World Mental Health Day: what’s changing in the workplace

Work stress and employees’ consequent poor mental health increased during the beginning of the economic crisis in Greece (around 2009) and peaked in the early 2020s due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with job losses and the introduction of new, unfamiliar types of work, such as remote working. The impact of the pandemic on the mental health of employees in vulnerable groups, such as young employees with no previous work experience, pregnant women or employees with physical disabilities, was particularly severe. 

Occupational stress is not explicitly regulated by Greek law, but only by reference to employers general safety and health obligations. Provisions 1 to 21 of the new labour law 4808/2021incorporate ILO Convention 190 on workplace violence and harassment into Greek law. Although these provisions are focused on dealing with the prohibition of violence and harassment at work, they include a requirement that introducing a programme of preventive action and improvement of working conditions, employers must take into account psychosocial risks, including risks of violence and harassment at work. Occupational Doctors also have a duty to prevent and advise on how to deal with psychosocial risks. 

A  relatively recent court decision which ruled that the death of an employee due to work-related stress was an occupational accident, since the heart attack he suffered was causally linked to his employer’s attitude, failing to protect the employee, despite the knowledge or culpable ignorance of the intense work-related stress the employee was under and despite the obvious effect of work-related stress on his health. The employer failed to take appropriate measures to protect him, infringing its duty of care. 

If an employer does not take appropriate measures to protect employees’ mental health of the employee, it may be subject to civil, criminal and administrative sanctions in some circumstances.

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