Psychosocial risk assessment: problems and prospects

Health and safety legislation now requires organizations to undertake risk assessments for psychosocial hazards in the workplace. Despite this, there is relatively little guidance on what constitutes a psychosocial risk asses sment and how one should be conducted. The approaches that do exist are not without problems. This paper examines some of the difficulties with curren t approaches and looks at possible areas for development to improve underst anding and performance in this important area of health and safety manageme nt.