Regulating workplace risks: A comparative study of inspection regimes in times of change

Regulating Workplace Risks is a study of regulatory inspection of occupational health and safety (OHS) and its management in five countries – Australia, Canada (Québec), France, Sweden and the UK – during a time of major change. It examines the implications of the shift from specification to process based regulation, in which attention has been increasingly directed to the means of managing OHS more systematically at a time in which a major restructuring of work has occurred in response to the globalised economy. These changes provide both the context and material for a wider discussion of the nature of regulation and regulatory inspection and their role in protecting the health, safety and well-being of workers in advanced market economies

An organizational- level occupational health intervention: Employee perceptions of exposure to changes, and psychosocial outcomes

This study aimed to investigate the association between employees' perceptions of their exposure to an organizational-level occupational health intervention and its psychosocial outcomes. Participants were employees of an insurance firm (N = 1084) in Quebec, Canada. The intervention was designed to reduce adverse psychosocial work factors (high psychological demands, low decision latitude, low social support and low rewards). Departmental managers were responsible for implementing changes to reduce exposure to these factors. Employees' perceptions of exposure to the intervention and its impact on their work were measured in 2007 through questionnaires. Psychological demands, decision latitude, social support and rewards measured in 2005 and 2007 were used to assess outcomes. Employees who perceived that they had been exposed to the intervention changes showed more improvement in outcomes than those who did not perceive changes. The greatest differences in outcomes were found in those participants who perceived that workplace changes had improved their work situation as compared to those who perceived the changes as neutral or negative. The results suggest that measurement of employee-perceived impact of each intervention change on their work situation may be even more important than actual exposure, and should be included in the measurement of exposure to organization-level interventions