Psychological hazards

Psychological hazards are aspects of the work environment and the way that work
is organized that are associated with mental disorders and/or physical injury or
illness.
The psychological arise from the workers failure to adapt to an alien psychosocial
environment. Frustration Lake of job satisfaction, insecurity, poor human
relationships, emotional tension are some of the psychological factors which may
undermine both physical and mental health of the workers. The capacity to adopt
to different working environment is influenced by many factors such as education,
cultural, background, family social habits.
And what the worker expects from employment the health effects can be classified
in two main categories: -
 Psychological and behavioral changes: including hostility aggressiveness,
anxiety, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, sickness absenteeism
 Psychosomatic ill-health: including fatigue, headache, and pain in the
shoulders, neck and back, propensity to peptic ulcer hypertension, heart
disease and rapid aging.

Reports from various parts of the word indicate that physical factors (heat, noise,
poor, lighting) also play a major role in add to or precipitating mental disease
among workers. The increase stress on automation, electronic operations and
nuclear energy may introduce never psychosocial health problem in industry.

How can these hazards affect workers' psychological health?

If not managed effectively, psychosocial hazards can impact on workers'

psychological and physical health and wellbeing. They can also adversely affect:

 job satisfaction
 organizational commitment
 conflict in the worker's family life.
Work environment poses a unique combination of risks to psychological
health including:

* a potential for a high level of emotional demands

* expectations that workers provide consistently high levels of customer
service
* high levels of work monitoring through systems and by supervisors
* perceptions of low organizational, supervisor, and/or peer support.
How to assess the risks

Risks to contact center workers psychological health can be identified and assessed
through:

 anonymous surveys (such as People at Work)

 effective consultative practices
 effective communication processes
 review of injury reports
 review of absence data.

Decreasing and Preventing Psychological Hazards

Possibilities to advance the well-being of employees and prevent occupational

stress depend on the specific institution, organization of work, employees’
expectations and characteristics, existing resources and much more, but the rule of
thumb for shaping a positive psychosocial working environment is to involve
employees in decisions about them, open information exchange, optimal workload
and zero tolerance of occupational violence (including any signs of bullying and
harassment).

When planning activities to improve the psychosocial working environment, it

must be remembered that it is always more efficient and cheaper to prevent the
problem on the organization level through good management and work
organization. Where risks cannot be fully avoided, it might help to apply measures
directed for supporting the risk groups, or to rehabilitate employees who have
already suffered due to work pressure