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Return to work and prevention of occupational risks: Examples from Europe

with focus on small businesses

Hans-Juergen Bischoff, ISSA-Section Machine and System Safety

Occupational risks are insured by social security legislation in European countries. The kind of insuredevents and extent/range of benefits may be quite different however, also the number of responsibleinsurers, depending on the kind of event.

Prevention, rehabilitation, compensation in one hand: This structure will normally create the mostinterest by the responsible body to invest particularly in prevention. This is the best chance to focuson selected (1) target groups, normally with high risks: branches/sectors with a high accident rate orhigh health risks (for example construction, agriculture, nurses) or (2) groups of workers (young andinexperienced).

Losses resulting from occupational accidents and occupational diseases amount to about 4% of grossnational product. In a world with a growing need for qualified workers also the potential loss,temporarily or permanently, of such people needs to be tackled, for social and economic reasons.

Some approaches to improve return to work-processes and successful prevention of occupationalrisks shall be presented. New ISSA-guidelines return to work and workplace health promotion arebased on the experiences of ISSA-members. The German approach how to control the rehabilitationprocess shall be mentioned.

The ISSA-Special Commission on Prevention with its 13 international Sections has decided to plan andput to work a working program specifically for small enterprises. This was mainly due to worldwidesimilar facts: the high number of SE (about 90% of all enterprises), their limited resources and thedifficulties to reach this high number of small enterprises.

A first international project was started regarding young and inexperienced workers because theyhave accident rates at least 2x higher than average. As it became quite clear how difficult it is toreach the groups involved: young workers/teachers of vocational training schools/OHS-consultants itwas decided to create a website www.safety-work.org and distribute information for the targetgroups involved in different languages. Good examples to be presented in this website range fromposter and multimedia products to programs for vocational training on OHS. The website alsoincludes a self-assessment for small businesses, based on the keys to success (presented at theUSE2009 conference).

In the past two years small business became has become a more important target group for severalinstitutions. Some examples and specific approaches will be given:

(1) Partnerships of insurers, branch associations, vocational training schools: synergy (France),European project for hairdressers (Germany)

(2) Help small enterprises to do the necessary risk assessment, according to EU-legislation(France)

(3) Assistance to managers of SMEs: example from the hospitality sector. Modules of standardtopics to consider in running a business, also integrate those modules into an online-seminar,due to the lack of time of managers to go to seminars at specific times (Germany, Italy).Transferable to other branches.

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(4) Prevention in bakeries, mostly micro enterprises: return on investment for preventionmeasures. Results of applied programs in over 1.000 bakeries (Germany).

(5) Financial incentives for prevention measures which go above legal requirements. Examplesfrom France, Italy, Russia.A different but promising approach is to make small businesses conscious of the costs ofaccidents, insured and non-insured. Cost-calculator models from Canada, France andSwitzerland.