EU-OSHA’s European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER) is an extensive survey that looks at how European workplaces manage safety and health risks in practice. Thousands of businesses and organisations across Europe are asked to respond to a questionnaire that focuses on:
- general safety and health risks in the workplace and how they are managed;
- psychosocial risks, such as stress, bullying and harassment;
- drivers of and barriers to OSH management;
- worker participation in safety and health practices.
The results from these interviews are complemented by secondary analyses involving a series of in-depth studies that focus on specific topics. Quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are applied in these studies to help better understand the main findings from the survey.
The second edition of EU-OSHA’s Europe-wide survey of enterprises, ESENER-2, collected responses from almost 50,000 enterprises on OSH management and workplace risks, with a particular focus on psychosocial risks, worker participation, and drivers and barriers to action. The aim is to provide nationally comparable data to help in policy-making and assist workplaces to deal with risks more effectively. The fieldwork for this second wave was carried out in the summer-autumn of 2014. The survey provides an invaluable up-to-date snapshot of how workplace risks, and especially new and emerging risks, are being managed across Europe.
The focus on new and emerging risks means that the responses shed light on underexplored and increasingly important areas of OSH, such as psychosocial risks, which are a growing area of concern in European work¬places.
The 2014 survey is even more detailed and extensive than the first one, with the sample sizes increased by half, and in three countries the national samples have been additionally boosted. ESENER-2 includes micro enterprises of 5 to 10 employees and agricultural businesses for the first time. Five new countries Albania, Iceland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia have been added to the 31 that were included in 2009.
Some of the topics covered are:
- musculoskeletal disorders;
- the organisation of OSH management;
- approaches to worker participation in OSH.