New EU members helped for healthy workplace

An European Agency For Safety And Health At Work product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 3, 2007

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and Euro Info Centres join forces to promote safer, healthier and more productive workplaces.

The Healthy Workplace Initiative will help thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the 12 newer EU Member States, Croatia and Turkey to learn more about how to implement an effective health and safety policy.

A safe working environment is good business.

It is not only essential for the well-being of employees, but also for ensuring that enterprises are successful and sustainable, and that economies thrive in the long term.

That is why the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and its national Focal Points (FOPs) network, working in close partnership with the network of Euro Info Centres (EICs), will launch the second edition of the Healthy Workplace Initiative (HWI) campaign on 26th April in Nicosia, on the eve of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2007 - Safe and healthy workplaces.

Making decent work a reality.

The campaign will target SMEs with a direct and strong main communication message: Health and Safety is everyone's concern.

It's good for you and good for business! This message will be relayed via targeted literature dissemination (including a Guide to risk assessment in business) organised by FOPs and EICs.

These 'Risk assessment essentials' enable employers and employees to analyse and assess their work environment according to their specific sector or hazard needs, and provide advice and support for change and improvement of that work environment.

A national, regional and local press campaign localised in each country will also draw attention to the initiative and link directly to the Agency multilingual HWI website.

The campaign will last until November 2007, and a series of 40 HWI seminars will be organised by the European Agency Focal Points and promoted by the EIC network in the 14 countries.

Each of the HWI seminars will aim at gathering SME managers and employees, and allowing them not only to hear presentations by national health and safety organisations on the latest legislative issues, but also to listen to some of their peers who have successfully implemented better health and safety in their organisations, and made their businesses stronger, healthier and more productive.

Presentations will also be made by Euro Info Centres to show how they can inform, advise, and assist SMEs on Community issues.

Heinz Zourek, Director General, DG Enterprise and Industry comments: "The involvement of the Euro Info Centre Network in the Healthy Workplace Initiative contributes to establish their role in the promotion of a healthier and safer workplace in SMEs".

"Moreover, good and efficient working relationships have been established between EICs and Agency's focal points".

"We strongly believe that Croatia, Turkey as well as the old Member States will benefit from this experience".

"A close collaboration between EICs and focal points is essential if we want to better address SMEs needs in the field of occupational safety and health".

Commenting on the first round of the campaign, Jukka Takala, the Agency's Director, says: "The first evaluation of the campaign results have shown that there is real interest amongst Europe's SMEs to improve levels of safety and health in their businesses, and a real need for simple tools for them to start assessing risks in the workplace".

"The success of the campaign has also shown that by pooling the resources and expertise of the Euro Info Centres and the Agency's focal point network, we can make real headway in addressing their practical needs".

"And we're looking forward to working even more closely with the Euro Info Centres in 2007 in taking forward the Healthy Workplace Initiative campaign in the EU 12, Turkey and Croatia, and in promoting a major European campaign to tackle the growing problem of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in the EU 27.".