Workplace mental health deserves attention, but the European Parliament’s proposals raise questions

The initiative reflects concerns among some MEPs that, although the EU’s current occupational health and safety framework, particularly Directive 89/391/EEC, sets out general principles of prevention, it lacks sufficiently specific, binding or harmonised provisions on the psychosocial risks related to work. Furthermore, the implementation of the European social partners’ agreements on work-related stress and workplace harassment and violence remains uneven across Member States and sectors, leaving workers with differing levels of protection.

The European Parliament has therefore called on the Commission to propose a dedicated EU directive establishing binding minimum requirements for preventing, identifying and managing work-related psychosocial risks.

The resolution’s extensive recitals cover a wide range of factors affecting mental health in today’s workplaces. Alongside well-known stressors, they specifically refer to “digital brain fog” associated with excessive use of artificial intelligence tools. The resolution describes this condition as involving reduced concentration, impaired decision-making and lower productivity, while contributing to psychosocial stress.

Staff shortages across sectors also feature repeatedly—and with a clear sense of urgency—as a source of stress. Yet technologies that could help ease those shortages in some areas may themselves create additional stress, including greater isolation at work.

A closer reading of the European Parliament’s recommendations raises a reasonable concern: introducing the proposed requirements in their full scope could increase stress for employers and managers. The resolution emphasises, for example, that training for individual employees and workplace well-being programmes cannot replace an employer’s legal duty to prevent work-related psychosocial risks through proper work organisation.

Under the proposed rules, employers would be expected to assess psychosocial risks regularly and whenever significant changes to work organisation occur, including changes prompted by increased absences owing to sickness. Those assessments would need to use scientifically validated methods that allow comparable results. Employers would then be required to adopt an action plan to address, among other things, staff shortages through adequate staffing levels and, wherever possible, to reduce monotonous work.

Employers would also have to draw up individual return-to-work plans for employees returning after a prolonged absence caused by health problems linked to psychosocial risks.

It is therefore unsurprising that the proposal was accompanied by a minority opinion. Its central argument is that MEPs must strike a balance between respectable working conditions and employers’ right to manage and organise their businesses—the means by which they create prosperity. In the minority’s view, the proposal does not achieve that balance.

This EU initiative, which seeks greater harmonisation of the rules on psychosocial risks, stress and mental health at work, is still at an early stage. Nevertheless, the measures envisaged could have far-reaching implications for employers across the EU, in both the private and public sectors. We will thus continue to keep a close eye on any further developments.

‍

‍