As the world of work evolves, factors like job design, management practices, and workplace culture have a direct impact on workers’ health, dignity, and well-being. With over 840,000 deaths linked annually to psychosocial risks, the call is clear: governments, employers, and workers must act together to create safer, healthier, and more just workplaces for all.

Across the world, work shapes people’s lives in profound ways.
It can provide purpose, security and opportunity.

But the way work is designed, organized and managed also affects something fundamental:  workers’ safety, health and dignity.

Today, the world of work is changing rapidly. Digital technologies, new forms of employment, demographic change and climate pressures are transforming the way we work.

In this context, the psychosocial working environment has never been more important.

For workers in every sector, psychosocial factors at work can make the difference between a job that supports well-being and one that undermines it.

The consequences are significant.

Psychosocial risk factors at work are linked to more than 840,000 deaths each year worldwide, associated with cardiovascular diseases and mental disorders.

They place heavy costs on societies and economies.

Safe and healthy working environments are a fundamental principle and right at work.

But they do not happen by chance.

When work is designed with reasonable demands, adequate support, opportunities for participation and respect for dignity, it benefits everyone.

Workers are healthier and more motivated.

Enterprises become stronger and more sustainable.

Preventing psychosocial risks requires commitment and cooperation.

Governments must put in place effective policies, legal frameworks and occupational safety and health systems that support prevention.

Employers shape the daily reality of work through leadership and responsible management practices.

And workers and their representatives bring essential knowledge about how work is experienced.

On this World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the ILO calls on governments, employers and workers everywhere to strengthen their efforts to prevent psychosocial risks through social dialogue, to ensure that the design, organization and management of work creates the conditions for healthier workers, successful enterprises and societies that are closer to social justice.

This is at the heart of the ILO’s vision of decent work.