European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks, 2009

EU-OSHA’s European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER) is an extensive survey looking at how safety and health risks are managed in European workplaces.

The first ESENER, carried out in 2009, involved nearly 36,000 interviews with managers and OSH representatives. All EU Member States were covered, as were Turkey, Norway and Switzerland — 31 countries in all. The interviewees worked in private and public sector organisations with 10 or more employees.

Representatives of thousands of businesses and organisations across Europe respond to ESENER questionnaires, which focus particularly on:

•General OSH risks and how they are managed

•Psychosocial risks such as stress, bullying and harassment

•Drivers of and barriers to action in OSH management

•Worker participation in OSH

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 workplaces.

ESENER provides much-needed data to policy-makers and researchers at national and European level. There is no other EU-level information source on how OSH is managed in businesses. ESENER plays a key role in helping EU-OSHA to provide cross-nationally comparable information that can contribute to OSH policy-making.