Employers have a duty to know the psychosocial workload factors present in their employees’ work environment and to take action if they are posing a risk to their employees’ health. Employers must also continuously monitor the health of their employees and intervene if an individual employee’s workload is jeopardising their health.

Employers’ duty to identify harmful workloads before they becomes an issue

The management have a duty to continuously monitor employees’ health and the safety of the work community’s practices. The aim is to identify harmful workloads before they become an issue. Early intervention makes it easier to find solutions to the problem. Examples of good ways to monitor employees’ workloads include performance reviews, human resources surveys and ensuring safety on a practical level each day.

Employers are responsible for training their managers to identify work-related strain at an early stage. In practice, this means teaching managers to spot the warning signs of work-related strain, which include, among others,

• an increase in health-related issues and sickness absences
• longer and longer working days
• a drop in an employee’s performance or the quality of their work
• changes in an employee’s behaviour
• withdrawal from social interactions
• an increase in conflicts within the work community, and
• an increase in safety-related incidents.

It is recommended that employers introduce an early-intervention model and instruct their managers to look out for certain warning signs and react to them in accordance with a set procedure.

Addressing work-related strain

Issues relating to work-related strain can be spotted by a manager independently or brought to their attention by individual employees. Managers can also be notified of employees whose workloads are damaging their health by occupational health care professionals or occupational safety and health representatives.

The issue should first be addressed privately between the affected employee and their line manager. If the employer has an early-intervention policy or other procedures in place for dealing with work-related strain, those should be followed. If expert advice is needed to determine whether an employee is suffering from work-related strain, the most natural source of advice is the employer’s occupational health care provider.

If an employee’s workload is found to be straining them to a point where their health is at risk, it is the employer’s responsibility to

1. find out the causes of the employee’s work-related strain
2. consult occupational health care professionals, if necessary, to analyse the reasons for the issue (e.g. if it is unclear whether the employee’s strain is due to their work or factors outside of work), and
3. take any steps available to reduce the employee’s workload.

Dealing with prolonged sickness absences

If an employee remains unfit for work for a long time, it is the employer’s duty to consult with their occupational health care provider. The aim is to get the employee the support that they need as soon as possible and to make their sick leave as short as possible.

Employers must notify their occupational health care provider of all sickness absences that continue for more than 30 days. Occupational health care professionals will then begin to look into ways to get the employee in question back to work and to give them access to the support that they need in cooperation with the employee and the employer.

It is the employer’s responsibility to ascertain whether special forms of support are needed in the workplace to enable the employee to return to work or continue working. These can include, for example, different work arrangements or working hours or changes to the employee’s job description.

Sickness allowance is only paid to employees who can produce a medical report drawn up by an occupational health physician by the time they have received a sickness allowance from the Social Insurance Institution of Finland for a period of 90 working days during a two-year period. It is the occupational health physician’s responsibility to evaluate the employee’s remaining work ability and their possibilities of returning to work.

More information is available on the Social Insurance Institution of Finland’s website under long-term disability (in Finnish).