Safety and health in the workplace
Valmeri questionnaire
Valmeri is an occupational safety and health indicator for measuring employees’ perceptions of their working conditions. The survey is designed for workplaces with at least 10 workers. Usually only a few employees are chosen at random for the survey, but all members of staff can also be surveyed if necessary.
Question categories
Employees are asked to answer 18 questions relating to
- the physical work environment (5 questions)
- strain on the musculoskeletal system (4 questions)
- psychosocial workload (9 questions).
The answers are given on a scale of totally agree – totally disagree.
Use of Valmeri in the context of inspections
Employees are usually asked to complete a Valmeri questionnaire ahead of an occupational safety and health inspection so that the inspector can analyse their answers when they visit the workplace. Individual employees’ answers are not shared with the employer. The survey is anonymous, and the answers are confidential.
The answers help the inspector to focus on any issues identified by employees. The inspector can also give the employer written advice or improvement notices in order to rectify the issues on the basis of their own observations of the employees’ working conditions and the employees’ answers.
The employer is given feedback on the survey if at least seven employees have answered the questionnaire. The feedback is appended to the inspection report. It gives an overall index for the workplace (average of employees’ answers), sub-indices based on the three question categories and usually also question-specific indices. The report also shows indices of other similar workplaces in the same sector of the economy. The reference indices include all workplaces in the sector that have completed a Valmeri survey and are designed to give employers information about working conditions in other similar workplaces.
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