ABSTRACT
It is essential to evaluate how mandatory OHS management is implemented, as it is the main strategy for work-health in the EU and many other countries. This was done in a large review of Systematic Work Environment Management (SWEM) in Sweden (transposing EU’s Directive 89/391/EC). It used 267, mainly qualitative, studies to evaluate how SWEM is implemented at its three levels of management control. Medium and large employers nearly always delegated SWEM down to line managers with insufficient competence, time, resources and authority. These could only handle SWEM as a ‘side-car’ to the general management. Nor did top-managers audit and improve SWEM (as is mandated in the provisions). Nevertheless, line-managers’ more systematic SWEM-procedures did resolve more technical risks, but organisational ones (e.g. stress and shift-work) were rarely systematically handled. Small firms and other more dependent employers (e.g. in supply-chains) had mostly only started to implement the 20 years old SWEM-provisions. Several international comparative studies indicate that Sweden’s overall SWEM-results—more focus on documented procedures than on effective prevention—are valid also in other countries, at least within the EU.
