Occupational Safety and Health Panel: 75% estimate that collaboration between the workplace and occupational health care functions well

Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and Centre for Occupational Safety media release, 11 February 2026

The Occupational Safety and Health Panel is an annual questionnaire survey by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and the Centre for Occupational Safety. The most recent survey was carried out in November–December 2025. This time, the theme of the panel was occupational health collaboration at workplaces, and it explored the views of occupational safety officers and occupational safety representatives on the implementation and functionality of occupational health collaboration.

"The role of occupational health care has sparked public debate. There have been questions about how services should be organized and if they meet the challenges of today’s working life. According to the survey, occupational safety and health personnel are mostly satisfied with occupational health collaboration," summarises Senior Specialist Hanna Uusitalo from Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Occupational health collaboration refers to systematic and goal-oriented co-operation between the employer and employees or their representatives and occupational health care to promote work, working conditions, health and work ability.

Collaboration works, but occupational safety and health often has a limited role

The majority of respondents (75%) consider the collaboration between the workplace and occupational health care to work either very or fairly well. Reasons mentioned for the good assessment included regular interaction, the availability of occupational health care and genuine interest in the situation of the workplace. Reasons for the collaboration not working included deficiencies in the flow of information and expertise.

According to the survey, the management and development of occupational health collaboration is usually the responsibility of HR management and senior executives. Occupational safety and health works alongside these, but the management and development of occupational health collaboration is the primary responsibility of occupational safety and health only in a few workplaces.

"Often, occupational safety and health will have an overview of the factors that support or threaten the work ability of the workplace and different teams. Would it be necessary to utilise this expertise more in the management and development of occupational health collaboration?" reflects Maria Teikari, Project and Development Director at the Centre for Occupational Safety.

Most people are satisfied with preventive services

The majority of the respondents’ workplaces (67%) use both statutory preventive occupational health services and voluntary medical care services provided by the employer. Approximately one third (31%) of workplaces only use the statutory services alone.

The majority of respondents feel that occupational health collaboration is implemented quite well when it comes to preventive services. Occupational health care was considered to have a good understanding of the tasks and specific features of the workplace (88%), to support physical ergonomics (78%), and to prevent work-related diseases and accidental injuries (76 %).

Development needs emerged particularly in workload management and the provision on guidance on work-related hazards. About one in four respondents felt that occupational health services did not sufficiently support the workload management, promote understanding of the significance of work-related hazards for health and work ability, or assist in the development of safe workspaces.

Working indicators needed for monitoring effectiveness

The workplaces of nearly all of the respondents have identified the needs (90%) related to occupational health care and set clear goals for it (85%). A total of 63 per cent of workplaces regularly monitor the effectiveness of occupational health care operations.

Sickness absences were the most commonly mentioned monitoring indicator. Other monitoring indicators included statistics on accidents and work disability and well-being surveys.

"The results raise the question of what would be a suitable way to monitor the effectiveness of operations. Do the current methods provide sufficient information on how occupational health services meet the identified need?" Hanna Uusitalo asks.

Occupational Safety and Health Panel

• The data of the Occupational Safety and Health Panel’s questions on the topic of occupational health collaboration can be found in the Work-life Knowledge service: Occupational Safety and Health and Occupational Health Care
• The data for the Occupational Safety and Health Panel’s recurring survey 2019—2025 can be found in the Work-life Knowledge service: Occupational Safety and Health Panel provides current information
• The Occupational Safety and Health Panel is a questionnaire survey targeted to occupational safety and health personnel, carried out annually by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and the Centre for Occupational Safety.
• The survey includes standard questions related to occupational safety and health and annually changing thematic questions. The theme for 2025 was Occupational health collaboration.
• The most recent survey was carried out in November–December 2025. The survey was sent to the occupational safety representatives and officers collected from the Occupational Safety and Health Personnel Register, of whom 721 persons responded.

Further information

• Hanna Uusitalo, Senior Specialist, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, hanna.uusitalo@ttl.fi, +358 (0)43 824 0034
• Maria Teikari, Project and Development Director, Centre for Occupational Safety, maria.teikari@ttk.fi, +358 (0)40 777 6316