Today, 17th January, UNI Europa – the European trade union federation for the services sector – and its social partner, ETNO, the Association representing Europe’s leading providers of digital networks and services, held a high-level workshop on mental health in the new world of work.
As part of the EU funded project ‘Ensuring the mental wellbeing of ICT employees in the new world of work – revising the Good Work, Good Health Guidelines’ (VS/2017/0366), the social partners are investigating the impact of digitalisation and how it creates new challenges for the health and safety of ICT employees.
Featuring leading experts from the trade union, business and academic spheres, the workshop discussed the emergence of psychosocial hazards, which are the result of new technologies, new forms of work and work organisation, and the appropriate solutions to them.
Oliver Roethig, Regional Secretary of UNI Europa, stated: “With the effects of new workplace health and safety hazards such as borderless work, constant connectivity and availability, techno-stress and burn-out, it is essential that social partners come together not only to address health and safety issues and the new challenges linked to digitalisation, but also to find radical solutions to ensure a happy and healthy workplace for all”.
Lise Fuhr, Director General of ETNO, stated: “The ETNO Members are committed to the revised guidelines. Now that we have a good framework in place, it is up to the telco sector and its partners to implement them. ETNO will continue its work and dialogue with UNI Europa and the trade unions”.
As a follow up to Good Work, Good Health I, the second edition of this project on mental health aims to find concrete answers to these challenges by providing a revised ‘Good Work, Good Health Guidelines’ booklet with new best practice examples from ICT companies across Europe.
The new Good Work, Good Health II Guidelines were launched at the workshop and are available in 10 languages to facilitate implementation.
