and adapt to the new challenges posed by the around.

As a psychologist specializing in anxiety and stress problems and in cognitive-behavioral psychology, I have seen that a misunderstood need for dynamism on the part of management leadership of companies can be completely counterproductive, causing the psychosocial risks to the physical and mental health of employees to skyrocket. workers. Being dynamic does not consist in constantly pressing the accelerator, but adapting to new times and the new opportunities means having time to train, rest and work on the problems that oneself has.

• You may be interested in: "Types of stress and their triggers"

Why do these harmful psychosocial phenomena appear?

The psychosocial risks in the mental and physical health of a company's staff can degenerate into problems and disorders relatively varied: sleep disorders, poor management of anger and irritability, psychosomatic disorders, panic attacks, wasting syndrome professional... However, there is a psychological phenomenon to highlight, and that at the same time tends to be present in all the others: stress sustained, excessive

This "pathological" type of stress is what can cause a worker to start his downhill towards significant deterioration of their health. Being highly stressed means feeling insecure when deciding what to do, which causes production delays. It also frequently causes insomnia, with consequent discomfort coupled with difficulty concentrating on a task.

The fear of facing the problems to which the stress has contributed generates another additional problem, the procrastination, or the tendency to constantly put off our responsibilities in order to keep them out of the way our mind.

And as if that were not enough, to all this we must add that when working in interaction with others, one can also experience fear of communicating bad news, guilt over feeling responsible for a drop in overall performance, and even irritability with those who come to assign new tasks.

And all this, we must remember, may be occurring at the same time in many workers of an organization. In the same way that in companies there are many people generating synergies and producing added value thanks to the fact of working in a certain system of coordination between professionals, if this same business operating system has certain problems, it may be favoring the wear and tear on the health of almost everyone its members.

To do?

Having seen above what the scope of psychosocial risks can be, it is not surprising to learn that the companies that prevent and Those who know how to tackle their symptoms in their earliest manifestations are much more competitive and flexible than those who do not. Furthermore, it is estimated that companies that maintain this type of psychological self-care are 55% more creative; certainly in environments where there is constant anxiety and pressure no one wants to risk going off the rails they are on.

Now, what can companies do, specifically, to prevent disorders and ensure the overall well-being of workers?

The first step is allow a “chip change” to take place in the direction of the company, one in which frantic and evaluable production in the very short term ceases to exist as the only objective, model obsolete business and that little by little is becoming extinct in successful organizations that generate great value added. The need to connect empathically with workers and to lead without limiting oneself to others must be put on the table. give orders, to prevent problems from piling up under the rug because of this unidirectionality.

When working with organizations and businesses, I apply the principles of focused cognitive-behavioral psychology. in an ecological model developed by the Albor-Cohs Group, from which three elements are taken into account: the context, the skills and resources available to each person, and the perception that one has of the demands of the environment (in this case, the company). Only starting from this global vision of the problem is it possible to respond to the needs of people and the company in which they work.

In short, it all starts with making a diagnosis of the situation that is not focused solely on the person nor in the organization, but in the group that make up the latter, a unit in motion. More than a photograph of something static, a follow-up of the company as a living entity.