Psychosocial Risks and Workplace Wellbeing: Differences and Connections

When discussing workplace well-being, organisations use many tools and concepts, which can sometimes create confusion. Among them, psychosocial risks and QVCT, France’s quality of working life and working conditions framework, are two approaches that should be distinguished but are closely connected. 

Let us look in detail at what psychosocial risks and quality of working life mean, then explore how they affect one another and why combining these two approaches can benefit organisations.  

Defining Psychosocial Risks and QVCT

Psychosocial risks and QVCT are far from abstract concepts or processes. They have clearly established definitions and translate into practical realities within the working environment. 

According to INRS, France’s national research and safety institute, psychosocial risks are work situations involving: 

• stress, which may arise from workload, pressure to meet targets, management, a lack of resources to complete assigned tasks or a lack of security; 
• violence within the organisation, including physical assault, bullying and conflict; 
• external violence in the context of work, coming from people outside the organisation, such as customers, and taking the form of incivility, insults or assault.

These situations may be isolated or affect several employees, and they may occur independently or in combination. 

QVCT is the updated terminology for QVT, placing greater emphasis on the importance of working conditions for employees’ mental and physical health. According to ANACT, France’s national agency for improving working conditions, a QVCT approach is a collective process designed to make the organisation a place “conducive to people’s health and the organisation’s overall performance”, give employees a voice and the power to act on their work, and build a model that delivers long-term benefits. 

Managing Psychosocial Risks for Better Working Conditions 

Psychosocial risks can have serious consequences for employees’ mental and physical health and, directly or indirectly, for organisational performance. Identifying, addressing and preventing these risks is therefore an effective way to improve quality of working life and working conditions.  

Consider a practical example: an employee is bullied by a manager. They experience stress or even fear, which affects their workplace well-being and mental health. From an ethical and legal perspective, the employer must act to end the situation. Acting is also in the organisation’s interest because the employee is likely to become less productive: they come to work reluctantly, are constantly afraid of making mistakes and stop taking initiative. They may even need to take sick leave because of the impact of the bullying on their mental health. We know that absenteeism is a major challenge for organisations, generating additional costs, requiring recruitment and training, affecting employees who remain at work and damaging the organisation’s image. 

By taking psychosocial risks seriously through prevention and appropriate follow-up measures, an organisation can avoid these difficulties.

This starts with assessing the psychosocial risks specific to the organisation. Which risks have been identified in previous years? If work is going to be reorganised, could new risks emerge? Is there currently a genuine psychosocial risk action plan? Once these questions have been answered and different work situations analysed through observation and discussion with employees, measures can be developed. If some are already in place, their effectiveness and constraints should be reviewed and, where necessary, they should be removed, adapted or replaced.  

There are many possible areas for action depending on the most significant risks: HR management, work organisation, the resources employees have to perform their work, socio-professional relationships, recognition and more. Ultimately, these measures should reduce the risk of stress and violence and protect employees’ health and safety. 

For a complete and effective psychosocial risk approach, it is essential to involve all organisational stakeholders, from leadership and employees to HR, employee representatives, managers and occupational health services. In practice, however, organisations sometimes limit themselves to hiring specialist consultants to conduct an audit and propose an action plan and implementation process. 

QVCT Action Plans for Preventing Psychosocial Risks 

While preventing psychosocial risks improves working conditions and employee health, implementing a QVCT approach can also help address psychosocial risks. This creates a virtuous circle, and QVCT can be said to go beyond psychosocial risk assessment and prevention.  

First, psychosocial risk management takes place within a regulatory context, whereas QVT originates from a voluntary organisational approach. Second, a quality of working life and working conditions approach genuinely involves many organisational stakeholders, including employees, consulted through a QVCT survey or other assessment tools, managers, HR and more. QVCT also focuses on well-being beyond the three main categories of psychosocial risks. Finally, it does not rely solely on existing situations to identify factors and act on them. It is a forward-looking prevention approach aimed at improving workplace well-being as a whole. 

Many actions are possible, some of which overlap with measures introduced through psychosocial risk management. These include training to develop skills, enabling employees to progress more easily or giving them everything they need to carry out their responsibilities effectively. Organisations can also create a working environment more conducive to well-being, with ergonomic workstations, redesigned spaces that encourage communication while providing quieter work areas, welcoming relaxation spaces and more.  

All QVT actions can be complemented by real-time monitoring and active consideration of mental health through regular surveys and a workplace mental health solution such as teale. It is both an individual and collective tool that enables organisations to continually adapt and improve measures designed to protect health at work.