Requirements for mapping the psychosocial working environment

The short answer

The employer shall map hazards and problems in the working environment, assess the risk, make plans and put measures in place. That includes the psychosocial side – workload, role clarity, support, speaking up and the like. The work shall be done together with the employees and their union representatives, repeated regularly and documented.

Where is the requirement?

The four steps

1. Map

Find out how employees experience the working environment. An anonymous survey is the most common tool, but Arbeidstilsynet recommends several sources, for example safety inspections and appraisal conversations. The mapping should cover what section 4-3 names: demands and expectations, emotional demands, workload and time pressure, support, integrity and dignity, contact with others, and protection from harassment.

2. Assess the risk

What do the findings mean? Where is the risk that people get ill, leave or stop speaking up? The regulation asks you to look at the factors one by one, at how they affect each other, and at whether together they amount to a risk – in both the short and the long term.

3. Put measures in place

Choose measures that remove or reduce the risk, and give each measure an owner and a deadline. Arbeidstilsynet writes that collective measures should be considered before individual ones, and mentions among others clear role descriptions and regular meetings with the manager.

4. Follow up

Did the measure work? You only know when you measure again. Many skip this step, and that is why the next mapping often shows the same as the last.

Who should take part?

Mapping is the employer's responsibility, but it shall be done together with the employees and their representatives. In practice this means the safety representative and the union representatives help plan the mapping, see the result and take part when measures are chosen. If the organisation has a working environment committee – required where at least 30 people are regularly employed, and between 10 and 30 if one of the parties demands it – the work naturally belongs there too.

Many organisations treat a work environment survey as a control measure under chapter 9 of the Working Environment Act, and therefore discuss its purpose, design and implementation with the union representatives before sending it. It is a good principle in any case: people answer a survey more honestly when they know why they are getting it.

Common mistakes

• Measuring without acting. The findings are presented and then nothing happens. Next time the response rate falls.
• Measures without an owner. «We will get better at communicating» is not a measure. «The department head introduces a weekly board meeting from 1 March» is.
• No follow-up. A measure is not done until the next survey shows whether it worked.
• Small groups that can be recognised. Figures for a department of three are not anonymous. Set a lower limit, and keep it.
• No documentation. If you cannot show what you did, in practice it is as if it was not done.

Checklist before you start

1. Decide who takes part: management, the safety representative and the union representatives.
2. Tell employees about the purpose, the anonymity and when the result will come.
3. Choose a tool that covers the factors in section 4-3 and has a fixed anonymity limit.
4. Set aside time to go through the result within two weeks of the survey closing.
5. Choose two or three measures with an owner and a deadline.
6. Plan the next survey before you close this one.

What the documentation should contain

The regulation says the mapping and risk assessment shall be documented, but not in what form. Good documentation answers what an inspector or a new safety representative will ask:

• When the mapping was done, and who helped plan it
• How it was done: method, who was asked, and the response rate
• What came out, factor by factor
• How the risk was assessed, and what was prioritised
• Which measures were chosen, with owner and deadline
• What the follow-up showed – whether the measures worked

Attach what does not come from the survey: minutes from the discussion with the union representatives, safety inspections in the period, and how employees were told about the result.

Orgpuls covers the four steps for the psychosocial working environment and documents them while you work. Read more about the legal requirement and how Orgpuls meets it, or about the new rules from 2026.