COVID–19 as a Source of Psychosocial Hazard Related to Work

The article deals with occupational health and safety in the context of the emergence of a new threat of COVID-19 disease. It focuses on occupational stress and organizational problems experienced by employees in the context of economic problems of companies and administrative restrictions caused by pandemic crisis situation. The research question of the article is: How do the employees adapt to the initial phase of coronavirus crisis situation in their working environment? The theoretical part of the article contains the comparative analysis of the psychosocial hazards and proposal of their classification with the reference to COVID-19 syndrome. The research part analyzes the current results of survey studies dedicated to the perception of pandemic by employees in Poland. In the conclusion the author advocates for including new psychosocial work hazards which appear in connection to COVID-19 outbreak into already existing official lists of work-related psychosocial risks. It is especially recommended in case of evaluation of occupational health and safety in flexible work and remote work models.